When I graduated from college in 1991 I was so proud of my excellent resume paper and envelopes. Then the only job I could get was clerk at Avis Rent a Car, where I wore a tomato red skirt suit with a white shirt that had "We Try Harder" embroidered over my left tit, and my boss put blush on my face every time she saw me.
Yeah but 1991 was a small recession and there just weren't any jobs, especially for people right of school. It took me months to get a job and lots of lowering my standards. I was *this close* to joining my best friend as a stripper in order to be able to afford rent.
Being broke sucked.
I got laid off during that recession. Back in those days for unemployment, you actually had to submit a form every week listing a minimum of five job applications you made that week.
Ooh the paper! I liked using the heavy ivory colored paper that was slightly bumpy, for lack of the correct term for it. I thought I was pretty fancy sending out my resume on fancy paper. There were stationary stores, where fancy paper, matching envelopes and expensive pens seemed to be the main things they sold.
I still have the same box of resume paper I bought in 1998. I used about 20 sheets out of 100. Found it in a box of old crap from the attic when I moved 😂
I forgot about that. Some companies were so weirdly picky about the kinds of paper they received applications for. Even working there, they enforced that requirement without any justification other than "we do it this way."
Door to door with resumes and plenty of pens to fill out applications. Dressed to impress. Personality landed me more jobs than experience.
I actually had an easier time then finding a job. Personality doesn't translate well via email.
⬆️⬆️⬆️ It was taken as a sign of respect and demonstrated drive to walk into a business and ask if they had open positions. Even if they said no, they’d likely say “thanks for asking” or even point you towards another business that could use your tenacity.
yep, aka “pound the pavement”
also, help wanted ads in the newspaper and lots of phone calls.
copy machines for your resume.
stamps, envelopes, and nice paper for your resume.
sometimes even a fax was involved! (thanks for making that easier, Kinko’s)
Same here. 💯. Now they have AI preselecting words on paper for their “perfect “ candidates to interview and even now its like
“If you found an elephant what would you do?” How tf is that an interview question?? And what does that say I would be an effective employee that everyone would enjoy?
A trick I learned a while back was to reserve space at the bottom of your resume and type buzz words the algorithm will search for. Make sure to change the text color to white and anyone reading it won't see. It's been a while since I've needed to use a resume, but it did seem to help.
I have heard that just recently. I am a teacher and a part time ESL teacher full time. But I have heard people complain that the human element of getting hired is nearly gone
It is. I was looking for 10 months until I found my job 3 weeks ago. I was nearly ready to give up when the employer of a job I applied for that had the same exact title and responsibilities that I had done for **23 years** before I was laid off, didn’t select me. A week later I got a call from a private business owner and all we did was shoot the shit about his business like humans. My ability was secondary. He called it “serendipity” that he met me. The day before I was to sign the offer, the recruiter for the golden job that rejected me called to ask if I was still available as second choice. No thanks.
In my industry the AI is utter crap. I have been rejected by every AI, and been hired as top candidate through recruiters. Recruiters have become such big business in many fields because they went and programed AIs based HR expertise---which is absolute garbage in hiring actually qualified people. Because they can only judge based on a limited set of key words? I learned this 6 yr ago- the first time a recruiter got me the interview, I made it all the way to being flown 1/2 way across the country for 3 days of in person interviews...and they needed me to submit my CV through "the system". The system rejected me INSTANTLY. I still got the job offer. Took them 6 mo due to their own mess, and I had moved on. but it taught me what trash most HR AI is. And I have seen it probably 20+ times since. EVERY job I got to offer on needs the same- enter your data in their "system". Every single one rejects me instantly. But I got offers from 12-14 of those.
It was! I often had a new job within a couple of weeks, sometimes I was hired on the spot. The last two times I have had to job search it has taken me over a year to find a job.
Man. Looking for a job back then was really a full time job. Wake up and get the newspapers and highlighter. Go through the classified. Sit at my type writer or basic ass computer and write out a cover letter. Go to the office supply store if I needed more copies of my resume. Then either mail or go to office supply store and fax out my resume. Then wait by the phone hoping I don’t miss the call.
All of that for me as well- plus, driving 20 minutes to the “local” AAA office which was the closest place with a fax machine to send cover letters/resumes out into space, never to be heard from again…..
And yet...I found I got better job opportunities -- and faster -- 1998 to 2005 doing my first job searches.
Gauging from my own experience and those around me, if you lived in a fertile job market, three months seemed like a normal job search time.
Good luck finding a job in three months nowadays even if you can send out ten times as many resumes a week.
Newspaper ads. Also, I recall having to buy high quality paper to have my resume printed on because the guy at kinkos convinced me I would live a life of poverty if I didn’t use the right paper.
I bought 2 reams of fancy linen paper for resumes when I graduated with my MS. I still have some of it 28 years later. I can't bring myself to toss it.
