Has anyone here been unemployed for 3+ months?
I'm literally going crazy sitting at home -- got let go a few months ago.
I have had at least 6-7 in person interviews (with decent companies) -- and at least double that in phone screens but have gotten no return offers. Has anyone been here before? Am I terrible at interviewing or something?
It probably doesn't help either I have a few 1 year tenure at places in a row. IT sales if that helps.
It's getting to the point where I'm considering saying fuck it and learning to code or something. What the hell am I doing wrong...
I applied to Goldman's website cold, no response. 1/3 of their online application was LGBT/diversity questionnaire bullshit. 6 months later an MD reached out to me directly via email after I had already taken another position. I guess that Just keep plugging away at these online.
I would seriously consider applying as bi/pansexual or whatever weird shit these big corporate companies have such an HR boner for these days. They cannot prove your sexuality.
It's all fun and games until your boss sets it up to have you two getting a nice romantic dinner in an exotic location at a nice hotel on a "business trip".
OP - hang in there. I'm trying to make a change (after a voluntary sabbatical) and it is not easy at all. That said, try to keep busy. In addition to applying for jobs, it may be worth considering exploring interests/hobbies. If you are in a city, that could mean free museum days/activities, volunteering and community service or joining a sports team, or just a lot of reading. You may pick up or notice skills you never knew you had and you'll be growing personally. Things like volunteering mean you meet a lot of people and you never know where that next lead will come from. When people ask what you do, tell them the truth. "I got laid off and its been tough but I'm doing x and y etc." You'll be surprised how often someone random will say "oh I know x, send me your resume" or "I have a friend that..."
More individually pursuits that you never had time to do may be another idea. Wanted to learn to swim? Watch some youtube videos and go to the public pool and start in the shallow end/kiddie pool (no joke). Go for a run and work out. You'll be surprised how positive you feel afterwards and that will come off in interviews and meetings. Going into an interview and saying "I got laid off and have been on the beach for 6 months but in that time my running mile is down by a minute and I've volunteered and done x, y, z" shows you have initiative and are getting after it.
Any other questions, PM me.
Good Luck
Classic World of Warcraft is releasing on August 28th, perfect time to be unemployed.
On a more serious note, you say you were in sales. Use your sales skills, build a list of leads either manually or buy one, you can typically get a solid list of 1,000 company decision makers for $0.2/lead. Put them in a CRM - I'd suggest Pipedrive, its super cheap and easy to customize and integrate with your email, and put in the work.
Intro email Follow-up next week Call the third week
Depending on your budget you can also do a letter drop to the companies addressed to the decision maker for $1-2/lead and put in some witty writing about how you sourced the lead and reached out and why this makes you good at sales.
Do this 5hours every day in the morning like its a job and take the rest of the day off to workout, play videos, read a book, study for CFA, start a drop shipping business, learn to code or whatever.
That's what I would do.
I wrote a long post on this here: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/unemployed-and-living-in-parents…
we got into a healthy banter here but this is exactly how I'd go about finding a job.
the short answer is yes, I was laid off during the financial crisis (the week after Thanksgiving btw) and spent 5 months looking for work and failing, it fucking sucks but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
also my last comment here: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/i-really-need-some-major-life-ad…
Thanks for posting those links.
My own 2 cents: hustle. It keeps the money flowing and there is nothing worse than sitting at home doing nothing.
Starting your own thing is not that hard, look at the skills you have. My wife stopped working after kid number one - we started a small property management business. Agents are so shit that it was very easy to pick up friends and families at first. We don't have many clients but it's kind of nice for her to earn her own cash. Some guys are trying to get something off the ground and need help, go do it without a salary for a bit while at the same time pro-actively looking for jobs. Go work for habitat for humanity or other charitable organisation. Key is get out of the house.
In Finance it's not a question of if you will be let go, but of when you will be let go. It's a highly elastic job market. The economy might crash, your bank might have had a bad year, your group might have had a bad year, you might have had a bad year. So many variables that are completely out of your control. The great thing is that it's never a black mark (unless you are a complete ass hole and keep being fired for being a dick, but then your best bet is to just work in a job with no interaction with humans)
You can always teach English somewhere in SE Asia or be an International School Teacher pulling in six figs working around the world and get the Summers off.
Mike Rowe says these are good career options:
You could also join the Military and make good money provided you are healthy enough to get through OCS.
Or...
