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So far a number of people have disagreed with my simple premise that:
You will be a better job applicant if you can tell us idiots in Human Resources what we want to hear: that you are not wasting your time home alone watching soup operas and playing video games but instead are learning new things related to your career.
There is a number of cheap or free ways to train yourself to be better at your chosen career at the library or the Internet or through cheap software to fine tune your Microsoft Office or typing skills.
No one in the recruiting industry will believe you when you tell them you spend every waking hour job hunting and thus have no time for professional development.
Unemployed applicants who apply for just about any job regarding of their previous work experience and education and show they are desperate will not be successful finding a job.
Job applicants do better if they fine tune their resumes and interviews to show they are a committed professional in a specific career.
I agree with the OP. In today's knowledge based economy, and those employed in sectors of it, should use these periods to learn new skills and retrain themselves. It can only help you in the long run.
Mr Spock: Again, you fail to explain HOW applicants can tell you in their resumes that they are training themselves when we all know that HR won't read past the first page or even the Objective. Also, the kinds of training you're talking about is not free or cheap and if it is, nobody bothers to tell the unemployed where to find it. Googling "free education for unemployed" gets you nowhere fast. Even the FAFSA website is useless for people researching Pell Grants. My own state's dept of labor website provides almost nothing helpful regarding education for the unemployed and what is there is incredibly complicated and difficult to navigate thro.
Quite frankly, how are the nimrods who tell you they're surfing the net or watching TV all day getting interviews in the first place?!
CCM123: Nobody is disagreeing with the idea of learning new skills, the problem is getting access to that training. If you're living on an unemployment check that's roughly half your former salary you still have pay to rent/mortgage, buy groceries, fill up the car to drive to networking events, job fairs and interviews as well as pay your phone/internet and utility bills in order to look for work in the first place. Not everyone has family they can move in with or savings they can drain. Not all classes are online and getting to class can be difficult if you're having to rely on public transportation to save money.
What would YOU be doing if you were laid off? Possibly due to no fault of your own? Believe me, it can happen to anybody.
Spending 12 hours a day looking for work is someone who wants to jump right back in the workforce, Should they be looking for work 12 hours and attending classes the other 12? I can understand it would not be a satisfactory answer if they DID nothing but c'mon here. It sounds like you would be happy if they were begging you for the job. Awful.
How about improving your Microsoft Office Skills? Typing Skills? Writing Skills? The list could go on and on.
Really? These are the kind of skills you can't find? Well then...you clearly need to be terminated from your role as you clearly do not know how to search for people with some of the most elementary level skills in the entire world. You could find people with those skills at a middle school. Yet you can't seem to find these skills in adults? Clearly, you have no talent in extracting qualified resumes from the stack on your desk. Personally, I would consider a career-change if I were you.
Is this the skills gap they're complaining about? They are claiming that people don't have Microsoft Office skills or typing skills? LOL, how ridiculous this is. I was thinking maybe something like I can't find somebody who can calculate the standard deviation in a set of data or someone who can't calculate the derivative in order to determine maximum profits. But we're talkin' about Microsoft Office?!?! Typing skills?!?! You have to be s****ing me.
It's pretty easy if you have internet. You can keep current in your industry just by reading. If you're a lawyer, cite a recent interesting case study. Or know about it if the interviewer asks specifically. If you're in Tech, know some of the differences between the previous and current version of whatever software you use.
Wow, this is scary coming from a HR rep. Thank you for proving why we NEED employment laws in this country. So in your opinion it would be perfectly acceptable to ask someone about their sex lives, abortion, gay marriage, etc? After all, it's not against the law.
I believe asking most of those questions are against the law. At least here in NY.
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