Unemployed will not be considered

In a recent article by Chris Isidore, CNN Money, Chris mentions that some companies are not considering unemployed workers. Some of these companies are even going a far as mention in their job posting that "unemployed candidates will not be considered". See Chris article at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Outofwork-job-applicants-told-cnnm-3498252371.html?x=0.

Employers want to know you are employable. They want to see you have been working in your trade recently and that your skills are up to date. Employers do not want candidates who last “worked” in 2008 or 2009 and have done nothing to keep their skills up to date since their last job.

So how do you get around this?

There are two ways. One is to form your own consulting firm and go after your own paying clients. The other is to find an organization that you could volunteer your time. I don’t mean filling bowls at the local soup kitchen, but using your trade and professional skills to help that organization.

Let’s say you are a report writer and have outstanding MS Access, or better yet, SQL Server or Oracle skills. I bet your local church is doing their finances or parishioners’ lists manually. This could be a good opportunity to build them a parishioner database that can print labels for marketing and events. If the system is more complex, maybe it will have email capability to alert parishioners of events and so on. A project like this could take 40 to 120 hours plus ongoing maintenance. You can add the volunteer project to your résumé just like any other job. Not to mention your skills will be sharp and recent as you apply and interview for jobs.

Be honest with the organization about your goals. Let the organization know that this can be a win-win for both of you. If you are still unemployed after completing the project, do another project. I’m sure the local Red Cross, SPCA, Republican Party and Democratic Party, to name a few, could use your professional services. Shortly after you start the project you should update your résumé to reflect the job or project. Once you complete the project you will have a new reference to add to your reference list.

Good luck!