The Unemployment Hustle
Latest news from the trenches about scams in the employment world and cancelled jobs fairs etc
Being unemployed is a tedious and frustrating process. Despite being an ambient musician, podcaster, and writer, I find that looking for work takes up more time than having a job.
Most days last week, for example, I was up earlier than usual—around 6 am—spending a few hours going through various job mailing lists. This process usually takes until about 9:30 or 10:00 am, after which I would go for an hour-long walk for a break before coming back for more of the s same.
On Thursday this week, I had a bit of variety after learning about an NHS jobs fair in the centre of Ashton Under Lyne, scheduled to start at 10:00 am. Knowing it was a bit of a walk to get there, I left home at 8:15 am and arrived there around 9:15 am. After resting for about thirty minutes, I went in, only to find out at 10:15 am that the fair had been cancelled with nobody informed, resulting in a wasted morning and a lot of frustration.
The rest of the week was fairly standard, apart from a few hopeful leads. I am optimistic about two potential interviews in the next week or so, but we will see how those turn out.
One thing I have noticed more frequently in the past few years on the job market is the prevalence of dodgy sales jobs. For instance, last week, a company contacted me about an admin job and asked if I could attend a webinar followed by an interview. About half an hour before the scheduled time, I discovered that the "admin job" was a door-to-door charity canvasser position. Needless to say, I declined.
To make matters worse, I got a text message the day after from another company with the same pitch inviting me to another webinar hosted by their Chief Executive who was listed as the same gentleman. Incredible honestly and not in a nice way.
In addition to traditional job hunting, I have started applying for freelance work through a few extra agencies and advertising my skills as a freelance podcast editor on social media. While nothing substantial has come from these efforts yet, I remain hopeful.
On one platform, someone responded to one of my posts with, "You are making very good podcasts, but the show is very few. Where can I get your podcast link?" Anyone who knows me knows that I have been successfully podcasting for over eight years. My podcast, Spoken Label, has over 400 episodes on all the usual networks. I replied, "I have done over 400 episodes of Spoken Label. What are you talking about?" It turned out to be a poorly executed podcast promotion scam, which was very annoying.
What doesn't break you certainly makes you more cynical if you are not careful. With each experience, even though my scepticism may increase, my sense of humour and determination remain intact. Today, like every day, will see me back on the job hunt, ready to face the next wave of dodgy offers and potential scams.
The thing I’ve learnt from this is to be aware of exactly what you are stepping into an interview wise, the sales job I spotted a red herring within about two minutes when they started talking about sales commissions which certainly wasn’t in the communication and allowances from travelling from address to address. Something I will keep monitoring going forward.
On a personal note, the good thing is my second novel ‘Death’ is starting to look good, however. More news to follow on that later in the summer and I have got an album out on 10 June 2024 from my ambient project Ocean in a Bottle called “The Reality of Global Warming” on Camembert Electrique Records.