Jobless and Losing Confidence

[Silentlyfor]

I blew 2 job interviews in a row today. The second job I was being interviewed for I thought was a sure thing (Call center and I was a call center supervisor. Go figure). But, I stammered, I was barely able to put two words together from time to time and I even forgot the interviewer's name during the first interview. I'm starting to think I just suck and will be unemployed for years to come. This is the worst I've felt about being unemployed ... ever. I mean, I'm in my mid-30's now, just graduated with a degree and now I feel I have nothing to show for the hard work I put into academics. I'm at a loss for words as to how terrible I feel and I wish I could just get a job and make things better.

 

This wouldn't be such a big deal but I need a job in order to get a new aparement since my current building manager is not renewing the lease for my place at the end of May. My roommate and I are trying to find a new place but, unfortunately, I don't have an income and applying for a new appartment will be impossible if I can't prove I'm working at a stable job. This means I'll be an older guy moving back with his mother ... like a child would when things get rough.

 

I can't believe this entire time being on my own was just some sort of "false start". Here I thought I would never have to be a burden on my mother again since my youth and now here I am again, back where I started. I'm jobless and, while I have a number of skills that allow me to work in an office environment, nobody cares to hire someone as old as myself for an entry-level position. Let's face it ... I'm a loser. I'm always going to be one and getting confidence up to where I will have a job and make any "real" money is for people who have done way more with their lives than I have.

 

Seriously. The best most "marketable" job I've got in my 30 some-odd years of existence is as a supervisor at a pizza joint's call center. Even with a degree, I'm not going anywhere with my life and this job search is pointless. I'm supposed to be a man. A man at my age isn't this much of a failure. What is the point of getting out finding a job ... when I know I'll just end up in a disgusting food industry job or a demeaning customer service job. And I'm not even getting call backs for those jobs. I just want to stop. I hate job searching and I just want to stop looking for work and do nothing. That's what I really want.

[shebrew]

hi!

 

please believe that i know where youre coming from. i have been unemployed for 6 months. I have a profile on all the the job search sites, never turned down an interview-regardless of the pay and i didnt find a job until 2 weeks ago. to add insult to injury im a single mother so i have to provide my child as well. moving back to my parents was an option and let me tell you...theres no shame in having to go back home. you are not a burden to your parents. it'll be temporary and youll be back on your feet in no time.

 

i know its depressing and you feel like a failure but youre not. this is a really bad time for the economy. honestly, the only thing that kept me positive was this little thing i kept telling myself.. "you havent found a job because you have not yet interviewed for the job that is for you"

 

i too was very depressed, i felt like everything around me was falling apart, my relationship with my bf, my relationship w my daughter, my social life, my money....everything! and my bf would tell me to take a walk, to exercise, to go to the dog park....to blow off steam. once i did, my depression just kind of started coming off....

 

i promise, everything will be ok, this too shall pass.

[Iggy5129]

Get a new haircut, new interview outfit and change your attitude. Of course no one will hire someone who thinks they are a loser. People pick up on energy subconsciously.

 

Do your research and prepare for the interview. Never assume you have the job in the bag. Bring a notebook and copies of your resume. Come prepared with 5 questions for the interviewer.

 

Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself will not get you a job. Believe me I get how you feel right now. I was unemployed for 5 months and it totally drained my self esteem and I gained 20 pounds! The moment I started doing things to boost my confidence before an interview I got a job. And the best, highest paying job of my life at that. I'm also 30 (well 31).

 

All these jobs are not the ones for you if you didn't get them. You will find the right place eventually. Just relax and try to do anything you can to boost your confidence. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

 

One last weird thing that works and helps you project confidence is standing with your arms stretched up, legs spread making an 'X' with your body right before you go into the interview (obviously outside where no one from the company can see you). It tricks your brain into feeling confident.

 

Believe in yourself and stop spiraling. Good luck!! You can do it!

[Maggl]

Oh no, sorry to hear I used to have major confidence issues in interview-situations, but I have some tips that really helped me (no particular order), and now it's child's play:

- try to wear interview-clothes regularly (so you're confident when you're wearing them and it doesn't feel weird),

- read up on the interviewer, company and future projects (even though they might not ask about those things, you'll feel super confident to know those things in advance just in case),

- don't treat the interview as an interview, but as a normal conversation and just normally talk to the person,

- think about your answer to potential questions in advance, so you don't panic if you don't have a good response right away

- last but not least: Ever heard of "fake it till you make it"? Sounds weird, but if you're insecure, just pretend like you're not and try to behave like a super-confident person. It works!

