Although I have had what I feel is an excellent career in credit work, I have had difficulty obtaining even occasional temporary positions through many well known financial staffing firms.
I will occasionally request your thoughts, experiences, opinions, even educated guesses, on what can be done to upgrade my successes in the temporary endeavors.
Thank you.
CMA has a link in the Services tab to a site called Credit Jobs Today. You can post your resume and look for openings. There are consultants who specialize in polishing your resume. Sometimes it is not only the qualifications; it is how you list (you might read: embellish) your accomplishments. Formatting and catching the eye of the employer immediately is often a key to an interview. I'm not certain how CMA members can view the Credit Jobs resume postings but if you are successful in getting your resume on-line, perhaps you can direct members to that site so they can view it. Then, they can provide more educated opinions on how they can be of help in your job search.
In my opinion, networking is the key to any successful job hunt. I would also encourage you to consider volunteer work with CMA or other professional organizations.
Jeffrey--
I have gone through three layoffs and a corporate bankruptcy since 2003, and held two long-term temp positions during that span while looking for work. This is with over twenty years now of commercial credit experience. Networking, by the way, did not help me find any of the permanent positions I held; only long hours plumbing the jobs on the internet and job boards, and interviewing like crazy, did that.
Networking, however, definitely helped me in finding both of the temp positions, and in fact referred me to both positions. I'd suggest talking first of all to your NACM or CMA rep, and also build up contacts at the local NACM/CMA office. If you are nearby to a regional or national credit conference, try to attend that, as you will be talking to many credit professionals and vendors to credit professionals, some of whom may know of firms looking for someone, or who may be in need of someone themselves.
The problem I've found with staffing firms is that they try to get the exact fit into a position. That's great if you have *exactly* what their client is looking for, but if you're only a close fit, someone else is more likely to get the interview for the job. Since the agency is the gatekeeper to even get to the interview for a temp position, it is much harder than you might think. It's a numbers game for the agency, and they want someone in that position ASAP, earning money for them. Also, most of the positions go to finance or accounting firms, as there aren't many purely credit staffing firms. My worst experiences were with RHI, which got me, over the space of nearly a year, *one* phone interview and *one* in-person interview, where the positions were not quite what I had been told to start with. Agencies have their uses, but they're not always the best way to go when looking for employment.
Believe me, I've been in your position more often than I care to think about. I wish you luck in finding something soon.
Thank you for your suggestions and support in both temporary credit work and obtaining full time employment. I will post an update soon to share experiences as an educational benefit to all who may be viewing our comments.
Sometimes it seems the longer you stay in this profession the harder it is to get the next job, instead of easier as it should be. I kind of lucked out in ending up at Safeway because I have worked for manufacturing firms (another dying breed). Safeway it turns out has 17 manufacturing plants in the US and besides making products for our own stores we make private label food products for other companies. I had no idea of that before my interview. I've been here almost 6 years and the way things look, may be looking again soon. Good luck to all of us.
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