I love Labor Day, mainly because it marks the end of the summer with cooler weather on the way, all the kids are back in school, and football season is about to go into full swing. What I don’t like, and I am sure all those who continue to look for full-time work day after day don’t like either, is the reminder that Labor Day is technically for those who labor (that is labor in that stereotypical means created years ago by that industrial revelation we had), not those who labor looking for labor.
A Labor of Love
For all practical purposes, I have been looking for a full-time labor of love match since we sold our book business about three years ago (see How I Can Save Your Business Money from back in April, or the other articles at the bottom of this post). Although I have a great part time job, work more than full time at graduate school, and my days are busier now than they ever have been, looking for and finding a full-time position that matches both person and company has been one of the most difficult endeavors of my now 20+ year working life.
I have found more jobs and “careers” than I knew existed and made more connections with my resume than I can count. [On a side note, if you are a single college student in or around the Auburn area, there is a company looking for OSHA "inspectors" to work on barges in the Gulf of Mexico, no experience needed, pay is great, 21 days on 21 days off, and you get to fly to work.]
It is the Economy Stupid
After a while you just scratch your head in amazement at this current marketplace. Resumes and 3-piece suits are not what they use to be 20 years ago (thank goodness), but the lack of practical sense in some HR departments is almost comical, and expectations some business owners have is borderline ridiculous. Just for means of example, I give you one from this past week:
I had a company contact me from my blog asking if I would be interesting in writing articles for their website? Why sure, sounds great. I only have about 10-15 years experience writing well researched, SEO packed, properly formatted content, including about 1,000 articles on this blog alone, sounds great. His email to me then gave me a list of things he wanted me to do, including writing two articles for him so he could get an idea of my writing style, then after that, if they were interested, they would be happy to pay me $.007/word for 200-400 word articles? Yeah, that was a whopping $1.40-$2.80 per article. Probably cost me more to power my computer for that length of time than they would pay me. I get those all the time, and never reply to them, but someone out there does I’m sure.
Labor Day for All Labor
So today, at least in my mind, we can take some rest from those things which we do to sustain life. Enjoy what is probably a beautiful day outside since the calendar reads September, and be thankful for the work we are given to do.
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This is something that could be written about at such length that no one person or media company could cover it properly. The real employment story for the millions of college students just moving into the work force and those millions in the country looking for work is the lure that higher education will promise a better job and better pay.
The government has now made it so easy for just about anyone (unless you have been convicted of a felony, and they are trying to change that too) to receive financial aid that the short term prospects of not getting or finding a full time job are overridden by higher education. A great but brief look at this topic was published this morning by Michael Barone of The National Review called The Higher Education Bubble. It’s simple short-term math. When the government gives you more to go to school than a potential employer will, and the golden carrot of an investment into your higher education is weighed, often school wins out. In the end, sometimes, it is nothing more than another way for the government to enslave its citizens in debt that a non-existent job will never be able to pay back.
When higher education institutions exist (i.e. they couldn’t or wouldn’t exist otherwise) only because the government pays for 95% of tuition through loans or grants (many schools actually have a 99% financial aid rate), the institutions win, but the students often end up worse off when they finish than if they never went in the first place. The concept is similar to the housing market years ago when the government told everyone it was their right as citizens to own a house, it was an essential part of the “American dream” per-say. It turns out that some actually would have been far better off in the long run renting, imagine that.
Much more could be said about this topic but I will leave that for another day.
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It costs me $20-$30 per hour worked to have a work at home job. Working from home is totally different, I am talking about a specific classification of job, the work at home job. The job that targets those who want to spend more time with their family, not waste half their life in traffic, the homeschool mom, the out of work in between work individual.
Notice I didn’t say it made me x-amount of money, but it has cost me x-amount of money. That is the difference between today’s standard work at home job and one you have to actually drive to get to, between $20-$30 per hour less even though today, most jobs can be done from anywhere.
If you are looking for the newest in sweat shop factory work (and there are tons of people who are), you won’t find it at the local tire or car plant. No way, their union wages are far too high ($50-$75/hr) to compare with these jobs. The new factory work in our culture today is the work at home job. After owning my own business for 15-20 years (and running it from my own home no less) I never understood the extent of the work at home scam until I started looking for one of these great jobs. I figured that there was some company that could see the value in hiring me, a Linchpin, to work from my home office, but after 2-3 years of searching, and working, now I’m not so sure.
I will review a few companies and positions in a series of upcoming posts for those who are still looking since every time I came across one of these positions, I had to find a decent review about the company (look at forums and sites like WAHM, JobVent or GlassDoor.com) to find out if it was an actual scam or not. Most were not scams in the technical sense of the word, but I am amazed at what conditions we are now willing to accept just so we can have a work at home job (there is a huge difference in working from home and work at home).
