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I have a friend that works at the state as a department head, and he told me that the applicants for his job postings have gone from 5 or 6 to near 100 over the last year or two. There are A LOT of people applying for state jobs.
That's what I hear from friends who own businesses. An ad in Craigslist generates a high volume of resumes. Unfortunately, most do nothing to try to stand out, such as writing a good, targeted cover letter, or altering the resume to match the position being sought. In other words, a business owner will get deluged with 100+ unimpressive generic resumes, causing them to think the applicant is just out there throwing spaghetti at the wall. Most say it's very hard to find good applicants right now, which seems counter-intuitive, but that's what I keep hearing.
Perhaps the lookers are so fatigued from applying to so many places, they don't feel compelled to sharpen up a resume and cover letter to match the opportunity. But if I were to send my resume to 20 companies, I'd tweak each one to fit unless the 20 jobs and companies were so similar. I mean, how hard is it to, at minimum, keep a spreadsheet into which can be typed company name and job title so that each mail-merged cover letter can state the company and job title?
Hate to be a downer, but just this week almost every state agency was told to cut 2.5% from their budgets, on top of previous cuts. All related to the state budget shortfall of course. It will be very tough to get state-related work.
I am also a social worker who moved here in February from another state...and I knew the job market in our field was bad here, but it's REALLY bad. And I think it's not necessarily due to the current economy; it's because even in good times there is no funding or infrastructure for even the most basic services, due to the political climate. SW's here are accustomed to the setup, but it's really shocking if you're from someplace else. Also, TX has the highest percentage of uninsured people in the nation, which affects the market and pay for therapists, hospital social workers, community mental health outreach, etc. There are also many recent MSW grads from UT who are desperately trying to pay off loans and will work for practically nothing, which drives wages down. I'd estimate that SW salaries are at least 25% lower than my home state, and cost of living is similar.
All of that just to say....don't take your job difficulties personally.
If you have any hospital/medical experience and are licensed as LMSW or LCSW, I would suggest trying for "PRN" (on-call) positions at St. David's or Seton - it's crappy weekend/overnight hours mostly, but there's almost always something open, the pay ($25ish/hour and differentials) is better than you'll get elsewhere, and it's a foot in the door because they almost always hire their full-time staff from the PRN pool. There seems to be at least a little bit of funding for youth programs - I've seen openings recently at Youthworks and state programs for adolescents. There is fierce competition for any kind of VA or state job.
Many of the local nonprofits do not advertise on Craig's List or other mass-market web sites due to the massive number of responses (usually from unqualified people) - it is more useful to go on the agencies' individual web sites to check for openings. You could browse the Austin 2-1-1 site to familiarize yourself with some of the major players, if needed.
If you want to talk in more detail feel free to PM me....good luck out there. I'm working part time, continuing to interview and hoping to find some reasonable niche, myself. After 15 years of experience post-master's, however, I am not willing to do suicide assessments, work weekends/holidays/overnights, and/or supervise 10 people for $17/hour. I love Austin but am recognizing that I may need to consider a career change to stay here. We'll see...
Wow, its really a difficult situation out there!!!! I did get an interview at St. Davids for a registrar position, they loved my resume and the interview went great. They even got my hopes high by explaining the training process and let me know we would be given uniforms to wear. Then I waited and waited and waited for that phone call to inform me of my start date....... ALAS!!! i didnt get hired. When I called, I asked the lady how I did on the interview, she stated that I did good but they already decided to hire someone else. Most of my state applications are stuck on SCREENING mode. If any one has a TEMP agency they have had experience with(positive) I would appreciate. Thanks
I am also a social worker who moved here in February from another state...and I knew the job market in our field was bad here, but it's REALLY bad. And I think it's not necessarily due to the current economy; it's because even in good times there is no funding or infrastructure for even the most basic services, due to the political climate. SW's here are accustomed to the setup, but it's really shocking if you're from someplace else. Also, TX has the highest percentage of uninsured people in the nation, which affects the market and pay for therapists, hospital social workers, community mental health outreach, etc. There are also many recent MSW grads from UT who are desperately trying to pay off loans and will work for practically nothing, which drives wages down. I'd estimate that SW salaries are at least 25% lower than my home state, and cost of living is similar.
All of that just to say....don't take your job difficulties personally.
If you have any hospital/medical experience and are licensed as LMSW or LCSW, I would suggest trying for "PRN" (on-call) positions at St. David's or Seton - it's crappy weekend/overnight hours mostly, but there's almost always something open, the pay ($25ish/hour and differentials) is better than you'll get elsewhere, and it's a foot in the door because they almost always hire their full-time staff from the PRN pool. There seems to be at least a little bit of funding for youth programs - I've seen openings recently at Youthworks and state programs for adolescents. There is fierce competition for any kind of VA or state job.
Many of the local nonprofits do not advertise on Craig's List or other mass-market web sites due to the massive number of responses (usually from unqualified people) - it is more useful to go on the agencies' individual web sites to check for openings. You could browse the Austin 2-1-1 site to familiarize yourself with some of the major players, if needed.
If you want to talk in more detail feel free to PM me....good luck out there. I'm working part time, continuing to interview and hoping to find some reasonable niche, myself. After 15 years of experience post-master's, however, I am not willing to do suicide assessments, work weekends/holidays/overnights, and/or supervise 10 people for $17/hour. I love Austin but am recognizing that I may need to consider a career change to stay here. We'll see...
