My first ever round of unemployment was in 2002 and lasted 2 years. I suppose my ignorance worked in my favor. Had I ever imagined when it started that it would have lasted that long I would have freaked. Just unemployment was bad enough, when it came to an end was a particularly nasty blow.

This time around there are more factors.

1. Egads I'm classified as an old white male. Does the 3 strikes rule apply here? Doesn't matter what my age is, I'm old by their standards.

2. Back then 2 years seemed really bad, this time I'm thinking maybe just 2 years? What if it's even longer?

3. Savings were used in round 1, this time savings have already taken a huge tumble. Pulling money out near the bottom seems like a bad idea.

4. I've applied for a simple desk job at SS, but I suspect my technical resume will work against me. My resume actually places limits on my getting a lower paying but steady job.

5. Towards the end of round 1 I was applying for jobs and some of the feedback was, "You've been out of work too long."

6. As I complete a new degree and try to break into a new area the best I could do was an ad requiring only 2 years of experience, which would be 2 years more than what I have. How do people get started these days?

7. And there's this problem with all this education, if I don't use what I learned won't I start to just forget stuff? How many people took 2 years of a foreign language in high school and still have their skills if they never used them again?

8. Late last year it seemed like this summer was going to be a banner year for internships. The school found new companies that were interested in graduates. Instead not only did the new companies not come through but older companies either stopped or really scaled back.

9. I've gone to my college job expo in a small town and a Dice technical job expo in a big city. They were about the same size and both very sad. They were small, 1/3rd of the booths were colleges looking for students, and the rest offered very few positions in general, and even fewer positions that paid a living wage.

10. Egads, health insurance costs. No AARP options in my state. Yay me!

11. Over the last 5 years that I have been working not once did I see the job market improve. It seemed to be in a steady slow decline, which went into a free fall with the Wall St debacle. If the last 2 recoveries were jobless who's to say if the next recovery doesn't simply continue to shed jobs? Seriously for local budget in my area and nearby they are looking at cutting police, firemen, and other essentials.

Now what?

Oh, man, I am sorry to hear your situation. All good to you and strengths so you can endure it. I am affraid of myself. My school ends in Christma's and then my part-time work in school also ends. I'll be most likely graduate straight to unemployment records.

this is the worst jobs climate i've ever seen, and i'm 56 years old.

i finally got a temporary desktop support job last month, but only because i recently passed the comptia a+ certification... all of my years of pc repair experience wouldn't have gotten me the interview, they mainly wanted that specific a+ piece of paper... if you haven't got it, get it, you can self-study, or sign up for study at the cisco academy, which is held at local community colleges.

when this job runs out in a month or two, i'll be scrambling for another one.

After watching "I am Legend" this weekend I find myself asking if what we are seeing in society today is the beginning of human de-evolution on a grand scale? The phrase used to be "dog eat dog" but I never saw dogs treat their own as badly as we do.

I suppose I could elavated my social standing by incorporating myself and hiring several lobbyists to support me. If I had the money for it.

You can incorporate (LLC) in most states on-line for about $100 (maybe more in a few "People's Republic" states). One advantage is that you will technically no longer be unemployed, and it makes your resume look a lot better. Many consulting companies do not reveal the names of their clients without written consent of the client (at least that is what you can tell prospective employers).

Not yet. Unemployment is high now but should get better. In the long term, unemployment gradually falls as labor markets become gradually freer and information (matching firms and workers) gradually improves.

What are your skills & what type of job would you be suited to?

Im finishing up my degree in CyberSecurity. No experience. Otherwise I'm always considered a mainframe programmer that somehow survived the last ice age.

The last 2 economic recoveries were pretty much jobless.

I thought that mainframe programmers were in somewhat of a demand, owing chiefly to the fact that they are dying off and there are not many young people learning that skill-set. But it may depend on what part of the country you are located.

Question:


Here is the Answer: ... â–º Basic income

Bad news indeed! How's your friend/family/professional network? Times like these, the support of friends/family is critical. I haven't used it, but a few of my friends a big on LinkedIn.

The A+ and Net+ certs are an easy way to differentiate yourself from other candidates who don't have them. CCNA is more difficult & more expensive (but more prestigious), and might be worthwhile depending on what you want to do. There were a lot of ex db and mainframe programmers in my CCNA classes.

