> LA Times
> Long-Term Jobless Find a Degree Just Isn't Working
> By Nicholas Riccardi
> Times Staff Writer
>
> March 11, 2005
> Dan Gillespie never thought he'd have to look so hard for work.
> When the Seattle-area resident left the Air Force in 1980, he earned a
> computer science degree and enjoyed 20 years of steady work. He saved
> enough money to buy his wife's childhood home last year.
> Three months later, he was laid off.
> Gillespie, 53, hasn't found a job since. Even the corner store won't
> hire him. He and his wife sold the house last month.
<sigh> Today marks a rather negative anniversary for me. Four years ago this week, I left my last professional position. At the time, the spectre of unemployment didn't seem so bad. I had been thinking of leaving my job of 4 1/2 years for almost a year. My employer jumped the gun on me, but I would have left anyway since I had just accomplished the last set of goals that had kept me at the association.
I was also in the thick of the anti-globalization movement. Not more than a week after leaving my job, CTV-Canada flew me down to Fort Meyers, Florida to interview me about the black bloc. They were in Florida doing a story on Ruckus camp and it was cheaper for them to fly me to Florida then for their entire crew to go to D.C. They were putting together a special show on the upcoming protests in Quebec City. One week after I left my job I found myself on the beach on Sanibel Island pondering my career and the future of the anti-globalization movement. In retrospect, things were looking rosy at that time.
I got a good severance package and I qualified for unemployment, so I wasn't in a hurry to find work. Unlike many people, I could see the looming dot-com crash so I knew I had to hustle to find work.
As we know now, the dot-com boom exploded, causing thousands of tech jobs to disappear. These overqualified techs flooded the nonprofit tech job market. The economy soured. My other career back-up, being a librarian, started drying up too. In September 2001 I was immersed in the preparations for the highly anticipated World Bank protests. I was also slated to interview for a job that I expected to be a cinch because an contractor for the company had put a good word in for me.
When the events of 9/11 unfolded, I was preparing for this job interview, which was then cancelled because of the attacks. The interview was delayed for several weeks, but by the time of my second interview they had changed the job description in a way that made it harder for me to compete for the position. The 9/11 attacks started chilling the economy. People weren't hiring and the dead time fo the holidays soon followed.
To say that the tech job market for somebody with nonprofit experience sucks is an understatment. Over the past few years I've interviewed with NASA, the ACLU, a tech company in Emeryville, CA, nonprofits, science associations, library systems (Johnson County, Pacfic Univ., Brooklyn Public, and many more), and plenty of other odd places. I've put applications into UPS, Home Depot, Lowes, and other retail outlets. I've tried to temp but the temp agencies can never find work for me.
What I've discovered is that being a 29-year-old with a Master's degree with an excellent resume isn't getting me shit in this economy. I can't get library paraprofessional jobs, even when I am interviewed, because I'm seen as overqualified. These employers looks at me as overqualified and they don't care if I need the job to pay the rent. One time I interviewed for a special librarian job at a contractor in Silver Spring, Maryland. This was a *librarian* job for a special health library, but the interviewer made it clear to me that I was overqualified for a basic professional librarian position.
I'm still looking halfheartedly for professional library work, but I've decided that it's more fun to be self-employed. So I've been busy trying to hustle up odd web design jobs and I have plans to resume my art career. I find it very ironic that 17 years after I graduated with a fine arts degree that now I'm seriously considering an art career to pay the rent.
Fuck work!
Chuck