Looking for a job? Thinking about college?

every time a thread pops up on here about the job market or lack of jobs i start preaching what the OP said
cnc jobs....its a great job to have and there are jobs all over the place

these days you can walk into a shop with no experience and get a job as an operator....far different than a machinist.
get your operator job and start learning....

if schooling is an option check out cmm jobs....huge money in that. do not need to go to school for 4 years either..

a reply to: Darkmadness

Here's a job no one seems to think about: Corrections Officer!

In Texas at least.....you can apparently start at @ $2,700.00 a month!
www.tdcj.state.tx.us...

Like bustin' heads? This is the job for you AND its one of the few jobs left that you don't need a College Degree (yet) to get!

"Texas THE Incarceration State! Cells-We've built one for YOU!

a reply to: TonyS

Forgot about that. Here in WV we are considered hard to staff so federal prisons give extra pay if you work here. They just open a Federal Prison in McDowell Co and have a horrible time staffing it. I really considered it but a prison just wasn't the job for me.
Federal Prison also has an early mandatory retirement age (though I forget off the top of my head).

I volunteered (taught a class to inmates for free) and now have correction officer experience according to government. So when they started calling for interviews I was in second round behind military.

-When looking for a job....a lot is networking. You have to get out there! Meet people stop at businesses. Ask questions. Use Twitter, Facebook, any resource available. Go to job fairs and check company websites. Too many people want and need a job for you to think it will be easy.

a reply to: Martin75

I'm surprised they have so much trouble staffing the Federal prisons; maybe the requirements are tough?

In Texas..........the requirements are pretty much a high school diploma and no criminal record.......and breathing of course.

a reply to: TonyS

It's the area. Check out FCI Beckley or McDowell. Too many here getting free checks already or can't pass a drug test.

originally posted by: Martin75
a reply to: TonyS
It's the area. Check out FCI Beckley or McDowell. Too many here getting free checks already or can't pass a drug test.

Yes!
Listen, I don't particularly care if one chooses to partake of certain herbal...supplements shall we say (off the clock) but, it is against the company policy where I work.
At least three times or more a month I must let someone go on date of hire due to failing the drug screen.

Now, that may seem rather harsh but, the employment process is this:

Fill out the app, return it, get scheduled for an interview, told during interview that employment is based on passing several different background checks, possessing a current/valid DL and passing a drug screen. *If the backgrounds come back acceptable, then they are called and a date is decided for their orientation usually Tuesdays and Thursdays so, if your background comes back on a Friday, say, you won't start until Tuesday or Thursday the next week.

A typical turnaround time from handing in the app to date of hire is between 7-14 working days.

They still fail the drug screen!

P.S. The least favorite part of my job is when I am stuck with administering the drug screens, it's awful.

I am having the hardest time getting out of law enforcement.

I have been a LEO for 11 years, worked 3 years in shipping and receiving before that, and have a Bachelor's in Business Administration. I am 32 years old.

I have been applying for Project Management 1 and similar business administration types of careers, mostly with Northrop Grumman and Harris.

I haven't received an interview, phone call, or even an email in the last year.

It is rather frustrating.

I wish I would of got some kind of engineering degree instead.

I would love to get into the private security sector but in my area those jobs are unicorns.

a reply to: TorqueyThePig

It's tough right now for college educated kids because we have an entire generation of college educated kids but nowhere for them to go.

Having a degree means nothing. It is the person who is applying for the job. A simple resume' isn't enough and you need to visit the company after the resume'. You need to prove to the employer you want the job not just passing through to something better.

In the mid 1970's, I felt like the rest of you. I couldn't find a job in the field that I wanted. My ego was just getting in the way and I had a wife to feed. Eventually, I found a job sweeping floors for a GM plant making $12 an hour. For all intent and purposes it was a well paying job with good benefits but it was sweeping floors.

I found it is much easier to find a job when you are employed even at McDonald's. It shows the willingness to work at whatever the task. You'll have a track record and that is what employers look at most of all.

originally posted by: buddah6
I found it is much easier to find a job when you are employed even at McDonald's. It shows the willingness to work at whatever the task. You'll have a track record and that is what employers look at most of all.

I don't know about that. Because your time is worth whatever you can invest it in. Investing your time in minimum wage job is going to have a much lower yield than investing your time in learning how to do something that pays better.

I suppose this varies by field, but I know in my field you'll actually hurt yourself by saying you're doing low end work at McDonalds. Including that on a resume is one of the best ways to ensure you don't get to the interview.

a reply to: Aazadan

We're in a whole new world from the 1970's.

Our ability to produce has more than doubles in that same time frame meaning all the jobs that exist in 1970 are nearly all gone.

originally posted by: Darkmadness
a reply to: Aazadan

We're in a whole new world from the 1970's.

Our ability to produce has more than doubles in that same time frame meaning all the jobs that exist in 1970 are nearly all gone.

I wasn't alive in the 70's so I can't say from experience, but it does seem that way. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that people have to adapt over the lifespan of their careers though. Most of the reasons those jobs are gone, aren't because we don't need the job, but rather because we've figured out more productive ways to do the same thing.

The big issue I see though, is that we keep insisting people work 40 hours per week, but we have nothing for them to do. Cutting jobs back to 20 or 30 hours a week would result in more people being employed. The real problem here, is that our economic system would need time to adjust to fewer paid hours per hourly employee which alters incomes pretty significantly. This is something France has been struggling with for years now.

I suppose the other issue I see is that the need for skilled labor doesn't scale with unskilled labor proportionally. I can write some software that manages assembly lines, and I can apply that software to 5 different companies. Those 5 companies only need 1 of me, but they need 5 * x assembly line workers. You can contrast that with the fact that we're producing more educated people than ever before. The current generation is the most highly educated generation to have ever existed on Earth.

The truth of the matter is that we've over produced college graduates, but that's not what the job market is most in need of currently.

I can see the flip side to that too however, which is that long term having more educated people is going to result in more inventions and more new products, which in turn means a wider variety of jobs.

It's something I don't have the answer to. I don't think there's one magic policy that can fix things either. Economic protectionism, more cost effective schooling, being more selective with what majors people can get into, incentivize companies to take on more entry level employees, there's a lot of things that can be done but I think that combined all they can do is mitigate the issue, not eliminate it.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: buddah6
I found it is much easier to find a job when you are employed even at McDonald's. It shows the willingness to work at whatever the task. You'll have a track record and that is what employers look at most of all.

I don't know about that. Because your time is worth whatever you can invest it in. Investing your time in minimum wage job is going to have a much lower yield than investing your time in learning how to do something that pays better.

I suppose this varies by field, but I know in my field you'll actually hurt yourself by saying you're doing low end work at McDonalds. Including that on a resume is one of the best ways to ensure you don't get to the interview.

I went from sweeping the floors to flying a $26 million dollar jet but that was in the past. Candidly, I never worked in my field of study.