Earlier today the U.S. Senate passed an extension the amount of time unemployed Americans can receive benefits by an additional six months. The bill has to go back to the House of Representatives before it can be signed by President Obama.
Millions of Americans are unemployed or underemployed today. I am one of the underemployed, I work a job that is only one day a week while working an unpaid internship and working towards my second college degree because my first one has yet to pay off in a full time job.
In pursuit of work I spend an average of 10 hours a week applying for work and apply for anywhere between four and fifty jobs in that time. What is strange to me is not how few responses I have to my applications, but instead the amount of places I hear from that I never applied to.
For every response I get from one of my applications, I receive ten contacts from places I never once contacted. These positions vary from telemarketing to pyramid schemes, all of them insure that I will be hired immediately, and many of them promise promotions to management within a few months. It is usually pretty easy to identify these places, but some do slip in, mostly because they are jobs you apply for.
A month ago I found a good job opportunity. The advertisement was through my old college which means it has been checked by the school and approved. It claimed to be a program through a marketing company that helped recent college students get professional experience. It seemed to be a mixture of an internship and a program for a company to try out many new hires without having to pay too high of a salary. But then I attended the interview.
First it was a group interview, bad sign, especially when it’s not a low level retail position. Next, the interviewer asked a dreaded question, “What do you think about when you hear the word telemarketing?”
I was ready to walk out and leave right then and there. I have worked as a telemarketer, it was horrible and dehumanizing. Calling people blindly with information that was outdated is a terrible experience, thanks to it being outdated, you can also end up asking for someone who is deceased, which has happened to me. It’s a very awkward conversation.
But I stayed, out of consideration for the interviewer. What followed made me even angrier. The CEO came in (another sign that things are wrong is when the CEO of a huge company shows up for a low level starting gig) and mentioned the hours, four hour shifts over five days a week. Also we would be classified as independent contractors, i.e. we did not work for the company, could be fired at any point in time, and had to do our own taxes.
Finally, even after all this and showing a complete disinterest in the place, I was offered the position, which the CEO proclaimed wasn’t going to be handed out to anyone with a pulse. Obviously they lied.
These are the kind of stories I have in my job hunting. Scams and telemarketers promising me everything under the sun while I try to find something that is steady and is more frequent then one day a week.
I am currently not on unemployment; I work that one day a week after all. But it is a seasonal job and will be over come September. I don’t know if I will be seeking unemployment then or not. But if I do, I am hopeful that the government will ensure there is a way for me to pay my bills and continue to try and survive with longer unemployment qualifications.
