For some time now we’ve been bombarded with news about how bad the economy is.  It seems like every time you turn on the news there is talk of how the unemployment rate is the “highest it’s been in the last thousand years” (I’m paraphrasing, of course).  Even though I was aware of all the bad news I never really cared until about a month ago.  That’s when I was told that the company I was working for could not continue to employ all the personnel on hand.  Sooooo, I was given the proverbial boot.  Shown to the door.  Handed a pink slip.  You get the idea.

Of course I worried for since the last time I was laid off it took several years to find engineering work again.  So I began the regimen of getting the word out  that I was looking for work.  I dusted of the old resume and began posting it on one the major job boards.  I attended some local meetings of others who, like me, were hoping to “network” their way back into the workforce.  The fact is, those meetings depressed me more than encouraged me.  Most of the people attending those meetings are over 50 and all were at one time key employees in their organizations.  Some claimed to have invented some of the big communication protocols that are now part of everyday techno speak.  One time big shots now reduced to just another unemployed person.

What really got me down was that I’m not much younger than most of those people.  Worst yet, I’ve never invented anything.  I don’t have 20 patents to my name like a lot of them do.  If they can’t find a job what makes me think I can?

Then a funny thing happened:  I got a call from a recruiter.  He told me about a job that sounded interesting so I agreed to a phone interview.  The day after the phone interview I was told the company wanted to bring me in for a series of face-t0-face interviews.  I won’t bore you with the details but the point it is that almost one month after I was laid off, I have been offered a job (and, yes, I happily accepted).

I recently received the latest batch of trade journals in the mail and there were even job vacancies posted in them.  I don’t think I’d seen a job ad in a trade journal for several years now.  Then I got a call from another recruiter who left a message saying he wanted to “discuss opportunities in my area”.  So is the drought over?  Are jobs coming back?

Has anyone else noticed these trends?

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