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Let's face the critical fact about today's job market: Its a "buyer's market". Which simply means that those hiring you (purchasing your labor) have the edge. The primary reason that employers ask for extra qualifications is simply because in this job market they can find people with them. We can all whine about it. There's nothing either you or I can do that will change it in the short term.
I run a small law office and hire a few people full time and part time. I am not a slave driver, but I have definite expectations out of the people that I hire. I don't require any specific educational qualification, certificate, or degree from those who work for me. I do require the following:
1. Good oral and written communication skills;
2. A positive attitude towards work and people in general (which I can see in the first 20 or 30 seconds that I meet a job applicant);
3. A willingness to learn;
4. Respect for rules like confidentiality which are critical for a law office.
When I hire, I usually require applicants to take a word processing/typing test. I don't need someone who is a "rocket fast" typist. However, I've seen over and over again that those who type the fastest are usually the ones who learn job skills more quickly than others. A number of my clients are primarily Spanish speaking. I am always looking for an assistant who is bilingual for that reason. Speaking Spanish is not a requirement to work for me, but it is highly desired. It generally denotes someone who has "gone the extra mile" in their life. You don't have to learn Spanish to function in America, but some people choose to learn it because of the increasing number of Spanish speakers in our society. The local college has been a great source of workers for my office. I have no trouble hiring bright, motivated young people who do not have unreasonable expectations when it comes to salary.
I sympathize with those who can work and are willing to work, but are having difficulty finding a job. It would serve all of you better though to try and use the time you are unemployed to try and pick up some job skills. As I said above, learning a foreign language on a conversational level, is a good example. What won't do you any good is to have "an attitude" or a "chip on your shoulder". Most people can see it a mile away and they want nothing to do with it.
BINGO.
I am also a hiring manager-- looking to hire 2 new positions to work on my team (I just recently got a promotion).
I am not looking for a million qualifications-- partly because not many folks in the community do this line of work or have had very limited exposure to it.
I am looking for good attitude and something in your past that tells me... you work hard.. and are able to deal with ambiguous scenarios that come up in this line of work.
One of more recent hires was a fresh college graduate with one year real experience. She also worked during college in various positions. All of them pointed to someone who could handle hard work and typical stressful work (one of them was a day care position-- sorry but I can't even fathom working with a room full of infants--).
My point is that--- people often come to interviews with significant chips on their shoulders. A black wave of negativity and desperation follows--- and sorry-- no one on my team wants to work with a negative nancy.
When someone does not even *mask* their frustration (bitching about their last job, their last supervisor for laying them off, telling me that they just want ANY job, etc) it tells me that they are not going to be a real prize to work around when their job gets tough.
I should add our jobs are not really manually tough-- they can be mentally tough dealing with people all across the world and project managing sometimes what can seem like the impossible. It takes a certain type of dedicated person-- and someone who does not need to operate with a checklist of what they should do from the moment they walk in the door.
I don't think anyone should be starving in the streets--- and quite frankly I imagine the percentage of those who are TRULY starving in the streets in the USA is VERY VERY low.
However, I think if you do not wish to work or change yourself to work and lose some of the entitlement, then it is not MY responsibility to see that you get a roof over your head, whatever food you chose at the grocery store, a free cell phone and all of that. I think it should be your family's responsibility or perhaps even your church's. But, I really don't like the idea of my taxes increasing and my responsibilities increasing taking away from my ability to provide for my family because some folks decide that they can't do any job, want more kids, etc.
Now for those members of society who absolutely have no means to take care of themselves: the very elderly, the handicapped-- then I have no qualms about providing for those-- but for an able bodied person?
Now if able bodied person has been on government assistance for a period of time and then they are put to work in say a national park or in an assisted living center or something to give back to society-- then hey I am ALL for it.
I have been on SSI for a short time. I have a documented disability called aspergers syndrome. I have been to therapy before. I am still high functioning and I have worked retail earlier this year before I got laid off. I used to be on SSI when I was younger for a year but I opted out because I wanted to work. I was sick of being judged and called a scum of the earth and still am. I had alot of trouble finding a job and so now I am back on SSI. I get very little money and all of it goes on rent.
