Jobs

I really need to find a new job. I've been applying online for government jobs, because I once worked for the government and supposedly have preference for getting a job because of that. My current job might be going away soon and I'm getting desperate. I live in a small town with not many jobs. Being avoidant means I have no friends and nobody for references. And of course no networking for jobs. This disorder is truly crippling. It's bad enough that it's ruined my personal life, but it's made it so darned difficult to get by. Any tips for avoidants?

Interesting because I am also looking for a job and find it so hard to get. As an an avoidant I am at marked disadvantage.. I don't present that winner thing that everyone is looking for. I also don't have strong references.

Government now is really tough.. I work for the government and we are under threat of cuts.. so no one really wants to hire unless they have to. Couple of suggestions, can you do temp work? I have found that if you work for a temp agency for 6 weeks or so you can qualify for unemployment benefits. Thus, you get 27 weeks. You can really stretch that out. And get a reference out of it.. usually the temp agency.

Then also... I got a job this way... if you get on unemployment.. you find the right small employer volunteer to work for 6 weeks for free. (you will be on unemployment) and then after 6 weeks the person either gives you a killer reference or hires you. Win-win for everyone. I was betting the guy would be too lazy to kick me out after 6 weeks and he was. Most large employers won't go for something like that because of a law that requires you to be paid if you work... FLSA... but small employers often don't know about it.

(I'll just give some interview tips and let others talk about other issues. Job difficulties is a pretty widely discussed subject, as you can imagine, in this forum.)

One thing I wasn't aware of back in my earliest avoidant job hunting days is how important body language and eye contact are during an interview. Apparently most avies suck at this. Somehow you'll have to get someone to help you out with this or at least find net resources.

People might also pick up on an avie's excessive environmental monitoring.

When talking be very careful to avoid coming across as too negative. Employers are on the look out for hater/whiner/passive aggressive types. Also make sure you can demonstrate some empathy if you have to explain how you dealt with a difficult co-worker, and be careful not to portray yourself as too passive.

Thank you! Some very useful tips here. I'm an administrative assistant so I could probably get temp work. I have a good review that I am wondering can serve as a reference.. it's in writing. The company no longer has a facility where they once did, and I only worked there a short time. The good thing about working for the government is that they want to use your last government jobs as references and mine are all retired now I think.

I'm sorry if this post is repetitious.. I did a search on jobs but nothing came up? Now I see them.. d'oh.

I have a very F'ed up situation with a narcissistic boss who is incredibly lazy and irresponsible and is probably going to spend himself into oblivion. I need to get out of this in the worst possible way.

I just had a phone interview (unexpected, it actually got me up from bed! lol) this morning. Awful, awful, awful. And it was for temporary entry-level-ish administrative work. A downgrade from the work that I was doing before. Often times I could barely form coherent sentences and had to rephrase what I was saying. The words just weren't coming to my head. I hate having to think on my feet. Part of it has to do with me being rusty since I haven't had an interview in like 6 months. But I've ran into this problem before in interviews where my brain just shuts off and I have to scrape through interviews in an incoherent mess. It can be difficult to follow what I'm saying in interviews. Maybe it's an Aspie thing (I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism as a child. Not much was known about Asperger's then. I might have it) But it just seems even worse on the phone to do these things than in-person. This was definitely me at my worst though. I can name some interviews in the past where I was much more competent. A lack of preparation partly had to do with it and I've always felt awkward in phone interviews.

And the kicker is that it was a long-ass interview so after about 20 minutes my prepaid ran out of airtime (###$ I didn't expect a phone interview out of the blue like that!). They left me a voice mail with the extension so I called them back on my parents' landline to complete the interview. And on top of that there were often times where I had to repeat myself because they couldn't hear me on my cell (I barely used my smartphone since buying one 3 months ago so I never noticed this problem before). Part of it could be that I'm soft-spoken but who knows. And when I switched to the cordless phone (using my parents' landline) it was the opposite problem. I could barely hear her. I also heard laughing in the background. I hope that wasn't some other employee there overhearing our conversation (hopefully I wasn't on speaker).

