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The job of finding work
By KRIS HUNDLEY CLEARWATER -- Two dozen people -- all out of work for at least six weeks -- sat around a conference table like reluctant students sentenced to detention hall. One stabbed a stylus at the Palm Pilot in his hand. Another kept drifting off to sleep. Most hunched in their chairs, beaten but willing to jump through yet another hoop to keep their unemployment checks coming. They each had received a letter ordering them to appear for a two-hour job counseling session at the WorkNet Pinellas office here or lose their weekly claims check. It was a tough audience for J.P. Quinton-Scott, the man at the front of the room. But after 12 years of advising the unemployed, Quinton-Scott was used to it. "Good morning!" he boomed as he kicked off a 120-minute marathon of motivation. "You're here because your chances of finding a job are slim to none, and slim has left town." Quinton-Scott knows unemployment firsthand. He was hired by the state employment agency in 1985 after losing his job running bingo halls for the Seminole tribe. "That was back when you had to stand in line and file your claim in person," he said of his experience with unemployment. "I felt alone, not wanted and not needed." Since then, Quinton-Scott, 54, has counseled the jobless through boom times and bust. And now is definitely a bust. "Compared to a year ago, I'm seeing much sadder faces and more depression," he said of the 300 people he sees during eight group sessions a week. "And I'm seeing a lot more professionals now," especially from the IT, or information technology, industry. Quinton-Scott knew things were changing back in March, when the staffing agencies that had been recruiting heavily at the WorkNet offices began canceling job orders. After Sept. 11, he changed his presentation entirely.
Forget about keeping a half-dozen boilerplate resumes on hand, Quinton-Scott now tells his classes. Today you need to carefully tailor every resume to the particular job. Do an end-run around HR departments by aggressively identifying companies you want to work for, schmoozing with current employees and writing directly to the appropriate department manager. And get a part-time job to help extend limited unemployment benefits because it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon, Quinton-Scott advises. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," he told his audience repeatedly during a session last week. "I'm here to give you a wake-up call." Unlike his casually dressed audience, Quinton-Scott was outfitted in a gray suit, pink shirt, patterned tie and suspenders. His slicked-back graying hair just skimmed his collar. A couple of earrings (which he said he covered during a recent interview for a promotion) sparkled in his left ear. Jiggling change or rocking on the balls of his feet, Quinton-Scott bristled with energy as he administered tough love to his recalcitrant class. First he got the group, which included several previously high-paid executives, to admit they're not experts on job hunting. Then he gave them a verbal boot in the backside. "You're going through stress and grief," he said, adding that anger and depression are normal responses to joblessness. "Get over it. These are not options: Jim Beam, soap operas or sleeping late." Quinton-Scott told the group he wants them to master two things: attitude and eye contact. With plenty of qualified competition in the job market today, he said candidates not only have to have the skills to do the job, they have to make the interviewer like them. "The employer sets the rules," Quinton-Scott said. "But you have to motivate them to hire you. You have to emotionally manipulate the employer." When one skeptical listener suggested getting a job was about lying better than the next guy, Quinton-Scott cringed. "Don't ever lie to an employer," he said. "You'll get caught. They'll be able to look in your eyes and tell." Instead, he recommended job seekers go into an interview well-prepared with information about the potential employer. "Then smile, give a firm handshake, make sure the tone in your voice goes up and maintain eye contact," he said. "But keep smiling or otherwise you'll bore a hole in them." Quinton-Scott's enthusiasm had most of his listeners smiling and looking a bit more hopeful by the end of the morning. But at least one veteran of such sessions said the charge quickly wore off. Aleta Vinas lost her job in customer service with an electronics company four months ago and has attended two sessions with Quinton-Scott. She took his advice and got a part-time job at Circuit City for the holidays. But she's skeptical about his suggestion to target an ideal employer and carpet-bomb its executives with requests until they grant an interview. "At this point, places aren't hiring, so it seems like that approach would be fruitless," said Vinas, who is having a hard time finding a position paying as well as her former job. "But some of the things he mentioned were good." Quinton-Scott, decompressing with a cigarette after his high-energy performance, acknowledged that some of his audience will have a tough time matching what they were paid in the past. "They're going to have to lower their standards a bit," he said. "But right now they're too wrapped up in their problems. They don't see the forest for the trees." Quinton-Scott occasionally hears from former students who landed work soon after listening to his lecture. "I don't take credit for that," he said. "But maybe I made them feel a little better, a little more confident so when they leave they feel they can get the job they always wanted." - Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2996.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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