It's tough in today's economy to get a job. It's especially tough for people who fall into certain employment categories. There are always some types of jobs available to all, you'd say; waitressing, working at Walmart or in other retail environments, fast food restaurants, secretarial or clerical positions, manual labor positions, etc. For the sake of making this article a little easier to clarify, we'll call these the “non-professional” jobs.
Then there are the “professional” jobs that are available. To most this means having your degree and working from 8:00 to 5:00, five days out of the week. The pay and the benefits are good, as well as paid vacation and life insurance opportunities.
What happens when someone falls “in between” these two categories? A perfect example of this dilemma involves a forty year old woman who is very intelligent, independent and gives herself wholly to everything she's involved in. Following is her story.
Upon graduating from high school, she went straight into a professional office. She had taken an office/business course in high school which allowed her to work half a day throughout her senior year of high school. This turned into a full time position after graduation.
Shortly after that, she marries and moves to another city where she and her husband start a company and begin raising a family of four children. There is no opportunity to pursue her dreams of obtaining a degree. After running their own company for about fifteen years, her husband is suffering from burnout and decides he wants to close the company. After repeated discussions with her husband about trying to downsize and keep the company open, he still decides to close the company.
After this they encounter financial distress and her husband tries to find work, but doesn't try that hard. She in turn starts sending out resumes and does get hired at a large computer manufacturing company. She is hired in a professional, yet lower end position, making decent money, but much less than when she was self employed. During her work experience with this company, she's promoted several times into different management positions and has almost doubled the salary that she started with in less than four years. At this time, after almost four years, she has to resign in order to handle problems at home with two of her oldest children.
Her husband, in the meantime, has tried to start up another company, but is not very successful in doing so. He decides it's best to move the family out of the area to another state where land prices and taxes are cheaper, yet the unemployment rate is very high and wages are very low. One year later, she divorces her husband of twenty four years after having marital difficulties for most of their married life.
Now she has found herself in this area of few professional jobs and low wages and is trying to find work. She has over twenty years of professional, management experience, yet has no degree. At her level of experience, most companies require degrees for their positions. She is raising her two remaining minor children and can't get employed.
She is not considered for any of the “non-professional” jobs because she's “over qualified.” She is not considered for the “professional” jobs as well, I'm assuming because she doesn't have a degree. I'm rather confounded and confused by all of this. This woman is extremely intelligent and has more actual working experience than most college graduates and is being overlooked because of “paper requirements”?
How is she going to financially support her two children? I don't have the answer to this question. Maybe employers should take a hard look at their hiring requirements and look at not only the “paper” (degree) requirement, but more importantly look at the experience and dependability of a person. In the meantime, she continues to apply for work daily and never gives up. She not only sends out resumes in the area where she lives, but in other states as well. Maybe her persistence and determination will pay off, I sincerely hope so.
Perhaps you're struggling in your own job search. I would be very interested in hearing your story. Your story might be deserving of an article for all to read as well. One person can make a difference when another person or persons join in and want to help others. Change can happen.