I got out of the technology sector in the last down turn for all of the reasons listed here. Even when it was strong in the late 90's through 2002 it was still a wildly swinging and unstable career field in which to get a raise or promotion meant moving to a different company.

There are plenty of ways of matching your skill set into a different career field. I went into Audio Visual with a large national AV Services provider. My technical and troubleshooting background have been invaluable to my career.

I haven't seen the clip (I will though) but I remember a bit from the threads on the subject here.

More interesting to me is what I can do as an individual. Or perhaps on a family level. The era of cheap oil is over real soon. That will have consequences. What to do?

Hi, I'd be very curious about your opinion to that videoclip.
I know the producer Jörg Drescher well who lives in Kiev / Ukraine.

Here is the index of the lectures:

1. Basic Income Earth Neatwork, BIEN
2. Historical Adherents
3. Basic income in Germany
4. Psychological aspects
5. Work
6. Money and freedom
7. General funding
8. Funding by taxation
9. Payment
10. Comunism
11. Pros and cons
12. Conclusion

Sounds to me like you guys sit around and figure out how someone will pay you for doing nothing.

If I don't know anything about something, I'd just shut up my mouth.

It's unfortunate how easily some threads are consumed by flames.

@aristide1 - the Networking and Security sub-forum over at [H]ardForum is full of carreer support/advice threads. Might find some good tips over there - a lot of the old Networking regulars are very helpful.

Not really. I'm more interested in stuff like growing your own food. And understanding how society works, for example I don't trust pension funds and stuff like that. I don't want to depend on forces that I cannot control and that I feel will screw me over in the end. I want to live cheap, work as little as possible and still have a good life. With work as little as possible I mean work as little as possible for someone else. More time to do other stuff, like growing food. That's also work but not wage slavery.
It's not impossible to live a life like that, at least not for me here in Sweden.

Excuse me, just whom are you referring to?


I contacted 2 head hunters in a major city. One took my resume and never called back after leaving several phone messages. The other one simply said, "Sorry I have nothing for you." and hung up on me. What you say may be true somewhere, but not around here.



Watched 90 seconds of this, not interested.


No local family or extended family to speak of. Can't complain on and on with friends, people can only take so much. Fear is becoming a significant factor in my life.

I have Net+ certification, eh, whoop-dee-doo.

I started this thread and I don't get notification people posted. Geez, I can't rely on anything these days.

I was referring mostly to Cov. Not sure if anyone else here buys into that stuff (I actually looked at the video also).

I don't mean to suggest that mainframe jobs are plentiful right now, but there are some that are out there. Relying on headhunters is not likely to work very well. Most companies feel that they can hire people without paying headhunter fees. Looking for a job is very hard work.

Even you had some golden years... think of me at 37.
there has not been a burst of economy at all that did anything worth a stable nickel. Not one. My whole life in fact...
end of viet nam was the day I was born.
at 15, I worked in the last shoe factory in a big square mile area...
at 16, I worked at the last rough cut lumber mill that made larger beams...
at 17 I was homeless.
at 18 I joined the air national guard..
at 25, nearly dead...poisoned, nuked, and no real medical in the national guard as a crew chief working enough hours to have a beeper like a doctor on call (they committed a labor crime...as the gov't)

By the time I was deciphered... disability was handed to me maxxed out beyond rules. Somebody with power knows my mis-justice...been that way for the last 14 years.

my locale, being wilderness was so bad, it regained the highest suicide rate for late teens since the 70s fuel crunch.

that is my life at 37.

yes, the location that we live in can have a drastic effect on how our lives are lived.

i grew up in the midwest, and when i left at 21 years of age, it was a bass-ackwards deadend sh$thole, with the redneck political outlook much worse than what texas has now.

there was fake money flying around the u.s. economy several years ago, but when you live in a dead-end area, it's difficult to appreciate what the rest of the country, or even the world, is going through.

i suspect that aristide1 will have to relocate to take advantage of his new education.

as for the air national guard, american soldiers have been getting screwed over by the military for decades... i have known a number of guys who got poisoned by agent orange in vietnam, for instance.

Interesting stories. I realize such things make some people feel better, but I myself never subscribed to the "misery loves company" philosophy.

Cybersecurity jobs can be found around DC. Pay seems good until you realize it's probably the most expensive place to live in the continental US.

