vandelay industries

12/22/2008 4:19:12 PM

Roddy, what would you suggest I say? Somebody told me to say it was due to personal issues and I heard that wasn't good to do.

12/22/2008 6:27:14 PM

scratch what I said. I figured it out.

12/23/2008 11:04:36 AM

rubber salesman

also if you quit your job you cant get unemployment...

so dont quit

12/23/2008 11:32:47 AM

^^^ well anything is probably better than performance issues if you are trying to get a job right now..haha.

12/23/2008 11:47:01 AM

I was just nervous and didn't know what to say. I won't be doing that again.

12/23/2008 5:00:10 PM

Quote :

"you must be really antisocial or are extremely awkward in face to face interviews...ehhh?"

Not really. I don't think I'm too bad. Honestly, the problem is that I rarely even get to the interview stage. My resume isn't particularly impressive. I made the mistake of doing well in Political Science at an engineering school. Turns out nobody gives a damn.

I also freely admit that I didn't take seriously the need for internships and co-ops, and didn't look into them like I should have. I had hopes that by now I could've overcome that issue, but apparently not.

Applied for the Foreign Service, aced the test, and then got told I didn't need to come in for the oral assessment a couple of weeks ago. That was my last great hope -- it's a job I know I'd love and be good at, no question, and I really did slaughter the written test. Now I'm pretty much stuck looking at getting a teaching certificate and working with a bunch of snotty high schoolers until I'm old enough to retire/depressed enough to kill myself.

12/23/2008 6:05:15 PM

Isn't that the test with a ~30% passing rate? I've always heard that if you pass that and your background test then you are good as gold.

Is it safe to assume that the background investigation uncovered some skeletons then ?

12/23/2008 6:23:52 PM

Well, I have a job interview on tuesday for a job 30 miles away from the new house I just bought (which is 3 miles from my current job.)

I hate my current job, but I think I will be better at it than the job I am interviewing for. Aye yai yai.

12/23/2008 8:08:45 PM

Jobless again, I knew I was seasonal but they didn't tell me I was gone before Christmas until today. I was banking on one last full paycheck. (There's potential to keep me on as long as I can fit into their payroll time limitations)

This bites. Especially since most people won't be hiring during the holidays.

12/23/2008 9:21:53 PM

newly unemployed!

12/25/2008 10:00:15 AM

I guess I should be glad I'm still in school?

12/25/2008 11:21:51 AM

yall unemployed folks get ready to work on roads, bridges, railroad tracks etc......

12/25/2008 10:35:57 PM

Quote :

"my mortgage is almost 2,000 $2200 a month. these numbers fascinate me"

12/25/2008 11:24:38 PM

Quote :

"Isn't that the test with a ~30% passing rate? I've always heard that if you pass that and your background test then you are good as gold. "

I don't know what the passing rate is for the written test, but that test is only a part of the process. I didn't make it anywhere near the background check, so they didn't even look for any skeletons, let alone find any.

The process is:

Application
Written test
Written test + application are reviewed
Oral assessment
Health/background check

I got rejected after step three. I think my answers to the questions on the application were acceptable, but my resume was what sunk me. My volunteer hours in relevant areas aren't well documented, which was my mistake -- for example, when I offered to help translate Spanish for the Red Cross, I never bothered to take down and save the name of the people who supervised me, so when I wrote it down I couldn't provide a reference to back me up. Other times, it was simply impossible to record an individual supervisor (such as my work with the school system) because there really wasn't one and I just bounced around between teachers.

[Edited on December 26, 2008 at 12:11 AM. Reason : ]

12/26/2008 12:10:57 AM

^^^ I think I would actually enjoy that. It's kindof a shame I'd still be contributing more to the economic regrowth of America by finding a job in my field

12/26/2008 2:58:21 AM

Quote :

"Isn't that the test with a ~30% passing rate? I've always heard that if you pass that and your background test then you are good as gold."

passing the written & oral for the FSO is supposed to be less than 1%

12/26/2008 3:11:11 AM

just got laid off. i'm so fucked.

12/26/2008 3:46:02 AM

you got laid off on christmas?

12/26/2008 10:51:26 AM

my bills are over 2k a month as well.

