48 years old, jobless for 5 yrs and badly burnt out in stock market and totally depressed
Sunday, 30 November 2008, 9:56 pm | 1,611 views
Question from a Singaporean to Mr Gilbert Goh:
Any advice for a 48 yr man, jobless for 5 yrs and badly burnt out in stock market and totally depressed.
——–
Mr Goh’s reply:
I empathise with your situation. Five years of unemployment is a seriously long time. How do you survive then?
I have met some people of similar situation when I worked with the CDCs. They are termed “long termed unemployed” (LTU) and proved to be very challenging to work with.
I have attached an article here when we started a support group for this group of LTU. Please take a look at the article as it is very motivational (attachment).
Few things that you have to think about now:
1. What do you want in your life right now? I presume that you have some skills and work experience before. Write down your skills and talents on a piece of paper. Frame them up on the wall or put it in your wallet. This is to remind you that you are still useful and valuable despite all the setbacks that you have encountered. Go to this website which is a marvellous site for job seekers www.jobhuntersbible.com. It has many invaluable tips on job hunting.
2. Job search. I presume that you are looking for a job albeit fruitlessly. Sometimes when one is jobless for too long it is very difficult to take the step back to employment again. There is the certain inertia in us to carry on what we have being doing all along (staying jobless) even though that can be miserable and frustrating. The confidence and self esteem have taken a hard battering, so to crawl back to working again can be tough. But never stop trying searching or else the situation will get harder. Try to plan a timetable for the whole day so that you know what you will be doing next. For example, you can plan an hour a day for job search through the newspapers’ advertisements and internet job sites, among others. The rest of the day is left for reading, exercising, networking, volunteering, etc.
3. Try to narrow down a certain job market that you are looking at. For example, if you are keen on being a cab driver, go all out to get the licensing to be one. If you prefer to work in the public sector, go all out to search for work along that sector. If we do not narrow down our choices, we may end up with nothing in the end. So take the time to plan and write down one or two specific sectors of interests before you embark on a solid job search. Have a certain target mapped out; example, email ten prospective employers a day or try to have three interviews a week, etc. Some of my jobs in the past are all cold calling kind; that is, I emailed them after I found them out from their websites. I managed to land two jobs in the past using this method. Try it as it cut down a lot of competition compared to when you applied from newspaper or the employment agencies.
4. Are you open to part time (PT) work? There are various readily available PT positions in the market. I used to teach English to students from China when they were here and the pay is not bad – between $30-50 an hour. One can get around $2500 a month if he teaches at least 3-4 hours a day. You can go to the google or yahoo search engines and search for all the private schools we have here. You would be surprised that there are about a hundred such private schools offering English courses to foreign students. You don’t need a degree to teach so the entry criterion is relatively simple. Let me know if you need some help here.
5. Keep the chin up. This is important as when we are jobless we are often depressed and feel helpless. Do the few things that I have advocated in my article – exercising, reading, counselling, etc so that you won’t feel so discouraged. I used to hang out positive messages on the wall or fridge, “Tough times never outlast tough people”, “There is always a rainbow behind every storm” to psyche myself up.
6. If you are open to counselling, there are several family service centres that offer almost free face-to-face counselling. Let me know if you need some introduction here. I can forward you some centres for appointment. You can also try Care Corner Counselling or their other centres spread around the island. Bear in mind that you have to go to the nearest one; that is, if you stay in Ang Mo Kio you have to go to the Ang Mo Kio centre due to the geographical constraint here. For financial assistance, you can go to the nearest Community Development Centre (CDC) provided you meet their criterion but no harm trying. You can also go to CDAC (Chinese Development Assistance Council) at Paya Lebar where there is financial aid and job matching facilities. They are located off the Lion City hotel building and I think it is easier to apply there than CDC. I know as I have worked in both these two organisations before.
Do continue to email me if you need further assistance. Remember that there is always light at the end of the long dark tunnel. Never cease looking around for work as once we stop that will be very difficult.
————-
Email this article to a Friend
Bookmark this
1) Get your resume redone.