Growing up in my home town was not too bad. I could get part time jobs doing various things during high school. But there was only one big employer in town that paid well, but they had so many layoffs I left as soon as I was old enough. During the 70's my town and nearby ran 20% unemployed for quite a while.

I'm looking more towards computer forensics than network security. Network security changes so much so fast it's not a job, it's a way of life. You need to study constantly to keep up else instant obsolescence.

In any case everyone wants experience so how does one every get started? There's no way to embellish your resume to show such a thing.

As for what m0002a suggests I may be able to find an occasional 6 month consulting contract here and there, but I won't be able to say how long the outage would be between gigs. Given that, how would I ever get comfortable again spending any money on anything other than necessities? Answer, I wouldn't. And if I remain unemployed for as long as the last time (2 years) I may not ever feel comfortable again. That was the one thing I hope to avoid in my "golden years," that constant, "what if I don't have enough" feeling that strangles the life out of senior citizens. Yuck, my mother had it, it's a nasty form of helplessness.

Starting your own consulting firm (or just creating a LLC) will keep you "employed" by your company, even if you don't find any consulting work (unless you decide to fire yourself). That alone will help you get your next real job, since no one will be able to say you were out of work for too long.

After creating an LLC and printing up some business cards, the first thing I would do (besides looking for real work, which you must continue to do) is to call up as many non-profits as you can and volunteer your time as a PC LAN administrator, or anything to do with office or computer stuff. This will give you something to put on your resume, and you may run into some people at these places that can help you get a job. A lot of well-off people volunteer at these places and they usually have spouses with very good paying jobs who may be managers.

You are under no obligation to reveal exactly who your clients were or how much you got paid while working for your own company. I am really hoping I don't have to explain this in any more detail.

No you explained it just fine. Something to think about.

Thanks.

I met a guy about 10 years ago, he was about 55 and had been in computers for a long time. And then he got fired. He started a small electronics repair shop in his garage with just a hand painted sign on his lawn and a paid ad for a week in the local paper. After just a couple of months, his garage was FULL from the floor to the ceiling with thing to repair (anything from ceiling fans to TVs, amplifiers, speakers, CD players...). At the time he was the only guy in town doing that (a very small town in the middle of West Virginia).
It's just that it's so much harder to fix things today because of those microchips that need to be programmed...

I'm also looking for a job right now... Good luck Aristide !!!

No kidding - I have friends who work/worked in DC, and they've been steadily pushed west by cost-of-living: DC to Leesburg VA, Leesburg to Purcellville VA. And Purcellville is apparently over-run with agro DC security employees.


Sounds like the fear is really taking hold. I mentioned freinds/family earlier because they're going to be your best support network. Fear is going to become an additional real, tangible obstacle to your employment hunt. On the plus side, this is one thing you can have direct control over. I remember reading something in playboy back in college re: how much the fear of rejection controls our actions WRT approaching members of the opposite sex. Fear can be completely paralizing. The takeaway from that article was basically: "every 'no' is just something to get over on your way to a 'yes'". Put another way: if fear results in inaction, your probability of success = zero. An effort of will for sure, but you gotta spin fear into something more positive. Fear can strangle the life out of all people regardless of age/demographic. I suggest attacking the job search with gusto.

I had a brief period of unemployment following 9/11. After finding work, my top two priorities were 1) accumulating a 6-month cash reserve, and 2) making myself non-expendable within the company. Priority 3 was identifying a honest and satisfactory standard of living. Turns out my standards are pleasantly low. But this is a personal thing.

Re: spending, you should spend to maximize value (ceteris paribus). This is obviously also a personal thing. Though I'm a gadget whore, I don't own a mobile phone - they don't offer sufficient value to me compared to the expense (in dollar and in other terms). Price is what you pay, value is what you get. To me, A smartphone is a $1000+ /yr ball & chain I don't need. I am a cyclist; my current road bike cost more than my current car. I value bikes way more than cars. Which is why I buy shitbox cars! -- high value to price ratio.

Some good ideas here:
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/category/work/

Lucky used to be an additional element in successfully finding a job, now it looks more like it's the only element.

'Luck' is a word used to describe a whole category of phenomena. Right place at the right time, etc. To a large degree, you can make yourself 'luckier'. You can increase the odds of something happening to you through increased exposure to it.