12/26/2008 2:30:11 PM

Quote :

"for example, when I offered to help translate Spanish for the Red Cross, I never bothered to take down and save the name of the people who supervised me, so when I wrote it down I couldn't provide a reference to back me up. Other times, it was simply impossible to record an individual supervisor (such as my work with the school system) because there really wasn't one and I just bounced around between teachers."

you really seem to be finding excuses for your problems instead of taking a good look in the mirror. the only person you have to blame is yourself and the only person who can change it, is also yourself. so you HAD great volunteer experience but you dropped the ball when it came to documentation. ok so being unemployed and all, why dont you go volunteer again and get the right documentation this time? blaming your old mistakes for new problems is fine if you use it as a learning experience but pathetic as a crutch.

12/26/2008 4:43:50 PM

If you are unemployed, you are lazy

12/26/2008 9:53:51 PM

^^

Quote :

"My volunteer hours in relevant areas aren't well documented, which was my mistake"

god damn

the guy already acknowledged his mistake

save the effort for something more important

12/27/2008 12:01:14 AM

Quote :

"UNDER EM PLOYED"

12/27/2008 12:13:27 AM

Quote :

"you really seem to be finding excuses for your problems instead of taking a good look in the mirror."

Does it count as an excuse when I say, "I fucked up"?

Because you never hear this conversation:

Criminal: "Judge, I plead guilty, I totally fucked up and did something stupid."
Judge: "Quit making excuses for yourself!"

Quote :

"ok so being unemployed and all, why dont you go volunteer again and get the right documentation this time?"

I have now scanned my posts four times and I have yet to see one incident in which I said I was not doing this.

But oh well.

Quote :

"blaming your old mistakes for new problems is fine if you use it as a learning experience but pathetic as a crutch."

Of course, you seem to not have any clue what you're talking about. I was blaming a past mistake for what is now a past problem. If I got a zillion volunteer hours right now, it wouldn't help with the situation with the foreign service -- that's a done deal. I can't go through the application process for another year, by which time I'll have a real job to put on my resume, or I will have starved to death.

But hey, don't let the facts of the situation get in the way of you being an enormous soppy cunt.

12/27/2008 1:28:09 AM

id put the foreign service dream to bed

12/27/2008 3:20:29 AM

at least I can blame the economy.

12/27/2008 12:10:28 PM

Quote :

"id put the foreign service dream to bed"

I'm not going to do that, because that would be stupid. I can wait, work other jobs, build experience, and keep trying again periodically. The only thing I need to do is to stop with my own stupid idea, which was putting all my eggs in the foreign service basket -- after I raped the test and read up on some of the standards, I was retarded and quit looking elsewhere for perhaps a month or so because I got overconfident. From now on, the foreign service is in the background -- I'll do my application as often as I can, and go on about my business otherwise.

The complication comes with any relationships I might get involved in. That's awkward footing once things start to get serious -- possible that one day I might have the opportunity to go all over, possible that I might be stuck here pretty much forever. Doesn't exactly appeal to someone who wants to put roots down or to somebody who wants to live around the world.

12/28/2008 12:33:45 AM

The only people I know who are FSOs are ivy leaguers who know 6 languages, lived abroad most of their life, at least one higher degree, very close ties with DC bureaucrats, and have about 170 IQs

I wish you the best of luck in your journey

12/28/2008 3:15:38 AM

^which is funny since they are getting paid nothing according to the FSO salary faq, unless there are significant allowances on top of that.

[Edited on December 28, 2008 at 4:03 AM. Reason : .]

12/28/2008 4:02:42 AM

Yea not too sure about the salaries - I remember a few people on here had families that worked for the State Department, they may have more details

12/28/2008 4:07:25 AM

Quote :

"The only people I know who are FSOs are ivy leaguers who know 6 languages, lived abroad most of their life, at least one higher degree, very close ties with DC bureaucrats, and have about 170 IQs"

That would be more intimidating if I actually thought you knew several people who met those standards.

It's also important to wonder how much of them they got because of being an FSO, not before. Over the course of being in the FS you learn languages, live abroad, and get close ties with bureaucrats.

---

As for the pay issue, there are hardship and hazard bonuses depending on the country. If you get sent to Iraq, for example, you get bonuses totaling 70% of your base pay. As I understand it, they also either offer you housing or an allowance to pay for it, on top of other government benefits. That's the big deal with government jobs -- none of them pay for shit, but they have good job security and excellent benefits.

1/2/2009 12:34:03 AM

Quote :

"Applied for the Foreign Service, aced the test, and then got told I didn't need to come in for the oral assessment a couple of weeks ago."

Man that sucks. I'm kind of surprised they didn't give you the oral. I would think there'd be some openings coming up with the change in administration.

