Employment is Still Very Much a Seller's Market, at Least in New Jersey

I've been looking for a job for over a year now. But I'm a writer and business-to-business marketing expert by profession, and I've also got significant experience as an administrative assistant in law firms.

Unfortunately, these are three of the sectors that have been hit hardest by the economy in my area.

Until recently, the town I live in had the highest concentration of law firms in New Jersey... now it has the highest concentration of unemployed lawyers. Our local website says that the unemployment rate here is almost a full percentage point higher than the national average, and jobs have decreased by 2.7 percent.

I've registered with every major job site online, checked out the classifieds every day, and used social networking to advertise myself. The number of real jobs available on sites like Careerbuilder and Monster.com has decreased significantly over the past couple of months. Each day, I see dozens of ads for multilevel marketing companies like Avon, 100 percent commission-based "sales opportunities" for enterprises with turnover so large it will make your head spin, and promotions for the U.S. military. With this in mind, I decided to try the old fashioned route and sign up with a temporary agency. My experience with them illustrates how frustrating the process can be.

I took tests at the agency to show my administrative abilities and scored in the 95th percentile for all of them (as a comparison, a passing grade is the 60th percentile). They told me they had no jobs right now but to call "every other week" to check in. I ignored that and called them the next day to see if anything had come up. As it turned out, there was a temp to permanent position that was perfectly suited to my background.

I went for an interview on a Tuesday and it went well, so I waited to hear back from them. Finally on Thursday morning I got a call from the agency saying "they want you to come in at 11 a.m. today and start on Monday." I'd already scheduled a dentist's appointment for my daughter that morning so I had to say no, I couldn't make it then but I'd come in Friday. Perhaps that was my fatal mistake, not jumping through hoops.

I thought Friday was going to be a training session because the agency had told me I had the job. Instead, I went through another round of questioning that lasted over an hour. At the end the employer said I'd aced the interview, that she'd be making up her mind within an hour, and that she needed someone to be there at 8:30 a.m. on Monday to start. She left me with a big smile and a suggestion to enjoy the beautiful afternoon.

So I went home and waited. When no call was forthcoming I left a couple of messages with the agency and then waited some more. Soon it was 9 p.m. on Friday night and no word. I spent the whole weekend fretting about how I to find out if I was supposed to start or not. On Monday morning, I called the agency at 7:30 a.m. and got no response, so I took matters into my own hands and called the employer directly.

The conversation was brief and awkward. I explained I was calling her because I hadn't yet heard from the agency, knew she wanted someone right away, and didn't want to leave her in the lurch. Her response was, "No, we won't be needing you. Thanks for checking."

I finally got a call back from the agency at 1:30 p.m. that day that said, "Sorry we didn't get back to you. Unfortunately they decided to go with someone else."

I've decided to go with someone else too -- a different temp agency. In the meantime, I'm coping by freelancing online. I've found a lot of good gigs lately, which is a relief, but it hasn't escaped my notice that most of them are coming from overseas. I won't believe the economy is recovering until I see evidence of it in my own world.