Job-Hunting Advice

Good jobs are hard to find, now more than ever. Some retirees just don't understand, because they enjoy the generous pensions of their generation. They keep thinking that 2014 is the same as 1984. Well, guess what, old-timers, times have changed. Jobs are a lot harder to get and keep today than they were in the past. Employers expect their workers to deal with multiple tasks at once, handle technologically complicated tasks, work frequent overtime, and do all this for less money and less benefits and less opportunity than you received in 1984 with your cushy job sitting in an office all day drinking coffee laced with vodka, talking about the football game and managing nothing more complicated than a typewriter and a secretary.

I can relate with today's young people and others who are struggling to find a good job, because I've been there myself, and I have some relevant advice that can get real results.

1. Visit fiverr.com and pay $5 to have a pro refresh and revise your resume. They probably won't get it right, but they tend to have good ideas that you can then incorporate in your own revision.
2. Dress up in a suit and go to events and places where you can network with others and potentially find employment. Sometimes visiting places in person can make a difference, and at any rate it serves as a useful experience and confidence-booster. Hunting for jobs on the Internet can be a waste of time, and most of the jobs one finds on the Internet are of the less desirable variety, with high turnover, low pay and low benefits. That's the reason one continues to see the same companies offering the same positions, week after week.
3. Have business cards printed out at vistaprint.com or another site. I'm not being paid for a plug here, but I did use vistaprint myself, based on the recommendation of a business-savvy gay.
4. If you don't have enough money to meet your bills, go ahead and drop your home internet and just use internet at Starbucks or the local library for free like other people seem to do. In the U.S., home internet service is overpriced and slow. I'd drop my internet too, if I weren't such a geek.
5. While you're out there networking and socializing with a wide variety of different people, see whether you can strike a deal where you rent from another person in exchange for doing housework, cooking meals, running errands and answering phone calls. This arrangement is more common than you might think. Many elderly folks have a lot of disposable income but do not have a partner nor anyone that they can trust. That is a sad symptom of our disposable society where friends drop their friends on the silliest pretext, and families tend to be dysfunctional and split up as soon as the kids are out of the house. There are a lot of lonely people in the world, but some of them are willing to pay for a little help around the house. Being trustworthy and honest and having a nice personality means a LOT and is worth a LOT. Being gay-friendly is a plus, as is being plain old friendly to all kinds of people. I know someone who runs errands for an older man, cooks his meals, answers phone calls, performs yard work and cleans house. In exchange, he gets free room and board, car insurance, medical insurance, a car and a small monthly stipend. He also has enough time to work a separate part-time job on the side. I call that a good deal for both sides, don't you?