Evaluating Alternative Jobs In A Recession How You Can Distinguish Between Good And Bad Opportunities

The current global recession calls to mind the problems of the 1980s, when there were equally high joblessless statistics as at the current time. At that time there was a marked retrenchment in our industrial base, so that a high number of car making, steel making, coal mining and comparable jobs vanished or were in short supply. It is intriguing to note the parallels between that earlier recession, and today, looking at the various sham jobs that were advertised, and are resurfacing once more now, a lot of them in sales positions, that no one would dream of applying for, if jobs were not in such short supply.

And yet, there are contrasts between the two periods, because of the appearance of Internet business and a wide range of legitimate online jobs in existence at the current time, that were not available 25 years ago. While the possibility for people to work from home is not new, the WWW greatly widens the possibilities for doing this.

To be sure, there are legitimate opportunities working in a commission-based sales capacity, but it is important to distinguish good from bad jobs, and avoid positions promoting something dubious. Once in the eighties I went for an interview with an employer promoting a new commercial directory. I was supposed to visit companies getting them to buy an entry in this. I suspected that this supposed directory was something of a sham, and declined the position. I never heard of the directory again.

In another example I applied for a vacancy selling a financial scheme, and was invited to attend an interview at a hotel. It is not unusual for employers to hire hotel space for the purposes of interviews. Unfortunately, when I got there, I discovered this organisation in fact had their office in a hotel room. Before I would even be taken on by them, I had to to sell 5 investment plans, to friends and relatives. So therefore, they were not interested in me, but in my contacts. Needless to say I steered well clear of that one.

Then I even spent some time as a door-to-door salesman. A lot of people find door-to-door salesmen irritating, and it turned out to be a deeply discouraging episode. People will think of various nasty ways of telling you they don’t want to buy your product. So then I tried out telephone selling, which had the advantage that I could work from home, however that was worse still than doorstep selling. People find it a lot easier to put the phone down on a salesman than to slam a door when they’re standing on the doorstep.

The door-to-door job adverts are less plentiful these days as many neighbourhoods have been designated as ‘no cold calling’ zones, and many of the telephone sales positions have been outsourced to India. Even so, this year I applied for a vacancy in telephone research, which I predicted would be preferable as it did not involve selling anything. Regrettably, I discovered that very few people were willing to take part in the survey, and some just hung up on me right away. I left the job after 24 hours.

So, with employment opportunities still extremely scarce, are there any alternatives that are genuine opportunities? After I tried out various non-starters I eventually considered Internet business opportunities. You will find some promoted on the online jobs sites, but in addition there are websites specialising in the topic of Internet business itself. Positions like these allow you to work from home, therefore there is no need to commute a long distance. Some opportunities might require a reasonable investment, but I know from my own experience that online jobs are infinitely better than trying to sell stuff door-to-door or by phone. Since I started in this area a while ago, I haven’t personally regretted it.