I admit I don’t know what state your resume is in, but I’m guessing it’s not good. Don’t just frame up your skills and talents. Put them in your resume, and phrase them in a way that will convince employers to hire you. Eg. If your job takes 8 hours a day, and you found a new way to do it in 7 hours, say so in your resume. Say you improved efficiency and saved 1 whole hour of work every day. If there’s ten guys doing the same thing, that’s 10 hours daily, or on a 5-day week, 200+ hours per month. This extra time can be used to do other work. How much money is that to your employer? Do you have contacts in the industry that you will be able to use to help your future company get more business or reduce costs? Last but not least, format it nicely and make sure there are no grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. Get help from someone if necessary.
2) Think of a positive way to explain why you haven’t got a job for 5 years. 99% of employers are definitely going to be asking you this question. Eg. Self-employed / freelance. Or since you mentioned badly burnt in the stock market, were you making a living from it? If you were, you could say that too, but now you are looking for a job to make more capital for reinvestment.
3) You may be burnt out and depressed, but when you land an interview, act confident, pleasant, cheerful and agreeable. Above all, you want to seem like someone that they would like to work with.
Contrary to what many people advise, you may also wish to target your job applications more selectively. Pick the ones that you feel you have the best chance of landing, take note of their requirements, make sure your resume reflects them, and make sure you remember what they’re looking for at the interview. It would not make a good impression to go “huh?” because you can’t remember applying, much less what they want, when they call you.
Ask why you are unable to find a job despite looking for one in a long 5 years? Are you being picky? I really think so.
Pardon for being too direct.
4) I forgot. When you do get a job offer, even if it’s not all that you’re looking for, as long as it’s halfway reasonable, take it. Looking for a job when you already have one puts you in a better position to bargain.
5) And apply directly to the company. The job agency I used to work at pretty much junks job applications from those over 40. (Not literally junk, but you get the idea.)
I know one who is more than 12 years unemployed, burnt by stocks before, but still strong-willed and determined to get back his wealth.
One valuable (to me) lesson I find is to have sufficient savings, be prudent, and not be in debt.
I see high paying jobs posted on popular job sites –
http://www.monster.com (keyword job search)
http://www.linkedin.com (professional networking)
http://www.realmatch.com (matches jobs based on skills)
I think the media is trying to scare the US workforce.
Some Advice):
Hi thanks for your posted comments. I find it very practical and encouraging.
Jobseekers often failed to spice up their resume when they look for jobs. In fact, a HR manager told me that we should update our resume at least once a year as there are new skills that we learned on the job. This is so true as being Asians, we are always too humble for our own good.
A HR friend managed to revamp my resume and it looks so different from my original one:
1. Always start from the latest job experience first. I used to do it the other way round and I must have worked in at least 7-8 jobs. Employers preferred to see job experience lasting not more than ten eyars ago if possible. Anything more than ten to fifteen years ago may be irrelevant.
2. List special skills and talents. This is often missing from many jobseekers’ resume listing as we think that it is not important. Employers will always prefer someone who has the extra edge in intangible skills all things being equal. If you have a talent for mixing with people and is sociable list it in your resume as this may be an important element if you look out for marketing or HR position.
3. If you have some missing gaps of unemployment try to be honest and transparent here. Of course, if you have 5 yrs of unemployment it will be abit tough to convince an employer why you are jobless for so long a period. Nevertheless, if you undertake some part-time position, do list it now in between the period of unemployment. Most employers are sympathetic and generally many people have pockets of unemployment period due to retrenchment or taking a short break in life.
As more people get retrenched in the coming months, we need to be very nimble and flexible. Do anything that can bring in the bacon even if it is part time work or doing something that is not within our comfort zone.
As our employers often discriminate against those who are above 40s, I find that the aged unemployed will continue to find it difficult to find employment in the mid to long term period. Do think out of the box when it comes to making enough to tide things over. For example, I know of a friend who was an ex- AIA insurance agent. She went to Hong Kong and realised that many people there bought second hand branded handbags.
She caught on the idea and introduced her first second hand designer hand bags shop in Raffles Place. Her shop name Madam Milan opened in 2001 and a second shop opened two years ago. Her turnover though modest provides her a condonimium and 4 kids. Her husband is in the PR business. She only worked twice a week nowadays and left the running of the two shops to shop assistants.
Seems that we have miss the point that the writer concern had claimed that he is totally depressed.As such I feel that suggesting to him to consult a specialist for depression should be the first priority .