Most of these jobs pay under $10 per hour (many well under, like $5-7/hr) and in the U.S. you will be lucky to cover your home office expenses for that. Generally you are required to put in a specific volume of tasks per hour, calls per hour or however they rate you, and always follow the manual, map, guide, instructions with no deviation. Most hire you as contract labor so they don’t have to pay taxes, worry about law suits, pay for training, or pay for any benefits whatsoever.
The difference that makes one job an actual scam, or at least a big clue, and the other job not a scam is if they require you to pay them for the job. Most of these work at home jobs don’t go that far into the true scam world, they are factories of course, not scams. They do go as far as paying you by the minute, requiring you to incorporate, and require you to take “tests” to become qualified, and they don’t pay for your training. These “tests” are in essence the very work of the job, work you do for free because it is part of the “interview” (I took a 10-15 hour “test” to “qualify” and later realized that I was doing their actual work, unpaid of course).
In each site or company I list in my upcoming posts I am only showing the most obvious match, and those I have direct experience with in the past. Under the surface there are tons of companies all doing the same thing, looking for the cheapest most expendable warm body, but I know for some, any job is better than no job, and I totally understand that.
The list could be endless. You have freelance work, call center (centre) jobs, tech support, customer service, programming, search engine evaluators, data entry and so on. In these three upcoming posts I will highlight the three areas I have looked at the most, freelance, call center, and search engine evaluator (or annotator, search engine technician, ads quality rater, etc). For those of you who are looking for a meaningful job where you can add value to the company, I have an exahustive list of who to avoid, but I would love to hear from you too. Good luck in your search.
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Some of you may or may not know that I have been looking for a good job match in a full time IT related field for about 3-4 years now (yes I said years). So far, it has been one of the most frustrating ongoing experiences I have had in business. I have been denied a lowly $7-9/hour job to work out of my home office because I had too much experience, and have turned down a $60,000 job because it wasn’t a good match between my personality and their culture. There is nothing easy about finding a good career match any more, and I have a lot to offer a company. Almost 20 years of business experience, education, flexibility, a low required salary, and a willingness to travel. See also my post Top 5 Tips to Help Your Job Search.
How I Can Save Your Business Money
What is astonishing to me, is how many potential employers will not look at the possibility of having a professional (and I mean that in every sense of the word) work out of their home office when the typical IT job really doesn’t require a physical presence in an office, or anywhere for that matter. I understand some do, and that’s fine, but not all by any stretch.
It’s simple math. If I can be hired to do a job in a middle-income American city for $50,000, which requires me to move, I can do the exact same job from my home office for $40,000. That’s $10,000 a year in payroll expenses your company doesn’t have to pay. Computer equipment they don’t have to buy, phones, office space, parking, gas, and food that doesn’t have to be purchased. If your company has a tight budget and really needs to control expenses, why ignore this potential savings?
My Office is Better Equipped Than Most Office Buildings
How old is your office equipment? What tools are you missing to get your job done in an effective and efficient manner?
I have 4 different phone lines/numbers I can use including a landline, cellular, and VoIP. A network of 5-6 computers (PC and MAC), laptops, desktops, mobiles devices, a reliable 6M high speed DSL line, 10 TB of data storage (yes Tera), data backups, and my office is even wired for a 20KW backup generator in case of power failure with 250 gallons of propane on site. I am probably better equipped and better prepared than the standard office building in middle America.
With that said, I have no problem going out of city or state for the right position, it will just cost everyone more money.
What Comes Around (To Get Down, Timo Maas)
This week I had a few different conversations with potential employers, some very promising. One of these companies was so unique in the way they required applicants to submit information I decided to go the extra mile and respond to their creativeness with creativity by making a portfolio video. Videos like this are nothing new but I made it specifically for them for an added personal touch.
Below is the video, (with the names removed to protect the innocent of course), but if you are one of those out there looking for a job, don’t just do the exact same thing that all the other applicants do, that accomplishes nothing but allowing yourself to blend in. Be creative, stand out, showcase your skills. Not all employers will appreciate this approach for sure, but a company looking for a Linchpin instead of a door knob will.
See the full size version of The Portfolio Project here.
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In my ongoing pursuit of the perfect full time employer I have compiled more information than I could possibly have imagined a few years ago. I could probably write an HR book called HR, the Good the Bad, the Ugly but I am sure someone else has beat me to it. After writing a post about a recent interview I decided to put down a few quick tips I learned just in case someone else out there is also looking for that perfect match.
The Match-Making Job Market of 2010 Is Fluid
Today is a different market than even just five years ago. Potential employers are doing more with less, and are in no hurry to bring on a new hire that may or may not be an exact match with the company’s existing culture. As a potential employee, I am also just as picky when it comes to looking at a potential employer. I don’t just want any job, I want a good match, but in 2010 it’s more like online dating or match-making than job hunting. Don’t just automatically jump on the first offer, really look at what kind of match you are with the company culture, business model, and their clients.