Go to the dark side and do Affiliate Marketing or some Tai Lopez/Alex Becker/Grant Cardone/Tony Robbins/Tim Ferris/Frank Kern/Russ Ruffino type stuff. Take out the money, flaunt it, sell it, cash out, and Flex on IG to build creds. Pay Russell Brunson and Alex Becker or Tim Ferris some $$$ to do a Testimonial video... done.
Check this out:
If it has a Lambo in the video, it must be good. Six figure agency in no time? Easy.
On a serious note, but you already know this differentialequations12 , and this is more for the WSO community to ponder, Finance in general might be "dead."
Two years ago I took a flight from Dallas to DC sitting in Coach and next to me sat a GS SVP. We got chatting about what he does and how he likes the city. He said he enjoys it and it's expensive but the client work is fun (he was leaving a client meeting to go to another one before heading home to NYC).
Long story short, he told me two stories. One was about his Mentor/Boss who is an MD and the other one is about his friend who studied with him and is now a multi-millionaire.
1) GS MD Story - "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Anna Karenina. His boss was in his mid-50s and the wive took him to the cleaners during the divorce which leaves him without his apartment and other assets. Being mid-50s and with years in IB and no real retirement, the MD is force to rent a small studio to grind until whenever he can stop doing it still tied to that Blackberry lifestyle.
2) Friend who studied Finance - Went to try a few jobs, hated it, and decided to live in the parent's basement. I think there is another fatalistic thread here about someone doing the same but the different here is this dude started an Insurance company and after 4-5 years, the dude is pulling in millions per year in revenue and doing fine. The GS SVP told me that he is happy that his friend did so well and that the investment paid off.
I just got back to USA after a 9 month stint in SE Asia. There are folks there selling knock-off Nike and Adidas shoes for $10k USD/day (yes per day with about a 60-75% margin) in Manila, Malaysian Chinese girl with fake boobs selling sex toys from her Facebook group, and other forms of 'hustle' that people do there as Makeup Artists and Massage Therapists. Not to say they can and so can you but there are options.
Check this out:
Not exactly legal. I know a guy who makes custom shoes who has access to factories (running Adidas, Nike, Puma, etc) but they only do FOB Factory and the buyer is left with the bag to take care of shipping, export, import, and customs. Manila merchandise is all manufactured in-house in Philippines as the tariffs on Chinese imports, even with a Free-Trade agreement, is not fun.
Browsing FB Marketplace for SE Asia in places in Jakarta, Manila, or Kuala Lumpur (Indo, Phil, Msia) gives you an idea of what people want. The poor folks want to look rich so the Gucci and LV does well for the ladies along with Skin Whitening products (because everyone wants to look pale and Chinese) and the fake Jerseys and Shoes does well for the gents. Either way, their Cash on Delivery (COD) setup Shopify front end can produce over $10k/month NET. Also, you don't pay taxes apparently on E Commerce in the Philippines. Good deal right? So what's the downside?
You can make First world profits in a Third World country provided you want to deal with Third world problems, logistics, and most of all the people not only the locals but the foreigners who are very predatory over there as well.
There are always some Gold deal out of Africa for $10k/kg below spot until you realize it's no where near LBMA level and the hops and toll you pay to get goods from point A to B even with some 'Gold Wholesaler' is going to net you next to zero with passive capital risk. Of course, there is always some Coal deal out of Indonesia but I've already written about that in another thread. You can also do the "Lord of War" and attend LIMA in Langkawi, Malaysia to try to broker some deals but again, you are dealing with Asians, and some ex-wife of a General of XYZ Country's Airforce just sold 10 jets from ABC company and collected some 8-figure commission on the deal... because she's the ex-wife of some General of some XYZ country. Rest of the people who want in on the action are Israeli's, who have an Industrial Complex in Philippines with a nice Tax-free Zone, Chinese, and Americans who aren't exactly welcomed at LIMA or SE Asia in General. Israeli gear doesn't sell well in Muslim countries and a lot of inventory carrying happens without any guarantee of payment by the Government and payment is always late if ever rendered at all.
Bottomline... yeah. Make some Tai Lopez videos and call it a day or get a hot SE Asia GF and have her sell sex toys (Fake shoes, Skin whitening, Slim Teas, some MLM that failed in the USA but isn't regulated in SE Asia, etc) on Social Media while you write her copy on Quora/Reddit to pump up her persona as she barely speaks a lick of English. She gets to monetize a commodity, you get to profit from the Joint-Venture, she gets English education for free, and you always have a hot SE Asia chick at the end of the day. Skip the Singaporean girls unless you want to shell out $50k USD to get a Hermes handbag for her B-Day or the like. They are expensive and if beauty is their only commodity, there are other better looking who don't demand those things. As far as innovation goes, I've seen 'startups' that monetizes 'other services' online with a Payment gateway... Digital pimpin at its finest. There's also a dude who shows his rather scandalous journeys around on SE Asia with video captions who get 5 figure views per video. He probably has a couple of rental properties and the videos are informative for whoever else can't travel like that but wants to and wants to vicariously experience different regions of the world.
