Landing job difficulty......

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bookywebbymad

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Sorry, wasn't sure which sub-forum to put this topic in.....

Do any of you hold "decent" job? Meaning not jobs that make less than, say for example 50,000? If so, what kind of jobs do you hold?

This is the first time I've ever participated in a "deaf" forum so to speak..........

I'm hard of hearing, I speak normally, it's the listening that gets me. I can converse reasonably well, provided there's no background noise and it's one on one. Anything else, I'm lost. I can't handle phones at all, and I hate the TTY, never used it as matter of fact. The only phone that I kind of use is the Cap-Tel phone that I recently got in Janauary. It's ok. I don't know how to sign. Nor do I want to learn.

I graduated last year from a fifth-tier college, and still haven't landed a job! I have no special skills, which is my own fault.

I'm really desperate for a job now.....I mean, I need health insurance and so on.....or want it. Starbucks has this great program where they even provide it to their part time workers, but the interactions with the customers, I couldn't handle it!

And the admin. jobs? OMG. They require phones, phones, and phones!

What's a gal to do???????????? Any advice would be really appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've applied to retail jobs but since I have like no job history, so even retail jobs are really hard to land. It's so depressing the idea of working at Target........makes you look like such a loser. Though, I've kind of reached to the point where I'm considering it.

I don't know. I've never really interacted with other hearing impaired people, cause a) I don't know sign lanaguage, and b) was intimidated it by it, of sorts.

Any job advice? And no I don't say that I'm hard of hearing on the resumes.
 
I'm not hoh, but here's a question I'd ask of anyone:

What is it that you most love to do? What would you have the passion to put in the hours to not just learn, but to truly master?

I ask this question because if there should be challenges ahead of you (education, more skills to learn, persistence needed in landing the job), that can help to give you the resolve it takes to get there.

BUT...let's see what some of the people who are actually deaf or hard of hearing have to say. What do I really know? ;)
 
What's your degree in? I know people from first and second tier schools who have trouble finding a job because they majored in history or sociology.
 
Response....

Um, it's in E-Business.......yes, my school did offer a bacholor's in it.

Now before you launch into me going into web development jobs and so on.......

I rarely ever practice those skills! For some reason, I'm never able to stick to anything long enough to be able to learn it decently.

Like PHP/MySQL..........omg! THere are thousands of gigs in this area, and I have thousand of books, but that doesn't help! I try to do it one chapter a day and so on.........but for some reason I always end up not sticking to it......


Yes, I'm aware, totally my fault.
 
Some Ideas

If you're desperate for money and such right now you have several options:

1. Go on disability income (not an option I really like, but that's my opinion, and besides if you really need the money it IS an option you have available)

2. Go to employment firms like Kelly Services, Manpower and Adecco. All of them have websites on the internet ( like http://www.manpower.com ). Check out your yellow pages too. Because you have a bachelor's degree, you might have a little luck. You can end up with temp jobs to keep you afloat. Depending on what you tell each what you're looking for, you'll get temp offers here and there. Some of them might be really lousy "Help Wal-Mart stock their shelves for a night" jobs, but it is money. Sometimes you'll get much better jobs too.

One bit of advice. Always remember that employment firms first serve themselves, then serve the companies with job openings. After that, they "serve" you. Sometimes they'll help. Steer clear of lousy employment firms like Labor Ready. You'll get paid and treated like garbage.






As for finding a job in the long term, you have an E-business degree. That is good. Some things you might want to do are:

1. Decide on a profession or a specific line of work. It seems to me that you're not certain yet, and that's totally okay. If I'm wrong, my bad. Once you decide on a line of work, determine the skills you need and develop them.

If you're going into the nuthouse with PHP/MySQL, then anything involving such probably won't be a good job for you. If you happen to really like writing, then maybe you can start to work on figuring out how you can get into writing sales copy for business sites. Sales copy like (and better than) this: http://drcinc.us/market-research.php?source=aw&ag=eftvmktng&kw="how+to+market"

If you really have no idea what you want to do, seek out a career consultant. Ask me if you're not sure where to find one. They'll give you tests to see what you might like.

2. Go to your alma mater and talk to their career services office if they have one. Usually they'll try to help you find a job and should have connections. Colleges always want to say that they've put their students into jobs. It makes them look better.

3. Consider an internship to develop your skills. Sometimes it'll stink if you take a low-paying internship, but the payoff can be pretty good in the long run. It's like someone at 30 quitting work and taking student loans for four years for a college degree. In the end, even if that person goes back to college at 30, they make thousands and thousands more in their lifetime because of that decision. Your alma mater might help you find an internship too.

By the way, what kind of courses did you take for your E-Business degree?
 
Response II.............

Endymion,

Thanks for your response. I don't need to go on disability income, but thanks for enlightening me about this option. Though, this is very last resort for me, hopefully, knock on wood, I'll never have to use it.

Now, please don't say that I'm being negative and so on......I'm just asking questions and responding back and forth......

I have applied for some jobs that were posted by staffing companies, and never received a response. My background has no special skills nor any substantive job employment......which makes it twice as hard....


What did you mean by this sentence, "If you're going into the nuthouse with PHP/MySQL, then anything involving such probably won't be a good job for you." I'm not sure what you're trying to say.....