 

And for the job-search in particular: Maybe that's not your first choice, but if you have a hard time finding a job: contact a company you like and you're interested in, and offer to do an (potentially unpaid) internship for a month or two. It's hard for them to say no to free workers. And if you work your ass of and show them your skills and that you fit in the team, they might hire you after. And if not, you have the chance to do some networking, and get some more experiences in your CV, which might look better than being unemployed.

Good luck!

[LiamLondon]

I blew 2 job interviews in a row today. The second job I was being interviewed for I thought was a sure thing (Call center and I was a call center supervisor. Go figure). But, I stammered, I was barely able to put two words together from time to time and I even forgot the interviewer's name during the first interview. I'm starting to think I just suck and will be unemployed for years to come. This is the worst I've felt about being unemployed ... ever. I mean, I'm in my mid-30's now, just graduated with a degree and now I feel I have nothing to show for the hard work I put into academics. I'm at a loss for words as to how terrible I feel and I wish I could just get a job and make things better.

 

This wouldn't be such a big deal but I need a job in order to get a new aparement since my current building manager is not renewing the lease for my place at the end of May. My roommate and I are trying to find a new place but, unfortunately, I don't have an income and applying for a new appartment will be impossible if I can't prove I'm working at a stable job. This means I'll be an older guy moving back with his mother ... like a child would when things get rough.

 

I can't believe this entire time being on my own was just some sort of "false start". Here I thought I would never have to be a burden on my mother again since my youth and now here I am again, back where I started. I'm jobless and, while I have a number of skills that allow me to work in an office environment, nobody cares to hire someone as old as myself for an entry-level position. Let's face it ... I'm a loser. I'm always going to be one and getting confidence up to where I will have a job and make any "real" money is for people who have done way more with their lives than I have.

 

Seriously. The best most "marketable" job I've got in my 30 some-odd years of existence is as a supervisor at a pizza joint's call center. Even with a degree, I'm not going anywhere with my life and this job search is pointless. I'm supposed to be a man. A man at my age isn't this much of a failure. What is the point of getting out finding a job ... when I know I'll just end up in a disgusting food industry job or a demeaning customer service job. And I'm not even getting call backs for those jobs. I just want to stop. I hate job searching and I just want to stop looking for work and do nothing. That's what I really want.

 

There may now be an issue of overqualified for call centres, underqualified to use your degrees.

 

These days when you have a degree, job interviews in customer service or call centres can start becoming about convincing employers you're not doing them as a 'stop gap' for something bigger. Preparing a spiel that makes it sound like your taking the job to learn and move around the company is one way around this. I suspect the stammering is more to do with you deep down realising you haven't considered that angle enough. This probably wasn't an issue before the degree as these jobs made sense. Honestly, if you have a solid answer to 'Are you now overqualified?' you probably won't stammer.

 

Consider Toastmasters and public speaking clubs. Doing off the cuff speeches regularly may be enough to smooth things out - but it's no guarantee to translate into good interviews unless you take care of business with respect to the 'overqualified' issue.

 

Also consider what types of call centre etc you go for. I had a call centre job in market research in college - many colleagues were ppl your age in a bind in their careers that moved back to their main work 6 months later. Supervisors and the HR never batted an eyelid about that as long as the guys that joined were good at the job. Down the road there were call centres for US tech firms where they were far stricter on that. Makes a difference knowing where to go.

 

Once you get that service job THEN start looking for the degree based job - speak to others in your area/degree about how they got in. When I started my career after graduation a lot of it boiled down to going through the right channels and in many ways ditching a lot of generalised advice that didn't apply to my industry and listening to industry insiders. Do this and your age won't be an issue. My suspicion is instead you're just banging out applications into the dark - scattergunning a CV/resume that turns everyone off won't improve matters. I've seen CVs where outside of call centre work the person has 0 chance of getting a job - remember 100*0 or even 1000000*0 is still 0. And I'd highly doubt you're making schoolboy errors like wearing the wrong clothes, turning up with your d ick or p ussy showing, or swearing in interviews - you would never have been a supervisor or ever employed ever for that matter.

