This image shows the number of submittals I've had in my job search. I track three pieces of data; the number of interviews, the number of submittals and the number of applications. I call anything where I am sending someone my resume an application. Honestly, I consider this stat meaningless because most of them just end up in a huge pile, but I track it because I might get audited for taking unemployment.
To determine how I am doing in the job search, I measure interviews/weeks of the period (I've had three interviews in seven weeks) and the number of submittals per week. A submittal is where a recruiter picks up the phone, calls me, and says they're sending my resume to an employer. Its essentially the pool from which I get interviews.
Technically, I can get a job sending a job application directly to an employer, but in my experience of multiple years of contracting, that almost never happens. I get my jobs through recruiters. Its like symbiosis. If they're doing well, I do well. If they're not doing well, I'm screwed. And interviews are like lightning. The stars all have to align just right, and tracking it as a meaningful statistic is a bit hard. Thus, to me, the most reliable stat to track is the submittal graph.
As you can see, there was a strong initial surge when I started my job search at the beginning of Feb, with a spike in the third week. March, with the exception of the first week has been abysmal.
Now to understand the process of getting a job, particularly in contract work, you have to understand how most business people think. First, irrespective of economic conditions, there are seasons of plenty and seasons of drought. Good luck finding a job from November through Jan. Yeah, you can get them but they're hard to get. July is also a pretty barren month. I guess its the heat or the number of people on vacation.
Significant business decisions are made based on the fiscal calendar, which varies from company to company but generally centers on either Jan 1 or October. That means that departments that have allocated budgets often see a surge in hiring in February or in the month preceding or immediately following a quarter.
Thus bringing up my primary concern looking at that graph. This is also bolstered by talking to my contacts among recruiters. Right now, people just aren't hiring. That's obvious based on the number of submittals shown above. The recruiters, who look at these numbers even more than I do, currently theorize that a lot of employers are waiting for first quarter performance to determine a lot of decisions.
OK, well the first quarter was kind of fubared by the last quarter of last year. There were a lot of lay offs this first quarter, which means that the shockwave from the stock collapse last october is still carrying forward. Which in turn means that if the first quarter performance for most companies is bad, not only will they not be initiating new processes (and thus hire new people) but they will also probably lay more people off.
The more people that get laid off, the greater the labor pool is, which means the more competition out there of people getting jobs.
So what do I do about this? Well there are several steps I can take. My current plan is that I will be lowering my asking price by two dollars in April and another three in May. The problem with this, is that if I lower my asking price TOO much, recruiters wonder if I have something to hide. Conversely, employers ARE asking for lower prices. My submital rate would have been higher if I'd asked for less. Its a delicate balance and I'm getting positive feedback from recruiters thus far, but then again, they get paid more when I get paid more so they're potentially a little biased. The other thing that is a problem in this is that my productivity is directly proportional to the amount I believe my employer respects me, and there are few better ways to say how much you respect your employee than what you are willing to pay them. Money talks. Shiny little certificates of appreciation are nice, but walk.
The second prong in my strategy is to do a lateral move into Project Management. The problem is that this is a bit like getting a credit card. It takes credit to get credit. It takes experience to get experience. Thus, once I graduate and have more time, I'm going to be willing to take a DRASTIC pay cut to get entry level project management experience. I need it to be able to take the PMP...because if I pass the PMP I can earn a signficant amount more money and get a much more stable (to me) career than tech writing.
The third prong of my strategy is to perform networking. The truth is that I suck at networking even though it is the best way to get a job. But we'll see how that works. Once I graduate, I plan on joining the two relevant trade associations for my vocations, the Society of Technical Writers and the Project Management Institute. I'm hoping if I start going to chapter meetings something might come up. Of course that plan involves $300 so I'm hoping to avoid having to do it for now.
The long term toll is starting to have its effects as well. Jennifer's positive reinforcement, the time since the last gap in employment occurred, and exercize have all helped delay this but they could only delay it for so long. The first manifestation usually takes the form of a shift in my sleep schedule. Right now I'm going to bed on average of 3-4am, and getting up at 10-11am. Not that bad, but it can get much worse. The second manifestation is a dramatic decrease in my motivation and productivity. I'm hoping to reduce this by setting strict daily and weekly goals but so far I'm slowly losing in that sphere as well. The third thing is a heavy tendency toward "emo" ness where my emotions become more eratic and prone to overcome reason. Again, Jennifer and the other two factors have helped with this, but time is doing damage.
This weekend for date night we finally set up our Wii. Jennifer kicked my behind on most things but Boxing and that was because I was a tasmanian devil. Exercize or no, I can only do that for so long as can see. It is VERY tiring. Plus it kind of feels wrong to pound the crap out of Jennifer's female Mii. Watching her play Akami was cool though. I am weird in that I enjoy watching other people play computer based rpg's far more than I enjoy playing them. In fact, I HATE to play them because of the part of the game model that involves 'rabbit killing' or killing/fighting stupid pointless monsters so you can get an increase in strength. I want all the parts of any game I play to be RELEVANT thank you very much, but I guess that's just me.
We also watched via netflix "Robin Hood Season 2" which is quite good, and "There Will Be Blood" which I thought was moderately good and Jennifer HATED. I can't say I blame her. There is like....one character in the entire movie who isn't an evil bastard, and that's a kid.
School is going well. I'm nearly done and greatly looking forward to graduating. Thanks to Jennifer's tutoring, I got a 90 on the last quiz. The bad news is that the final will consist of only TEN QUESTIONS and is worth forty percent of the grade. Also the math in this class is harder than any other. I used to make fun of games because they had increasing difficulty in bad guys which was just silly compared to real life.
I don't do that any more. Not after the routine increases in difficulty and 'boss fights' (ie finals) in my experience with school.