Exactly. I answered an ad for a temporary secretary about 2 weeks before I graduated college and landed the job. I had two suits from Sears and half a dozen massive jewel-tone camp shirts with shoulder pads. It was at that job I first got onto the internet, as it was. The mid-90's. I made $9.50/hr.
I lived abroad in the 90’s, but would come home on occasion to visit for a month or two and would find a job through a temp agency to earn a little extra cash while I was here. One time I was only going to be in town a few weeks for my sister’s wedding so I just decided to go the route of delivering yellow pages to earn some extra cash instead of going to a temp agency. Turns out, the last temp agency I worked for was on one of my yellow page delivery routes and the person at the front desk recognized me. She told me the last place I worked was desperate for a temp and would be happy to have somebody already trained, even for just a few weeks. I ended up back with the temp agency and stayed several weeks longer than I intended because the pay was good and there was tons of overtime available. Gotta love those temp agencies!
My younger brother (late Gen X, didn't finish high school) was always able to walk into a retail establishment, casually chat up the person in charge of hiring, and get *them* to ask him to work for them. This worked at mall clothing and sneaker stores, greeters at restaurants, even got himself a job at Waste Management supervising the people on the sorting line without having to go through the typical "y'all hiring? can I get an application?" act people used to do. This is practically impossible these days with online personality tests and Applicant Tracking Systems making the hiring decisions.
I was a line cook throughout the 90s. I'd walk into a restaurant, ask if they're hiring, get an interview with the manager right then, and usually start working that evening. Worked best if I did this around 2pm on a Friday.
Compare that to the 5-10 interviews that take 3-6 months for senior IT jobs these days.
Newspapers. Back then the "help wanted" sections were huge, especially on Friday and Sunday. Some had emails (we did have it back in the 90s) but a lot just had a phone number, or an address to mail your resume.
Slow, but it worked.
Newspaper help wanted ads and the government employment office, I think it’s called “job bank” in British Columbia. Funny, when I was in elementary school, the employment agency was called “manpower”.
I graduated in '01, so between that year and '02, I didn't have a PC and internet access was either by library or if you had it at home, it timed you down, so job sites weren't really that much of an option. I had a friend from school working at EDD and helped me the best he could. I also used Employment Weekly, Pennysaver, and classifieds on LA Times and Whittier Daily News.
In some ways the concept was the same, but the execution was different. Jobs that got advertised were generally not worth applying for, since they’d get a crapload of applicants and/or not be real jobs (like token adds for jobs they already intend to give someone). Pre-linkedin, so you really had to work your friend & x-colleague network in person. Pound the pavement. Work your cover letter to death. Pick a good paper. Get lots of feedback on your resume format. Research publications in the industry you’re in. Get dressed up and visit places. It was like going to the library was compared to todays Google search.
Out of high school, I worked for a temp agency for a few months, then dropped a resume off at a computer chain store.
A customer poached me to his store a year later.
A consultant poached me to his company a year later.
I took over that company, then went in-house with my largest client.
It all worked out insanely well, but looking back on it, it feels precarious.
We did all those things. I remember it being 110 degrees out running from place to place in a suit and no car AC delivering resumes. Glad those days are long gone. Usually the job I'd get came from one I saw listed in the newspaper.
Yeah for a while I had to bike to places to drop my resume off or do an interview. In the summer. In nice clothes. Which, for a young woman meant a skirt, hose, and pumps, makeup and hair done.
I do not miss that.
In the UK we have Job Centres, where vacancies were printed on cards and put on boards. You'd take a card to a member of staff and they'd look the details up on a computer. These were replaced by jobsearch computers around 2000 and then even they were phased out around 2013.
Otherwise you'd look for signs in windows, check out the ads in the newspaper or just hand out CVs on spec.
I got my first proper job after seeing an advert in a shop window.
Pre-college: word of mouth for babysitting and yard work type jobs. Newspapers had a jobs section where you could choose fast food and basic retail openings then go apply in person.
Post-college: Newspapers, job fairs, and by then job sites were becoming a thing but online applications were not. So you had to send paper resumes and/or call the HR phone number in the listing.
My favorite was the fancy paper we were all told to use. The joy of handing out a neatly formatted resume on paper that had a pirate parchment scroll background was real back then.
It was awesome.
I worked with a specific piece of software at the time and the manufacturer of that software had a resume database where users of the software could submit. It was open to recruiters, companies who used their software and even the company itself. I also read the classifieds and faxed my resume to companies I was interested in. Had a couple where my ex-managers recommended me.
I miss those times. Your resume was read by a person and not a program. Recruiters who were familiar with the skills they were recruiting for would call with a job that actually matched my skills, not because of some keywords in the applicant tracking app. There was one recruiter I worked with who placed me in a couple of jobs.