What I've realized reading and writing some of these things is that... Your mind becomes an echo chamber. Social Media multiples this effect. If you think the world is unfair and there are so many inequities, guess what your Google or YouTube search history will look like? When your mind isn't right, as thebrofessor pointed out multiple times on various threads, it is next to impossible to see life from any other vantage point than your current plight. Yes, it can obviously get worse, but then again, what are these other humans doing and how are they still doing fine? So the world isn't all doom and gloom and someone obviously has it better and someone has it worse. From the Master: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9paVDx1y0A
Someone always has it worse and someone always has it better, always.
Go eat a steak and ponder this:
Kevin Spacey's show on Netflix was one of many positive factors that arguably saved the company and now after certain things came to light his career took another turn. It is what it is. Kate Spade, Robin Williams, Michael Schumacher, Anthony Bourdain, etc. Admired by many and obviously career-wise successful... But such is life.
Often people think "being a Hot Girl" can be a solution to life but for every one "Hot" Instagram girl that "makes it", others become no bodies, webcam whatevers, soft/hardcore blah blah, and etc. Power Law and luck applies to every industry and what they don't tell you about the Hot Girl situation is that they over rely on a depreciating commodity, their looks, and fail to acquire marketable skills so when they get replaced they also have normal people issues with drugs, alcohol, and suicide. My friend who's a Playboy photographer recounts the number of bodies he had to bury and the funerals he had to pay for for the models he has photographed over the years. Hot can be replaced with anything like intelligence, GPA, connections, whatever. There are those with all of the above and still relatively "stuck" in a situation of whatever.
OMG! Isnt' that Bella Hadid? Yes, I saw her in person in Kuala Lumpur at a TAG Heuer party. She's a female with two arms and two legs albeit a nice looking lady. Maybe I should write elsewhere about the funny wild stories of SE Asia...
The whole idea that the Grass is Greener creates a slew of mental fantasies constantly at each level in life so if you are miserable now and your Bank account is increased 7-9 figures USD you won't be a better human being over night but just a more bitter or miserable Rich person until you find that pleasures on that level is fleeting and has no meaning hence why some of these Rich folks end up offing themselves or can't freely travel without an Army of security guards. There will also be an overwhelming sense of the impostor syndrome like being given a Gold Medal without running the Race. Read about Lottery Winners and how many of their lives suck much worse after winning than before. There is no magic bullet, the Grass is never Greener, and if your mind isn't right once you get there it often will fall short of expectations and you will be back to square one thinking that your previous Paradise is Hell and that the next Trinket will fix whatever ailment you have in Health, Wealth, or whatever. It won't, ever. Buddhists and Stoics got some of this right so two things:
Career Idea: They pay $10k or so for "Boardroom Actors" in SE Asia for Caucasians to look the part. I've also met a fair share of LinkedIn Yahoos who have zero technical background but are 'recruited' by 'Blockchain' companies in SE Asia as a 'Consultant' for this or that. I've also ran into tons of VP of "Business Development" for borderline sketch projects in SE Asia looking to debt structure this or that. If one is thin on moral and ethical values, there are many a ways to monetize and make a 'career.' Go do a paddle boarding Business in Bali and promote it on Social Media or teach Muay Thai or Boxing somewhere with a twist for burnt out folks on Wall St seeking some spiritual Ascension/Transcendental Meditation shit for $2-3k and use ClickFunnels or whatever with some Alex Becker or Dan Lok type Evergreen Webinar. Find your Spiritual Center whilst getting Punched in the face and kicked on your shins that was Originally priced at $7777.77 but now for a limited time it's Udemy bargain bin price of $1975.97. Do it a couple of times a year, boom, Rich and you get to Network with folks who buy into this stuff. Heard that there are LinkedIn spiritual leaders that get "tipped" a donation of $10,000 from their loyal followers and folks making ASMR/Mukbang videos. Busy counting 1's and 0's and missing out on all this new age creativity... Such shame! I guess that's why God invented Liberal Arts majors.