The No-Bullsh*t Career & Job Search Guide

By William Zellmann

This is a simple, plain-english, step by step guide to career planning and job search for the formerly-employed person who finds himself angered and bewildered by advice from fancy job search books that just doesn't seem to work. This guide was written by an author with more than twenty years' experience on the front lines of the job search field. No nonsense, no Bullsh*t, and it's FREE!

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Zellmann
• Release date: Jun 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466163829

William Zellmann

I was born on December 8, 1942 and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where I achieved nothing notable.I joined the Navy to avoid the draft, and found that I quite enjoyed Navy life. I became a Personnelman, and for the next twenty years was largely successful in tricking the Navy into thinking that I wasn't really a lazy slob.During this time, I met and married a wonderful woman. We had a beautiful daughter together. My wife passed away in 2008, and I had the incredible luck to meet another amazing woman. We married in December 2010.After retiring from the Navy, I attended the University of Arkansas. I received a BSBA in Human Resources Management, to my utter surprise (and that of some of my professors!).I seem to be attracted to low-paying government jobs, and upon graduation, I became employed by the State of Arkansas in the employment field. After another 20-year career, I retired from the state in 2011. Since then my life has been devoted to writing and convincing my new wife she didn't really marry a lazy bum.As part of my never-ending quest to avoid working for a living, I have been writing for as long as I can remember. While in the Navy, I submitted several short pieces to gun and auto hobbyist magazines, and was amazed when I found that they actually sent me money! Not much, but still . . .

Book preview

THE UPDATED NO-BULLSH*T CAREER & JOB SEARCH GUIDE

By

William Zellmann

Copyright 2011, 2014 William Zellmann

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Introduction

The current sad state of the U.S. economy has put more people out of work than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930's. However, there are jobs out there. The problem is that most people don't know how to plan for them or how to find them.

My degree is in Human Resources, and I've spent more than twenty years in the employment field. I've seen and read more worthless crap about careers and job search than you would believe.

Yes, I know there are thousands of career, resume, and job search books on the market. Unfortunately, ivory-tower experts who have PhD's, but have never interviewed a job applicant, or professionals who worked for a single company or a single industry, or who only dealt with degreed, professional positions write many of them. The few targeting the average unemployed worker are often overcomplicated or just plain wrong.

Ken is a casual friend, one of the many thousands of workers who have been seeking a job for over a year. He's what I, in my unkindest moments, privately call drifty. After high school, he drifted into a job stocking in a retail store. Then he heard about a job that paid better at a pallet factory and drifted there. He drifted to a lumberyard for a while. Then he drifted to construction labor. His last job was in a warehouse. Since that time, he has mentioned still being out of work only three times, and on two of those occasions, it was in situations in which I was unable to offer any advice. The other occasion was shortly after he was laid off, and he simply asked if I knew any place that was hiring. He asked the question casually, and my reply was equally casual. I told him that I didn't at the moment, but I'd keep him in mind.

Time passed, and I'm sad to admit that other things intervened, and life went on. I was shocked when I met him a few weeks ago and he mentioned he was still unemployed. He needed help, and he needed it now. He told me that he had attended a job search workshop and they had helped him complete a resume, but he was still having no luck.

The resume, when he finally located it, was pathetic. It was simply a laundry list of jobs, with a high-sounding Objective that sounded like he was applying for a CEO Job. I started to lecture him about all the areas that needed improvement, when I realized that a lecture was not what he needed. Ken is a hard worker, but he simply had no direction.

That's when I determined to write this guide, for Ken and people like him. Something simple and clear, with no silly academic jargon and no high-flown theoretical nonsense. Something he could take home and use. Something he could refer back to when needed.

Ken is currently pursuing an associate's degree in a field that has always interested him. He graduates soon. Meantime, he has a fill in part time job to pay