Finding Gainful Employment In This Day and Age

Finding a good job today is probably not much different than when I went out into the world in the year nineteen and sixty. It was the fall of the year and I was fed up and tired of going to school. I had put in two years going to college and did not feel that it was doing me any good. I was ready to go out and be successful at something.

    As a young person who did not have a lot of experience in the work place I knew I would have to start at the bottom where ever I did find a job. My father was a car dealer and had been for some thirty-three years at that time, His dealership was in a very small town of around three thousand in population so there was really no need for me to stay and work for him.

    We had television in those days but I never watched the news much or paid much attention to newspapers. As a result of not being very news conscious I did not realize that times were hard. So when I struck out my first day in Amarillo, Texas to look for employment I picked up a local paper and read the classified ads. I saw four or five ads that caught my eye for jobs with local car dealerships and auto parts stores.

    The first place I applied I was offered a job as a parts delivery man and was offered a salary of thirty five dollars a week. This does not sound like a lot of money now days but at the time in nineteen and sixty it was enough to pay my rent, food and all of my living expenses. I had already paid off my car with a summer job back home and I always was a very thrifty person.

    The man that hired me was impressed with my positive acceptance of the job offer. The job was actually only a fill in position and was only supposed to last for about a six month period of time. This did not bother me as I knew I could find something even better during the five or six months I would be working there.

    In fact my positive thinking paid off because when I was called into the manager’s office six months later to tell me that my services were no longer needed he had found me a better job with the local Chevrolet dealer at exactly twice the pay I was making working for him.

    By golly, life really is great if you want it to be. So I went to work at the local Chevrolet dealer’s parts department for a year and a few months and even got a raise during that time.
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    But things got a little slow in the car business so I got a job at another auto parts store at about the same pay. I actually had some bad luck at this job because when summer came I had to go to summer camp for National Guard. While I was away the boss noticed that there had been a lot of stealing going on before I went to camp but it stopped while I was at National Guard camp. When I came back from camp the theft began again so he was sure I was the culprit and he told me I was fired. I told him that it was definitely not me but to no avail.

    So I went and got a newspaper and looked at the classified ads and saw an ad that really caught my attention. The ad said, “The Highest Paid Salesmen in the World work for Encyclopaedia Britannica!” Once I read that I thought to myself that I have always wanted to be a salesman and if I was going to become one I wanted to be one of the highest paid salespeople in the world.

    I went down and applied and got the position the first thing the next morning. And guess what? They were not lying. I started out working and training other people right away and became a manager in no time. In fact I worked for them most of the next twenty-four years and I can say I really enjoyed every minute of it. Did I become the highest paid salesman in the world? Not quite but it was a great occupation and I trained several thousand salespeople over the years who went out into the world to earn a great living. I might mention the boss at my old job called me up one day and said he caught the culprit who was doing all of the stealing and offered me a big raise to come back to work. I thanked him for calling and telling me but I told him I was very happy doing what I was doing.

    The only reason I am not still with Britannica today, other than my age is because they did away with the direct sales organization back in the middle eighties. But due to my sales training I never had any trouble finding a job. If you can sell, you can make a living. I always felt that everyone should make sure their children knew how to make a living selling things. Because if you think about it everything requires some salesmanship.

    If you want a job, you have to sell yourself. Put together a great resume and make sure it is very positive in nature. Also learn something about the companies you are applying to so you can carry on an intelligent interview. Also make sure your appearance is great and you are dressed appropriately for the position you are applying for.

    In this day and age you need to use all of your resources, such as the internet, your friends, your relatives, your acquaintances and of course, the good old classified ads. There are jobs out there, so it is a matter of getting in the door and making sure you do the kind of work that gets you promoted. The truth is the job market is all up to you and you can accomplish anything that you set your mind to.

      Life is great and as long as you, yourself, believe it is great, it will be

Billy Jack Gibson
Better known as The Selling Fool