Crazy advice for the job search.

One of the things that ticks me off lately is people who give clueless advice about job search stuff.

Nowadays, since only 5% of new job growth over the past decade has been the typical 9-to-5 salary job, you have people lined up out the door who have degrees and internship experience in whatever area have you, whereas there wasn't so much a decade ago and you could switch areas more easily.

Like my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the sister of the brother pair) said, "You've just got to get your foot in the door."

(She was jobless for while after law school, then she got $12 an hour contract work reading contracts every once in a while, then she got a $14 an hour job with the city that somehow wasn't salaried, and finally that made her a candidate to get considered for and ultimately get another salaried job with the city, like 3 years or so after she got out of law school...  For a long while in there, you couldn't even mention work, since it'd make her all turn inward and pensive.)

So, anyhow, in the position of someone like me, that means doing an internship in an area (which I'm too old for) or volunteerwork (which is tough with two jobs and managing a crazy dissertation committee), and thus I'm kind of at a disadvantage compared to other jobseekers, too, with my degree and work history.

So, that said, what gets me is that people think that there's good jobs just somewhere out there, that I haven't considered.

Like last time I visited my uncle, he was like, "Apply for [X random job]," as if that is somehow feasible or possible when you really have to put your nose down to identify and sell yourself to an area.

My mom, too, was like, "Look for jobs outside of [the city I live] in," when it's not like jobs are on trees elsewhere, and you really aren't a good candidate where they'd consider you unless you can say in your cover letter why you'd be moving to that particular place.

People of a certain generation just don't get how much the economy's decayed, or they can't face it.