We can have a long list on what to do to secure a job but i think it won’t help as long as we are not willing to accept a lower pay or keep thinking how much we are worth.
Being burnt in stock is not the end of our life.Take it as buying 4d or toto.There is no guarantee of winning all the times .The ah pek and aunties only say “tui tui tui “if they miss the numbers.They still work as they need to pay for the many bills .
Not all employers discriminate those who are above 40 and some prefer them as they dun hop here and there.
Sorry if I had been offensive or being blunt .I feel that like many others I am also coming to a stage of depression and if I dun see a doctor and if got worse than I really have problem getting a job.
“Any advice for a 48 yr man, jobless for 5 yrs and badly burnt out in stock market and totally depressed.”
Hope I am not being too forward or insenstive here; but how is it possible to be jobless for 5 years?
I’ve cut directly to the chase; bc I dont want to waste your time; I think there is a missing jig-saw here somewhere.
I dont want to speculate. I dont want to pry either. But I think, if you want rubber meets the road advice that’s good to go, then the least you should do is supply the missing jig-saw; that way some of us here can get a complete picture and we may or may not be able to help you better otherwise this is just going to be a crying game here.
As it is, I am sorry. I cant do anything with incomplete material. Even Michelangelo would be nothing more than a potter, if all he is given is clay to work with. I am so sorry, for what that may be worth.
SD (Internet Liaison officer of the brotherhood)
Maybe u can take up a contract or temp work instead. It is better to be working (anything) while you wait for better opportunities. Being unemployed for so long is not going to look good for you when you apply for jobs. Sometimes its the jobseekers problem. I heard a lot of cleaning companies are looking for employees.
I’m glad to have read this…thanks to Some Advice and Gilbert Goh
I’ve come across some who’ve been unemployed but have never quite known how to help apart from listening to their woes
The very practical, unemotional, proactive steps appears helpful to me, and I hope they appear so to the 48-year old as well
try foot-reflexology or body massage job!
at 48 is considered old already. Some at 35 is too old it seems in today’s context.
me 61 jobless for 9 yrs. but going strong…..live according to your means!
at age 52 got golden handshake !……why? because I love milkshake and also like to shake legs now kena GOLDEN HANDSHAKE!…the story of my life
Golden Handshape at around 50 is as good as retrenchment or resigning!
now a days, no such ting as Golden Handshake due to credit crunch …babyboomers in yester yrs. enjoyed fantastic GoldenHandshake that is the envy of others!………you EXIT in style no matter what’s the cause and with dignity. being retrenched is like being chopped off or hanged!
hongjun et al
Treasure your youth and your place in the corporate summer of your lives. Once you hit 40, you’ll suddenly realise that autumn has arrived and there’s no more fun in the sun.
Hi All
Thanks for yr posts here.
I am in contact with this gentleman and we chatted almost daily on yahoo chat.
A brother here also recommended a job to him (telemarketing) and hopefully there is positive news here.
Will keep all of you updated anyway.
11)Anonyoms:
Sometimes by listening it is more helpful than giving them too many well intentional advice.
Most don’t really need our assistance but more to show empathy and support.
At best, a gift of few hundred dollars will help them more than two hours of talking. This is my opinion and not meant to suggest you have to do it.
Joblessness means no income with escalating piling up of unpaid bills.
Some can go unemployed for many years, some even can’t last a month or two without any income. Many need money but won’t have the guts and dignity to ask from you. By giving them a few hundred bucks without them asking, it will help them alot and they will return you the money over time. You can count on them to help you back in future if you face similar problem.
Cheers all. Let us help one another here.
One more thing to do:
Volunteer.
You can get some new skills.
You’ll (hopefully) be able to feel better by helping other people.
You may even end up with a modest stipend in the long run.
It also helps fill in the gap in a resume.
how about starting small with online business or service?
entreprenuership?
48 in Cantonese says it all!
Try your luck at 50 ok! bad news now that we are in recession so what job?
Dear Gilbert and Friends,
I am a certified Project manager.
I have over a decade of IT experience.
I like to gain experience in project management, in any industry, preferably in technology projects like Engineering (i have a engineering diploma) or events organizing.
I am willing to start with small projects and accept lower pay.
My contact is project.seeker.2009@gmail.com.
best regards
ps2009