Any chance would you know how much CNA's get paid as perm or prn too? I'm getting my license as a CNA while working toward my RN. I changed careers since office work or collections work is far and few in between. Thanks
Any chance would you know how much CNA's get paid as perm or prn too? I'm getting my license as a CNA while working toward my RN. I changed careers since office work or collections work is far and few in between. Thanks
Very VERY little. Think about $12 per hour. Maybe. For cleaning up after people. Instead of your CNA, why not get your Pharmacy Tech cert? Look into the programs at ACC. There are lots of short-time-commitment things that are available.
Sorry to say that the economy is pretty bad just about everywhere. My advice is keep on applying. It took me 250+ resumes before I landed a job, and that's out here in the Bay Area of Cali which probably has a better job situation than Austin. Keep applying. Good luck.
250+ resumes? How does that translate to in real time? The reason I ask is because I was in the Bay Area a few months ago in the summer as well. I was there for about 2 months or more and I couldn't find anything at all and the money I'd saved up here in Austin was dwindling little by little. I had to come back to Austin but not in time until I had to settle for some lousy bussing position in the Arboretum. (I hate this job I have now!) But I need it to find a way to get back to San Francisco since I'll be going to AAU. A general idea of how long it usually takes might be good so that I can look at my options, even though it might be completely different for me.
Also does the Bay Area hire a lot more than Austin? Because I swear it seemed much tougher over there. I landed a job here in Austin in about 2.5 weeks of job hunting while I took 2.5 months and I heard not a single thing for job positions I'd applied for in SF.
250+ resumes? How does that translate to in real time? The reason I ask is because I was in the Bay Area a few months ago in the summer as well. I was there for about 2 months or more and I couldn't find anything at all and the money I'd saved up here in Austin was dwindling little by little. I had to come back to Austin but not in time until I had to settle for some lousy bussing position in the Arboretum. (I hate this job I have now!) But I need it to find a way to get back to San Francisco since I'll be going to AAU. A general idea of how long it usually takes might be good so that I can look at my options, even though it might be completely different for me.
About 4-5 months. My situation might be different from yours though. I'm a fairly senior level guy. This has not been the first time I've been laid off. The last time, which was in 2006 was totally different. I got a job within 3 weeks and only 5-6 resumes. This time around I was applying for anything and everything. We're talking jobs that were Jr. level, starting salary, ( as in 25k a year) type positions. I put out like 5-10 resumes per day in some cases. I was also applying for jobs in Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, and a few others. I heard like NOTHING from anyone in Austin and Raleigh. Believe it or not I had a lot more success with positions in Dallas. One company offered to fly me out to interview with them. But I got cold feet because I know nothing about Dallas. At least in my biz it seemed like Dallas and Houston were actually better than Austin in regards to jobs.
Ultimately I wound up getting a good job in the Bay Area. I'm pretty content and happy with the job and given the state of the economy I will probably stay in the area for at least a few more years. No more than 5. The plan is to keep saving money and eventually move somewhere cheaper and buy a house outright. Thus we would be less reliant on jobs to pay for stuff like a mortgage etc etc. We might even decide to just do something different for a living. Or maybe rely on freelance work. At this point I'm not sure if Austin is "it" for us. It seems like there are too many people moving there and the competition for jobs is too high. We will see...
About 4-5 months. My situation might be different from yours though. I'm a fairly senior level guy. This has not been the first time I've been laid off. The last time, which was in 2006 was totally different. I got a job within 3 weeks and only 5-6 resumes. This time around I was applying for anything and everything. We're talking jobs that were Jr. level, starting salary, ( as in 25k a year) type positions. I put out like 5-10 resumes per day in some cases. I was also applying for jobs in Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, and a few others. I heard like NOTHING from anyone in Austin and Raleigh. Believe it or not I had a lot more success with positions in Dallas. One company offered to fly me out to interview with them. But I got cold feet because I know nothing about Dallas. At least in my biz it seemed like Dallas and Houston were actually better than Austin in regards to jobs.
Ultimately I wound up getting a good job in the Bay Area. I'm pretty content and happy with the job and given the state of the economy I will probably stay in the area for at least a few more years. No more than 5. The plan is to keep saving money and eventually move somewhere cheaper and buy a house outright. Thus we would be less reliant on jobs to pay for stuff like a mortgage etc etc. We might even decide to just do something different for a living. Or maybe rely on freelance work. At this point I'm not sure if Austin is "it" for us. It seems like there are too many people moving there and the competition for jobs is too high. We will see...
Wow. Happy to hear you got something.... seems like you gut it out all the way through. I sorta jumped a little too quick in my situation and thought I'd do another research study before moving back to SF, which turned out to be a bad move. At the time it was the best thing I could do until I had some issue with my blood (nothing serious) that affected my chances at getting into that study. This time when I get back to California I'm just gonna stick with it until I get something coming my way. Much of luck to you.
It's hard out there right now. When I first moved to Austin in 2007, I had almost 60 state applications in before I landed an interview - and that's with me already being, at the time, a 12-year state of Texas employee with a Master's in Clinical Psychology and years of professional, full-time experience. Even now, with 15 years in the State, there's no easy way to change jobs. It's simply an odds game. With the positions I'm hiring in my department, I may have 300+ applications for an administrative assistant position. So, you just have to keep looking, keep your mind open to different opportunities, and play the odds by putting in tons of apps. Good luck!!!
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