If I join the military, the odds of me sustaining a firearm-related injury increase as a result of increased exposure to firearms. If I got shot, no one would call me lucky! But you get the idea. If you want to catch fish, increase your exposure to fish - get ye to a fishery. You need a job, increase your exposure to employers. From your OP, it sounds like you're already taking steps in this direction (job fairs, etc.). Everything you do to increase your exposure to employers is going to increase your "luck".

Have you see indeed.com? It indexes and searches a bunch of other job search sites.

Commenting on two other points...

Don't liquidate investments unless you have no alternative. Sell stuff, cancel subscriptions, downsize your apartment, etc. Aside from taking potential loses and/or paying cap gains tax, it will take FOREVER to rebuild your portfolio. I know two guys who tapped their 401k's for down-payments on homes/condos. I don't think this is ever a good idea, but especially not in today's climate. Now that the economy sucks and their jobs security isn't so secure, they're "house-poor" and they killed whatever they had accumulated for retirement. And since their income is tie up in house payments, rebuilding retirement funds is near impossible.


Keep applying for "simple" jobs. If "out of work too long" hurt you last time, prevent it from hurting you this time. Make your luck - find employment anywhere. Consider occupations that you wouldn't normally entertain. A friend of mine started waiting tables after the dot com implosion. He's STILL waiting tables because he loves the work. In HS and college I worked as a bicycle mechanic - I'm still good friends with many of former coworkers and managers from those shops and occasionally work for them part-time. The physical labor is a refreshing change from my normal desk job. In your case, what skills can you apply to non-IT jobs?

It might vary state by state, but I'm pretty sure you can still get partial SS benefits with a part time job. Don't know the circumstances of your termination - any severance? COBRA extension obviously sucks due to the expense. My state has a state-coordinated "shared risk" pool - basically a way to pool purchasing power people who buy insurance out of pocket. Similar to how small businesses can pool together to purchase insurance, but for individuals. My mom uses this service. She fought and beat bladder cancer years ago, but as a result her risk profile = expen$ive. Then her employer offered health insurance. Her current employer does not. So the pooling keeps costs down a bit.

To summarize: misery, fear, paralysis = bad. Action = good.

I'm weeks away from severance coming to an end. When it ends so does my health insurance. In my state there is a "policy" offered for very low income people, it's about half of the normal cost, but it also covers a lot less. Not sure yet what the max income is for it, but I'm sure just unemployment will meet the criteria. Still it doesn't cover an awful lot, if I need physical therapy to recover from an injury that's too bad. I priced local regular health insurance for my age and stuff, it's over $500/month for me alone. As you mentioned COBRA is awful and probably close to the full rate I just mentioned, and maybe even more.

Unemployment versus minimum wage is a self defeating game. At $7.50/hour I would earn $240 and lose $405 in unemployment. With unemployment I lose 25% of what they pay for each day I work, so by the 4th day they don't pay anything. Literally no incentive, ridiculous. I know many older people who work at JC Penny full time. Minimum wage results in $300/week before taxes, but they do it because they get health insurance. Contact with people good, but overall boredom must be really high.

Waiting tables is not my first choice of jobs, that's for sure. Long hours and people who complain about everything and others that are simply cheap. And doing that, waiting on people I may have worked with in the past and now may snicker really stinks. It shouldn't be a factor, but I'm human.

I will shoot out more resumes tomorrow. I use indeed.com and am willing to travel a certain amount from home, a couple of hours drive, but not much more than that.

I got the "put more irons in the fire" lecture yesterday. I have the irons, it's the fire I can't find. Eh, that's not funny, is it?

Not using my new skills means they will deteriorate and somebody may think "How can you have a degree in a field where there is demand and not find a job?" That appears really bad as well. But having this discussion with a recent graduate shows he has the same thinking as me. He sent me a survey showing huge increases in cycer crime issues, more arrests, more convictions, more demand, but no sign of more jobs. It doesn't make sense.

A friend suggested an alternative, learn Joomla, PHP, and some other stuff, grab small projects from Craigslist, and then bigger contracts. While some people would relish the idea of working at home there is also the higher isolation one faces under such conditions. Like anything else one has to decide if the downside is worth the upside.

all of that is why i told you weeks ago to get an a+ cert... there are a heck of a lot more jobs doing desktops than networks, and once you get a few months in on a job, even a desktop break/fix job, you're on your way... you have work history in a technical field.

there are also helpdesk positions available, where they are willing to train you, if you can handle the work.