Job search update

Since my layoff in January, I haven't said much here about job-hunting (unlike during my job search three years ago). My reticence has been largely due to a dearth of substantive responses from potential employers to my applications.

Nine days after my layoff, having updated my resume, I sent out my first overtures to the workplace. In the ensuing five months, I have submitted a total of 40 job applications. From those 40 applications I have gotten exactly three interviews. I did get an offer of a fourth interview, which I declined when told that the salary was non-negotiable at 24K. (The job listing gave that as a minimum, with the salary supposedly "depending on experience and qualifications".) In addition, I got four "screening" phone calls, two of which were basically just checking to see if I was still interested after finding out the jobs entailed low pay and weird shifts, like 10 hour days, 3 on and 3 off, or late evening shifts to midnight and rotating Saturdays (I wasn't); the others would qualify as preliminary "phone interviews".


Results of the interviews? One explicit rejection (the interviewer at least had the decency to call and say I didn't get the job, and offered to pass my resume along to an affiliated company, which was the source of one of the phone interviews). The other two in-person interviews and the two phone interviews simply ended there -- they never called back or sent a rejection letter.

In comparison, during the 5-month span of my 2005 job hunt, I submitted 46 applications, had 12 in-person interviews and 3 phone interviews, and got 6 explict rejections (by phone, email, or mail), and one job offer, which I accepted. About the only comparison that marginally favors the current job hunt is in the matter of simple acknowledgment of receiving an application;
23 of the 46 applications in 2005 elicited no response at all, while only 12 of 38 so far have not produced at least a form email confirmation. (I'm leaving out the last two applications, sent late Friday afternoon, since there hasn't been time yet for them to be acknowledged.)

On the one hand, this is all rather discouraging. On the other hand, I'm getting a fair amount accomplished on various projects at home, so I'm not exactly chafing at the bit to go back to work. On the gripping hand, I miss a steady income, and the unemployment checks ain't gonna keep coming much longer.