Reply #9: My husband lost his job at the end of January. He's 59 and had [View All]

[LibDemAlways]

been employed by a major corporation for 20 years as a software engineer. His division of the company closed for good yesterday, and he attended a get-together of his former colleagues at a local restaurant. He was somewhat surprised to learn that every one of the managers - whose incompetence led to the failure of the division - were all offered continued employment in other divisions of the company, while the worker bees were all let go. Needless to say he returned home even more demoralized than when he left. Absolutely sucks.

Proof positive that it doesn't matter how much you know. It's who you know and how connected you are that keeps you on the job.

The "long term" unemployed can't help their situation. Once you've exhausted your contacts, you are at the mercy of company and internet job boards and recruiters. Company and internet job boards are full of jobs that don't exist or old listings from months, or even years, ago. You are more likely to win the lottery than to get a job that way. My husband has been searching for months and has yet to find a recruiter who will work with him to help him get a job. It seems that recruiters work only for companies these days, and they don't return phone calls or e-mails - at least not the ones he's contacted. The only luck he's had at all has been through Craigslist - small start-up companies without recruiting software to screen people out. Nothing has panned out so far, but at least it's gotten him a couple of interviews and is keeping his rapidly sinking morale up.