Get The Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring: Take Charge of Your Career, Find a Job You Love, and Earn What You Deserve

Chapter 1. Yes, The Job Market Is Bad—Really Bad!

As of this writing, the United States is experiencing its worst economy since the Great Depression. The stock market just had the largest one-day drop in history and fluctuates wildly based on the daily economic news, which seems to get increasingly worse. Investors have already lost more than 7trillion dollars, and the shock waves of the credit crunch are reverberating across the country and around the globe.

Governments are being forced to bail out entire industries and invest directly into financial institutions to keep them afloat. Our very notions of government agencies and private businesses are in the process of being redefined.

Millions of U.S. citizens can't pay their mortgages or are actually losing their homes with an unprecedented number of foreclosures and bankruptcies. Parents can't pay their children's tuition bills. Entire retirement funds are being decimated on Wall Street.

The job market is weaker than it has been in 80 years. The U.S. recession has claimed more than 4 million jobs to date. More than 4 million jobs have been lost in a one-year period. One hundred forty-five thousand positions were recently eliminated in just one week, with nearly 650,000 jobs lost within one month. Unemployment continues to expand with more layoffs and downsizings. As the economy shrinks, debt soars, and the headlines proclaim one financial meltdown after another. Worst of all, it seems that no one's hiring!

Perhaps most startling of ...