I Am Desperate For A Job
Most days I have a post in my LinkedIn feed along the lines of:
I have been unemployed now for 18 months. My savings are almost exhausted, my family is suffering, and I am becoming quite depressed. I am experienced in Java and C++, please give me a job or forward this to someone who can.
My first reaction is extreme sympathy. That must be an absolutely horrible situation. You cannot help but feel for someone in that position.
My second reaction is that sadly that’s not going to work.
People hire to fit their needs, not yours.
A lot of employers reject people that have large gaps. The worst position to be in during a job search is to be unemployed. Frankly, I don’t see being unemployed as a negative — those are the people that will be most thankful for a job and highly motivated to keep it. But it’s not what you lead with.
One of the rules of interviewing is that you never speak badly of a past employer, no matter how horrible they were. A more important rule is that you never speak poorly of yourself. That begging post just makes people wonder what is so wrong that you can’t find a job in this environment.
There is no reason for someone with programming skills to be unemployed for a lengthy period of time. Create your own job. There are dozens of freelance programming sites, go get a couple of projects. It probably pays better than unemployment and you’ll be making contacts. Do good work. Perhaps you’ll find a new career as a freelancer. Contribute to open source. It will keep your skills fresh and get you exposure. Your GitHub profile is a critical part of your job search.
At the very least, it will put your mind in a positive place instead of spiraling downwards. People can smell desperation.
Here’s a much better approach:
