Job hunting? Get all your good luck charms ready.

If you are looking for work or you know  someone who is searching for a job, you will agree with me that it’s practically impossible to land your dream job, or any job at all in today’s world. 

I’m sure people have told you “don’t worry, there are so many jobs out there, you’ll find one sooner or later”. Well, I would like to ask these people, where are  all these jobs? If they know of “so many” jobs, why don’t they tell you where these jobs can be found so that you can apply.

I have done a lot of research online and most of the jobs available are: salesmen, call center operators, engineers, technicians, craftsmen, specialized content writers (automotive, legal, financial, SEO), ghostwriters( with at least 5 years  experience ...  proven), and last but not least, internships, that is, unpaid jobs.  Plenty of those around.

If you’re a recent college graduate and desperate to build a CV, you will go for internships. The question is how long can you continue doing internships? At a certain point you need to earn some money. This brings us to the main question: HOW?

If you like to write and you are good at writing then you have probably looked at Fiverr, problogger.net, craigslist and indeed.com. They regularly post writing jobs. The problem is that you are not the only one applying for these jobs. Many jobs are local so the companies prefer local residents. However, there are quite a few so-called “remote” or “anywhere” jobs which don’t require you to go to the office or attend meetings etc. In other words, if a company  in San Francisco offers a “remote” job, anyone in the world can apply. This means quite a bit of competition. In pre-internet days, companies received 30-50 applicants for their job vacancies. I remember how easy it was to get a job or change jobs in the 70s and 80s. Try applying for a  job now, especially online. You will be one of thousands, if not millions.  Companies are bombarded with applications. They cannot physically respond to everyone so you will never know if they even looked at your CV. It most surely went into a black hole. One wonders it it’s worth sending applications right and left. For one thing you are disclosing private information to people you know nothing about. Secondly, you are also giving them views, traffic. Thirdly, you are wasting time sending them drafts, samples, pitches and ideas. They can use this material to write articles and you will never be aware of it. Rather, you might find out if you keep checking their website, but there’s nothing you can do to prove that the writings or ideas are yours. They might publish them somewhere else, change the contents  a bit and and no one will ever be  the wiser.

Companies are coming up with all kinds of tricks and gimmicks to get as much as they can for as little as they can, sometimes for free, at the expense of people who are desperate for a job and will do anything to get it. Even send free samples. It’s not a good idea. You should tell them if they want samples they should pay for them. So stay away from those ads asking you to send them 3 samples of your work, unpublished. Send them links to your published posts instead. Don’t waste your time giving them original material. As I said, let them pay you first.

Some of them, in order to seem serious and honest, ask you how much you charge per word or per article. Why can’t they simply state how much they pay? What’s the big deal? They are the employers, so they should lay down the amount they are willing to pay.

Recently, employers use new tactics to avoid paying. One in particular which caught my attention is to give you tests. For an editor’s position, you are asked to edit an article, correct its spelling, grammar, give instructions to the writer, and write an editorial comment. To me it smells  fishy. Could this be a way for them to get their work done for free?  Think about it.