Anatomy of Today's Job Market

Dena started work this past Tuesday for the first time in 18 months. Thankfully, due to the Obama and democratic moves to extend COBRA supplemental coverage (health care for the unemployed) and extend unemployment benefits for 99 weeks we managed to survive this relatively unscathed. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't without hardship, adjustments and anxiety but we didn't lose our house, or our car and the only thing we gained was a stronger relationship.

How did she get this new job? Dena applied for jobs every day. She would sit on the computer and search, sometimes even applying for jobs that pop up Friday nights and Saturday mornings. Not sure who posts jobs then but ? At one point she even applied for a Starbucks store manager. She was over qualified and probably too old, but of course, they cannot say that.

Finally in January of 2011 something happened. Not sure if the economy is really starting to turn the corner or if all the planets started to align but really good, interesting jobs in her field started to pop up on a daily basis. She applied and actually got calls back. In the previous 17 months she had a total of 3 interviews. In the first two weeks of January she had had ten. At the beginning of February she was past the first interview stage of three good looking jobs. For those of you who haven't had to hunt lately, the first stage is a phone interview. I suppose you could say the first stage is actually getting an email or phone call acknowledging that you exist, but I digress.

She then proceeded over the next three weeks to move through interviews two, three and four. These were all face to face. Only the final contestant went to interview four. The first two ended at interview three and haven't been heard from since. Both of those interviews had great vibes and no reason not to get an offer or some kind of courtesy call. I think it's unprofessional but it's not uncommon.

On January 22nd she started with contestant number three. We couldn't be happier.