 

This hypersensitivity over 'fit' dominates markets now and is what makes graduates' lives a misery. It's got f uck all do with competition and it's not personal. Rather than feeling sorry for yourself use this knowledge to gain edge over others that consistently take the wrong routes. While they plug away hopelessly, get into the right places and sort it out.

 

Remember that living with mum=less expenses. It wasn't until my 30s that I saved as much per month as I had been saving as an undegrad. Seriously. Just remember tons of people wind up back with parents these days. I've worked with people that are good at their job, using their degree, earning lots, the whole lot then BAM their employer makes a f ucked up move and/or their market is weak and their only option is to go back to uni and switch fields. Particularly if they are new to the field and the employer isn't on the ball, thus ruining their experience profile.

 

The best advice I would have is do it discreetly. If it's back to the town of your childhood don't have every busybody d ickhead making it their business to offer uninformed advice every time you go out. As I say try find people in your field and sort out your main search that way.

[mustlovedogs]

I agree with a prior comment to make an interview conversational. Remember 2 things: if you get an interview, then you're already qualified. The interview is just to gauge fit.

[Vicky89]

Sounds to me like you just went to college for something that you are now finding out isn't really what you want to do with your life ?

 

You make it seem like mid 30's is 83 or something.

 

I graduated college with a few people that were in their mid 40's and are now employed making really good money in the health care field. For them this was their second career, their kids were grown or pretty grown and they wanted a change from what they were doing. So if they could do that then so can you.

 

Nothing wrong with moving in with your mom, going back to college and studying something you like that might only require 2 to 3 years to get done and by 39 or 40 you get a job that you actually feel more passionate about.

 

You do not have to get into debt to do this either, a two year degree in any medical field job is going to provide you good pay and can be done from even a community college, you don't need to get into heavy debt at all and can just get a part time job anywhere to pay for your gas etc, while you finish.

 

You are only 30 something, it's way to early to throw in the towel and just mope around feeling sorry for yourself, that just creates a situation that's very hard to get out of.

 

Also, I want to add that while I graduated and my chosen field has a good job market, it still took me 6 months to find a job, and that was with putting in applications every single week. I'm fine now, but it took a while.

 

So don't expect instant results. To add in, interviewers will also keep your application for a good long while even when you do not get chosen for the job, I know a guy that got rejected for a job and several months later was called back from the same people that told him "no" asking if he was still interested.

[Silentlyfor]

Thanks all. You've given me great advice and I think my circumstances are not so bad now.

 

It turns out I DID get the call center job and I'm going to start work at the beginning of the month. I'm likely going to have to work for a couple of weeks to build a 'moving out' fund before I get back into my own place but it looks like things are looking up. This job is going to be a sort of 'gap' job while I look for something much better.

 

Sounds to me like you just went to college for something that you are now finding out isn't really what you want to do with your life ?

 

You make it seem like mid 30's is 83 or something.

 

I graduated college with a few people that were in their mid 40's and are now employed making really good money in the health care field. For them this was their second career, their kids were grown or pretty grown and they wanted a change from what they were doing. So if they could do that then so can you.

 

Nothing wrong with moving in with your mom, going back to college and studying something you like that might only require 2 to 3 years to get done and by 39 or 40 you get a job that you actually feel more passionate about.

 

You do not have to get into debt to do this either, a two year degree in any medical field job is going to provide you good pay and can be done from even a community college, you don't need to get into heavy debt at all and can just get a part time job anywhere to pay for your gas etc, while you finish.

 

You are only 30 something, it's way to early to throw in the towel and just mope around feeling sorry for yourself, that just creates a situation that's very hard to get out of.

 

Also, I want to add that while I graduated and my chosen field has a good job market, it still took me 6 months to find a job, and that was with putting in applications every single week. I'm fine now, but it took a while.

 

So don't expect instant results. To add in, interviewers will also keep your application for a good long while even when you do not get chosen for the job, I know a guy that got rejected for a job and several months later was called back from the same people that told him "no" asking if he was still interested.

 

You're half right. My degree is in the Social Sciences (which I love) but I'm finding it's not as marketable right from the get go. I still plan on going back for an after degree in a STEM field - BSc in Statistics - and then I'm likely going to go to grad school. My academic career doesn't seem to be over but I'm more than happy to continue exercising that option for myself. This does mean I'm likely going to be in my 40's by the time I'm finally done but it will certainly be fulfilling.