I have a clean record, I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I've never done drugs in my entire life.
I have no social life whatsoever and haven't for over 7 years. I have a G.E.D. diploma. At the end of this month I am going to be working with a counselor at vocational rehabilitation. I don't have any "free cell phone". I have a laptop with a messed up keyboard, I sleep on a box spring with no mattress, there are moths in my closet, and I have 2 parents that want me to live off the government forever and are against me being productive and wanting to live and work on my own without help. I am even contemplating moving to another state just to prove a point to people like you.
Your comments about people not wanting to take any job are just generalizations. Some of us actually want to work and will do anything, but we have to deal with discrimination (AS is an invisible impairment), and snobby employers who blow you off and have shady hiring practices. That's coming from someone who is 21 now, who has been looking on and off for a job since I was 18. I did my part and still do. I apply, I follow up, I ask people around.
Why is it that we never hear much about people with disabilities who want to work? Most of the time, all we hear about is disabled people being poor bums who need others to take care of them. This leads me to believe that there is some kind of deliberate agenda to stereotype out people with different disabilities. Then people like yourself create these ridiculous belief systems that hold no weight in reality.
You all know the deal with me. I have no social life nor do I have many responsibilities besides keeping my house tidy, so what do I do. I spend 24/7 looking for minimum wage jobs. Now I am hoping a vocrehab counselor can actually help me.
I am tired of being miserable. I am tired of being put in unfortunate circumstances and then being told by others that it is my fault. No, it is not me that has a problem. This society and people in it corners people into situations and then use it against them later on.
If you are so concerned, maybe you should stop judging people like me and start solving the problem. Start up a business and hire only disabled people. Help disabled people who have ambitions to find a job. There's 2 kinds of help. You can help people be a crutch or you can help people become self sufficient. Which one do you choose. Instead of helping a disabled person become self sufficient you would rather have them live off the government and call them losers. Who's the real loser, the disabled person who wants to work, or employers who get a kick out of discriminating? Some people have no choice but to be on social security. You think I enjoy being miserable. No, I don't. Because remember nobody is owed a job or a living. It's all on your own. What's wrong with helping someone up the ladder. Helping someone make it so they can thrive on their own.
Don't say disabled people don't want to work. There are lots that do like me. But we get shut out by your system. We aren't allowed to play by the rules.
People like yourself are a dime a dozen. I ask myself when I hear your complaints, if I showed up to your grocery store or place of business, would you offer me a job so I could get off my SSI? Or would you throw my application out and then snarl at me for having no choice but to be on SSI. You create your own problem.
Thankfully stuff like vocrehab and local employment agencies for people with disabilities exist, because dear god a disabled person wants to work, oh nooooooooooo can't have that, you're supposed to be on the dole and wear your bum badge proudly cause ya don't want to work, who cares if you get discriminate for a stocking job at the local supermarket, that's your fault.
Am I the only person who understands this stuff? Probably, because I'm in the situation and I am looking for solutions. I'm about results. I don't want excuses, I want answers. I want hypocrisy thrown out the door.
Last edited by silenthelpreturns; 06-05-2012 at 11:43 AM..
I have been on SSI for a short time. I have a documented disability called aspergers syndrome. I have been to therapy before. I am still high functioning and I have worked retail earlier this year before I got laid off. I used to be on SSI when I was younger for a year but I opted out because I wanted to work. I was sick of being judged and called a scum of the earth and still am. I had alot of trouble finding a job and so now I am back on SSI. I get very little money and all of it goes on rent.
I have a clean record, I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I've never done drugs in my entire life.
I have no social life whatsoever and haven't for over 7 years. I have a G.E.D. diploma. At the end of this month I am going to be working with a counselor at vocational rehabilitation. I don't have any "free cell phone". I have a laptop with a messed up keyboard, I sleep on a box spring with no mattress, there are moths in my closet, and I have 2 parents that want me to live off the government forever and are against me being productive and wanting to live and work on my own without help. I am even contemplating moving to another state just to prove a point to people like you.