###$ this is so humiliating. I have a four year Bachelor's Degree, graduated with an above-average GPA, had a decent gig working in my field for like 9 months (which didn't last) and had a great performance appraisal from that (I got that job through a connection. I wouldn't have otherwise got that job because the impression I gave in the interview wasn't that good and my meager work history and references work against me). And yet situations like this make me feel like an incoherent idiot. I feel like all of my accomplishments don't mean $#%^ and that I've been wasting time and money on getting an education for nothing. I look at myself and I see so much unfulfilled wasted potential. That interviewer probably thought she was talking to a moron even though I've shown in the past numerous times that I'm far from a moron. Seriously, ###$ HR. ###$ HR up the ass and their #######5 interviews and interview structure. I can do the job, that's what matters. ###$ this world for not making good use of my gifts just because I brain freeze at times (if I heard myself in the third-person in that interview, I probably would sound like a punch-drunk boxer that got hit in the head one too many times) and had severe social anxiety issues in the past that made it real difficult for me to muster up the courage to even apply for jobs. I can contribute and I have shown that I can.

I'm pretty down on myself now. I know that I have difficulties but that interview made me question if I'm even as high-functioning as I thought I was before the interview.

I have trouble in job inervews too. I got a BS in chemistry and it took me over 20 years to get a job in the field. And I was really lucky to get it. Government work is tough to get - they have very little money. I got laid off then took a lower paying job, then got a 3% pay cut and then another 1% pay cut a year after that. The only good thing about government work is that it''s unionized so you can get away with being a lazy slob for a long time before they can fire you. Problems is that I'm not a lazy slob. But my office-mate is. Today I did some of her work so she could finish the stuff she didn't finish Friday. She STILL didn't get that stuff done.

We have had people apply for jobs who lied on their application to get their foot in nthe door. A guy the other day had no experience for the job even thought it said you had to have a year of experience. I guess it's all about who lies better and doesn't get caught.

I agree about the lying. It is so hard these days. Where I work there is a job that is considered very prestigious... but my boss advertised for one of these and got a few people saying they were doing this job for other people in the building. Since I knew that wasn't true, I knew they were lying. But what they were -- was doing the job for free. But some didn't put that ON the resume. I was so angry and my boss hired a few of them.

I had a job a few years back that I worked very hard for, similar prestige job, and I got paid to do the job. But a lot of volunteer "interns" continue to claim the paid job title.. which hurts my prestige. Makes me ill. No one cares.

Yep, interviews can be fearful for us avies. (And my componany puts almost all the weight on the interview, making it particularly stressful for normies even. Not sure how I got through it, since back then my AvPD was still pretty bad. Apparently everyone who interviewed me though liked me. Maybe just some plain dumb luck at play?)

After I finally did get a job, I made it a point of getting on all the interview loops that I could, so I would be "armed" with that knowledge should I ever have to switch jobs (contingency planning is always a good idea, IMO).

Lying is the single biggest mistake I see candidates make and it's incredible how often it happens. We are good at detecting it too because of how often it happens, and it's a one strike you're out policy. (I'll look specifically at the hardest skills, classes, or experiences someone is claiming on their resume and make a point to ask about those.)

I got another field-related job! I start Monday morning. Same employer as my last but in a different subsection of my field. Part-time though. Six month temp contract. About 2 1/2 to 3 days a week. It's a temp position. $427-488 per week (depending on number of hours). Apparently my hours can increase even more here and there if needed and I can make even more than that! The pay rate is a good step above what I had in my previous job. When I worked full-time, I was making $630-ish a week (note: As a temp, I didn't get paid vacations. And I don't get them now since I'm still a temp). Considering that I was applying for full-time internships that paid about as much, if not less, than what I'm going to get part-time with this job, I'm thrilled. I was already throwing in the towel and applying for $12/hr temporary admin positions at temp agencies...

well I'm trying to find a different job/new one
the one I'm at is to say the least not what I should be doing......

I want to get away from this job as soon as possible, but obviously interviews/applications (answering questions with one sentence is not something I'm comfortable with)

then you have the really bad economy. etc