How much studying did you do for the test? I've been thinking about giving it a go. I did a practice test for it and didn't find it particularly difficult. It seemed to be mostly stuff you would read on the news or learned in political science courses.

1/2/2009 5:12:54 AM

The state department openings that you'd expect with a new administration would probably be higher-ups. FSO's are fairly low on the totem pole and don't really come and go with Presidents.

The test isn't really something you can study for. It's a mix of just about everything. There's some emphasis on the US government as it relates to foreign relations: things like which act created which thing, who does the CIA have to report to in Congress, etc. There's also:

random geography
differences between US and foreign courtesies (ex., in so-and-so eye contact is rude)
history
management skills (like knowing details about sexual harassment law)
Public Relations (how to manage an interview)

And, I swear to God, pop culture. I had a question about who started the bebop sound in jazz.

That's the first, "general knowledge" part. Then you've got quite a bit of English skills. It's the kind where they give you a paragraph and underline certain passages and ask you if they should be changed and how. Quite a lot of that.

Then there's an essay. They ask your opinion about something not particularly related to foreign affairs just to see if you can make a cogent, well-written argument.

All told I didn't find the thing terribly difficult -- I'm very good at the English skills stuff, and I already had a good foundation in most of the general knowledge stuff. The management and PR questions were a bit tougher because they're not always common sense, and the pop culture stuff was very specific and difficult (though, mercifully, there was very little of it).

1/2/2009 12:49:25 PM

your blog is stearing this way off topic

1/2/2009 1:46:13 PM

hah, the practice test I took didn't have any pop culture questions on it. I would completely flunk that part if they asked anything from the past 3 years

1/2/2009 10:36:11 PM

Quote :

"All told I didn't find the thing terribly difficult -- I'm very good at the English skills stuff, and I already had a good foundation in most of the general knowledge stuff. The management and PR questions were a bit tougher because they're not always common sense, and the pop culture stuff was very specific and difficult (though, mercifully, there was very little of it)."

tell us about your oral exam experience

1/2/2009 10:46:29 PM

this thread just got sad

1/5/2009 11:10:13 AM

just got sad? I thought it started that way.

1/5/2009 11:27:01 AM

naw grumpygop sadded it up

1/5/2009 1:58:37 PM

Laid off in Dec, job offer on the 31st, have yet to accept as there may be another in a better location. Will figure it out by this week/next.

December sucked. January has been pretty OK so far.

1/5/2009 3:24:29 PM

Good luck Katie

1/5/2009 3:29:29 PM

raises hand!

1/5/2009 3:30:06 PM

Grumpy, my advice is enroll into grad school preferably in a doctorate program so that you get to go to school for free and get a stipend for living expenses and then keep trying for the foreign service. If you succeed in getting recruited for Foreign Service you can leave grad school in between and go for the service.

1/5/2009 4:35:11 PM

Quote :

"tell us about your oral exam experience"

If this is sarcasm, I'm not sure exactly where you're going with it.

If it is serious, I made it abundantly clear that my candidacy ended between the written and oral exams, the latter of which I never took.

Quote :

"Grumpy, my advice is enroll into grad school preferably in a doctorate program so that you get to go to school for free and get a stipend for living expenses and then keep trying for the foreign service."

If it was clear that I could do that, I would. Money is the primary reason that grad school wasn't a serious consideration early on.

---

If I took the thread off track or "sadded it up," I apologize. I haven't done anything but respond to things people said to me. I had been under the impression that I was allowed to do so IN A FUCKING ONLINE FORUM.

1/5/2009 5:24:08 PM

This may help some of you:

ESC adds server to handle overload of applicants

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/4246982/

FYI

1/6/2009 3:38:18 AM

Hooksaw, I can't tell how you're intending that.

I haven't seen anybody on here mention asking about unemployment benefits lately, which makes me wonder.

[Edited on January 6, 2009 at 3:53 AM. Reason : ]

1/6/2009 3:40:54 AM

i has a job

FINALLY

1/6/2009 8:40:58 AM

i has to find another job because this one blows donkey balls but pays well

who wants the damn thing?

1/6/2009 10:59:40 AM

I've never been unemployed, but I know it can be tough. My advice is to go meet people before the interview process, shake hands, and give managers your resume. There is nothing more convincing to a boss than someone's persistence and drive to find a job. Honestly, if you don't take action, you won't get the offer.

1/6/2009 11:31:30 AM