Your comments about people not wanting to take any job are just generalizations. Some of us actually want to work and will do anything, but we have to deal with discrimination (AS is an invisible impairment), and snobby employers who blow you off and have shady hiring practices. That's coming from someone who is 21 now, who has been looking on and off for a job since I was 18. I did my part and still do. I apply, I follow up, I ask people around.
Why is it that we never hear much about people with disabilities who want to work? Most of the time, all we hear about is disabled people being poor bums who need others to take care of them. This leads me to believe that there is some kind of deliberate agenda to stereotype out people with different disabilities. Then people like yourself create these ridiculous belief systems that hold no weight in reality.
You all know the deal with me. I have no social life nor do I have many responsibilities besides keeping my house tidy, so what do I do. I spend 24/7 looking for minimum wage jobs. Now I am hoping a vocrehab counselor can actually help me.
I am tired of being miserable. I am tired of being put in unfortunate circumstances and then being told by others that it is my fault. No, it is not me that has a problem. This society and people in it corners people into situations and then use it against them later on.
If you are so concerned, maybe you should stop judging people like me and start solving the problem. Start up a business and hire only disabled people. Help disabled people who have ambitions to find a job. There's 2 kinds of help. You can help people be a crutch or you can help people become self sufficient. Which one do you choose. Instead of helping a disabled person become self sufficient you would rather have them live off the government and call them losers. Who's the real loser, the disabled person who wants to work, or employers who get a kick out of discriminating? Some people have no choice but to be on social security. You think I enjoy being miserable. No, I don't. Because remember nobody is owed a job or a living. It's all on your own. What's wrong with helping someone up the ladder. Helping someone make it so they can thrive on their own.
Don't say disabled people don't want to work. There are lots that do like me. But we get shut out by your system. We aren't allowed to play by the rules.
People like yourself are a dime a dozen. I ask myself when I hear your complaints, if I showed up to your grocery store or place of business, would you offer me a job so I could get off my SSI? Or would you throw my application out and then snarl at me for having no choice but to be on SSI. You create your own problem.
Thankfully stuff like vocrehab and local employment agencies for people with disabilities exist, because dear god a disabled person wants to work, oh nooooooooooo can't have that, you're supposed to be on the dole and wear your bum badge proudly cause ya don't want to work, who cares if you get discriminate for a stocking job at the local supermarket, that's your fault.
Am I the only person who understands this stuff? Probably, because I'm in the situation and I am looking for solutions. I'm about results. I don't want excuses, I want answers. I want hypocrisy thrown out the door.
Not really sure who you are replying to or if you went on a general rant--- I am guessing part of your response was to me since you mentioned the free cell phone.
I never once said I think disabled folks are losers and should not work, etc.
I did say that there are sections of society that I believe cannot provide for themselves and hence need society's help-- aka the very elderly and some handicapped individuals.
My mother is disabled-- but she can work-- but since she is limited in her jobs she can pursue-- I provide the bulk of her income. Do I think it is someone else's responsibility to take care of her when she is limited in the types of jobs she can do? Absolutely not. I also don't think just because she has a disability that the government should step in and pay her extra funds when she is able to work a job although the job does not pay awesome.
Now, a family member who is developmentally and physically handicapped will never be able to work. I do believe that society should (with the bulk of the care coming from the family member's family) help to ensure that this family member is not starving or mistreated.
yeah I know, seriously, why is having an entitlement mentality immature, pathetic, frowned upon? where is the logic in society, the world, life owing us nothing when it comes to jobs? I can accept and deal with life owing me nothing in regards to the social area of life, and the same-thing with professional career-jobs, but for just bagging groceries, stocking merchandise, gathering shopping carts, being a cashier? that pisses me off
? I can accept and deal with life owing me nothing in regards to the social area of life, and the same-thing with professional career-jobs, but for just bagging groceries, stocking merchandise, gathering shopping carts, being a cashier? that pisses me off
Get annoyed if you want, but it owes all of us NOTHING 100% of the time.
and why does it owe us nothing? where is the logic in that? you seem to enjoy how it owes us nothing, you and other so-called mature people
Because we can all make the best of our own abilities, education, training, character, and work ethic. Accepting the results is mature; whining about the results is IMMATURE.
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Great Post!