I don't know if I like writing per se......but my grammar skills are god awful! Hence the reason why I've never applied for copy writing jobs, editorial and so on.......you really need a very strong grasp of grammar, and yours truly is absolutely useless in it. Ditto for mathematics.

Career consultant? That's an interesting option......I am asking you, where do I find one indeed...

I did use my school's career employment center, but they weren't very helpful.........I mean they tried but they didn't have connections and so on....it was always on......"let's see what you want to do, and let's fix your resume" kind of gig........nothing else beyond that. It may make them look better in saying that they want to help you to get a job, but doing it is entirely another story.

I am willing to consider an internship..........really and truly. When I said that I was desperate for a job, I didn't mean in money wise, though I want to move forward and become financially independent!!!!!!

The only thing......is that........since I'm hard of hearing, I won't get that much benefit out of it. I mean, I can't eavesdrop (in a good way!), understand the interaction, know what is being said, see how the meetings are resolved and so on....do you get my point? The mileage that a normal hearing person would gain out of it would vastly outweigh what I would get out of it.. I mean, if two people were talking right in front of me, I could hear what they were saying but I would have no clue what they were saying to each other. Hence the limited knowledge gain from it.

However, it would be something to put on my resume and fill it out!

I can't seem to find an internship that either says you have to have a certain GPA, which mine is totally crappy (my fault!!!!, I got that point)........or be in school........which unfortunately, I've already graduated!

And let's face it, most i.t. kind of internships want you to already have the skills! So.......what else do I consider?

By the way, I'm currently enrolled in an online course for project management from UCLA's Extension.......but even I'm wondering what benefit I would get from this.......

The few people that I did ask about project management as a career have told me that it's pretty much a phone, phone, phone kind of job. Obviously since you have to keep track of everyone and everything, since it's part of the job description, it would make sense that huge amount of phone usage is expected...

When I got the CapTel phone, my hopes were really high..........but.......it's ok......the problem is that there's always going to be a pause while you're waiting for the written version to come up and sometimes you have to ask them to repeat again because they didn't "translate" correctly and so on.......
The advantage is that, I can talk orally and they can hear my voice, it's just the pause and slowness of it that gets to me. But in the grand scheme of things, it's better than nothing........at least I can use it.

I don't know.
 
The way you describe yourself as hard of hearing, having trouble w/ phones etc. pretty much describes me as well. I wear hearing aids, have trouble with phones, meetings and whatnot. I do have a well paying job in the IT field (at a well-known insurance company), but the biggest reason I got this job was as a result of a summer internship/co-op program while I was in school. When I was hired full-time, I joined a team that hadn't worked with me before and wasn't accustomed to my needs. On the first day, I pretty much told them that I would have trouble using the telephone and participating in conference calls. It wasn't a problem at all for them and I rely mainly on e-mail, face to face meetings, and IM.

As for your situation, I would just keep trying - something is bound to come up. If you know someone who works at a company that you're interested in, send them your resume and maybe they could pass it around. Don't worry about being HoH - if the employer likes you enough, they won't care and will try to accomodate you however they can. Hopefully this helps somewhat.
 
I know its hard! .. I'm 41 now .. have a good IT job .. at a large company, Wife that makes almost as much money as me ... no kids ... nice house..

now 20 years ago .... Lived at home until 28 ... never did graduate from school .. worked at the local nursey and Shop Rite market .. DWI .. lots of other touble ...

my secert ... I worked hard! yea I had crappy jobs etc .. but I did them well! and for a while 3 at a time! I hated school, but somehow did not mine working 80 hours a week .. finally got a "real" job thu my father, made no real money but learned a lot .. got another job at a consulting frim, got raise after raise *and they were telling other employees raises where on hold* :nana: left there and got a big jump in pay, ..

so don't be afraid to take that job at Target .. work hard... but dont get stuck there!

Joef
(SSD for the past year and BAHA hearing aid)
 
Have you tried Vocational Rehabilitation in your state? Ask if you don't know what it is.

It sounds like you should apply at Target. Don't ignore your hunches. It's not a permanent place. A lot of people have to work somewhere before they find their real job. Do it. It's not permanent.

It sounds to me you need help to clarify what you want to do with your degree or even if it is something non-related to what you graduated with. Vocational Rehabilitation might help you with that.

I know how you feel about communication and phone work. I also know how you feel about people seeming to want to help when you ask for help, but finding you the job is another story. My college seemed like that. I didn't like the lady, and it was just one lady and her assistant.

Maybe vocational rehabilitation will help you choose a career because you have degree right now. For me, it was hard with my first counselor who seemed to want to help me look for a job, but really just suggested places to go to. Then, they put me with an employment agency that helps people with disabilities. They keep in contact with you if they are good about it, but I find that they are the same in that you have to keep submitting your applications to jobs like you do on your own. They will look for jobs too. The nice thing is that they migh have other help like with the resume (which I liked a lot), help you with answering common questions. etc. My VR counselor doesn't seem to care how I am doing. They forget about you. That was my experience. It's worth a try to see where they can connect you to.

Try them. Apply @ Target!
 
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