Flooding the Market with Resumes Doesn’t Work, Be Creative
I have sent in hundreds of resumes, made countless followup calls, gone out of my way to not be in the way when needed, met tons of new people, offered to move to all over California (my native land), Texas, Florida (wife’s preference), New York, Wisconsin, Montana (those two were a stretch), Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky. Yet, it’s the end of another week of meeting new people, making new connections, learning new companies, and waiting. One thing I have learned, flooding the market with resumes doesn’t work.
If you want to be seen, you need to do something creative and unique. Don’t just do the same old thing that everyone else does, that doesn’t do any good at all. Find a unique way to stand out to the HR person or hiring manager. For an example of what I did this week see this video I did for How I Can Save Your Business Money.
Become a Major League Scout in Your Search
You need to seek out new prospects like a scout looks at potential minor league players. Traditional job sites like Monster have been almost worthless to me. Today, employers will post on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, craigslist, and on their own websites. Where are the creative companies posting their new positions? Don’t limit yourself to finding a great job by only looking on the traditional websites.
Do Your Own Research, Don’t Just Skim the Surface
When you do get an Interview, phone or otherwise, do you know more about the company than the HR person? Impossible? Not at all, and many times I have known far more about the details of a company than even their own employees do. Do your own research, and dig deep. A good example is to look at the company on LinkedIn. Look at their current employees on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook (are they happy with their job), their former employees (why did they leave, where are they now), and all the associated websites you can find.
Keep in mind your potential employer is doing the same research on you. Don’t give them a stupid reason like a photo on Facebook to hire someone else.
Don’t Try To Hide, Control Your Internet Footprint
If you are on Facebook and you hide your account from a potential employer they will probably wonder what you are trying to hide, and if there is good reason, perhaps fixing that first would be a good idea. I have created a one stop shop on Google where potential employers could find out every thing there is to know about me (http://www.scottfillmer.me), professionally and personally, and from there they can find their website of choice without having to give them 10 different places to look. You can still be publically seen and control your private information, just use common sense.
What are your favorite job search tips?
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It’s official, we are no longer selling books on Amazon. For those of you who didn’t know, we have been selling books on Amazon in the Amazon Marketplace (those are the used and new books you see when Amazon is sold out or when you just want to buy the same book Amazon sells for $39.99 for $.01) for years. Yesterday we sold all our remaining inventory, some 4,000 used/new books in one large bulk sale to a buyer in Texas. For Deb and I, the books had become (as Andy Stanley put it last week) the old sofa that no one wants to get rid of because it has always been there.
We started selling book on Amazon at the same time we were full time eBay sellers (eBay lost out as a viable place to sell as a business long long before Amazon) back in 2005, and sold full time on Amazon in 2006-2008, and it was some of the hardest work, most laborious, and in the end least profit making work I can ever recall doing in my life. It came at a time when Deb and I needed to work from home, needed and wanted to work together, and many blessings came our way over those years of selling books online.
Over our selling life on Amazon, we sold over 9,000 books at a retail price of $65,000 (that’s not as much as it sounds when you divide by 3 years and then start thinking profit margins), kept a high feedback rating, and learned a lot about hard work and to appreciate what we were given. Not much different than what we gained and learned from our previous businesses we started and ran together, except that this particular one took over our entire house top to bottom.
After running several small businesses over the past 10-12 years I have come to understand that each business or product has a defined life cycle, especially when you are running very small self made businesses. Products come in and out, jobs, customers, and life in general, has a lifespan or timeframe where some things work well. The key is to know when it is time to move on and get rid of the old sofa. For the books, yesterday was that day, and we were both thrilled. There were many many reasons, but knowing it was indeed the right time to let it go was a good feeling.
Anyone that wants to know the inner workings of selling on eBay or Amazon feel free to drop me an email. Combined I think we have about 12-15 years experience selling on both platforms and we lived and breathed eBay and Amazon, so we do know our way around. We certainly know how to get in trouble with big brother, and how to survive when the rules get changed (and they always do).
Our online selling life was great, and really is always something we think about no matter what we are working on or doing. In those years, we managed to:
- work together 24/7, netting 20,800 more hours spent together
- fought off fraud
- and copyright infringement issues
- fended off domain landsharks
- had $300,000 in sales without making a profit
- sold alongside corrupt competition
- continually fought customer theft
- avoided a few lawsuits
- didn’t sue a few times when we could have
- were falsely accused of anything and everything
- Witnessed to many (I hope)
- were praised and awarded
- ridiculed
- made some great friendships
- ate at a huge unknown number of restaurants
- filed for our own patents and trademarks
- never clocked in once
- travel to every state in the country
- live in a bus, apartment, house, tent, campground
- lived in Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Alabama (and many others)
- filled approximately 250,000 orders
- counted approximately 2 million crystals
- imported products from Austria
- invented our own products
- worked for a competitor
- took 50,000 product images
- went through about 30 computers
- used miles and miles of tape, boxes, and packaging
- cried, laughed, bled, and cherished every second
Thankfully for us, now, we have both moved on to a new chapter in our lives together and it doesn’t look like there will be much online selling involved, and that’s a good thing, because I am exahusted.