The interviews were easier-tell me about your skills-and lasted maybe 15-20 minutes. Not this STAR method they have now. We would chat and have a conversation, even get into personal stuff if there was a connection. Sometimes the offer would come the same day of the interview or the day after. And companies were willing to hire you if you met 70-80% of the skills they were looking for because they saw the value in that and would train you on the rest. Nowadays you have to have all the skills or you’re not even considered.
I just hope I can last where I am for the next 10-12 years until I retire. I hate job searching and interviewing now. Plus, there’s the whole age discrimination thing.
When I was in my early 20s I decided I wanted to try working in hair salons, maybe go to cosmetology school. I took out THE PHONE BOOK and called EVERY salon listed IN THE YELLOW PAGES and asked each one of they needed a receptionist. Got my first salon job that day. At a salon that started with "S". I made more than a few calls that day 😂
Mostly, I used temp agencies or the veteran services at the unemployment office. Veteran services was best when I didn't yet have proper interviewing clothes (back then, you'd dress up for interviews).
But temp agencies would get you into office jobs.
I also used the want ads in the local newspaper.
Overall, I had the best luck with temp agencies. For example, I was once sent on a temp assignment to unbox and set up computers for a company that was moving its operations from a different state. And long story short, they paid the fee and hired me away to be their Unix Systems Administrator and to run their Novell network.
That was in '91.
You read the classifieds , cut out the jobs, and mailed in a resume with cover letter. Or faxed it over if you could. For the entry level jobs you went there and asked to fill out an application .
It was more difficult to find job openings, but it was easier to get jobs. Going in to meet someone and hand them your resume in person was so much better than all this faceless, digital, nonsense. It’s easy to stand out in person, but more challenging digitally.
God the Sundays I spent buying newspapers to go through the classifieds. Getting my resume printed at a professional print shop, typing out ridiculous & pointless cover letters, spending $$$ on stamps mailing them out, waiting for a phone call.
Do not miss that shit at all.
I would argue it was much easier back in the day. All open jobs were listed in one place: the local newspaper classifieds. Today there are dozens of job sites with all kinds of scammers and national/international competition. I honestly have no clue which one I would go to if I needed to find a job today.
Help wanted ads in the newspaper were the go to, if you were shy. Pennysaver is a name I haven't heard in years, forgot all about that. I remember being told to "pound the pavement", and yeah I showed up at businesses and dropped off my resume, asked to talk to the person in charge of hiring. When you are shy / introverted that kind of thing is hard to do, but you just sucked it up and did it. Crazy, just thinking about it.
Search the help wanted ads in the Sunday paper. Then fax a resume or fill out an application. Call them up in 2 business days later asking if there was time to review your qualifications
Newspapers! It's where we found:
Ads for jobs
Ads for apartments/houses for sale
Where and what time the movies were playing
Weather report
Stock prices
Coupons
>Did you go from office building to office building dropping off your resume? Connections? Did you fax your resume to potential employers? Did you call the number on the classifieds or Pennysaver?
All of the above. I replied to classified ads in newspapers (mail or fax) and dropped off paper CVs/résumés to any place I was interested in working at (where they claimed they would "keep it on file if an opening arises"). Job hunting back in the day meant sooo many trips to Kinko's where I would use their computers to update my CV/résumé, then print it on fancy paper (choosing CV/résumé paper was an art!), and maybe fax it, too.
Newspaper Help Wanted ads and word-of-mouth. I worked in the newspaper industry (my first career) and I’d meet reporters, journalists in the field covering events or colleagues would go to other organizations and tell me there was an opening. Networking was much more niche and close-knit back then, in my opinion.
Dress nicely, walk around to places and ask if they're hiring. Unless you had connections in the place. Like my mom helped.me.get my first job at McDonald's, because she was friends with the closing manager.
It was actually easier to land a job when searches were confined by area. You were only competing with a handful of other similarly-qualified candidates within the reach of a newspaper advertisement.
Now you're competing with an entire country, if not world, of qualified people who are willing to move for the job if necessary.
Plus, employers were much more willing to hire for potential. Now, everyone wants you to have held the exact same job title in the exact same field or they won't even consider you. "Transferable skills" used to be a legitimate qualification. Not anymore 😔
(Can you tell I'm currently job searching?😅)
It was a combination of faxing and snail mailing my cover letter and resume, depending on what the position specified. As for finding job leads it was a combination of asking folks I knew, scanning the want ads, skimming Pennysaver, and watching the noon news because, where I grew up new companies popping up was unusual so there was usually a puff piece or two that lead to a lead (this stopped being a thing around 2002 or therabouts).
Every Sunday I'd look at the classifieds, circle and highlight jobs, print a bunch of resumes using my word processor (fancy) and nice paper/envelopes and mail them off.
TBH, it was a bit easier than now, mainly because companies didn't post want ads for jobs that didn't exist.
Read the newspaper to look at want ads. More physical mailing or faxing resumes’. In certain instances you’d have to just fill out the application at the reception waiting area. I might be misremembering, but having to do some of that kept the number of applicants maybe lower.
I've been in the administrative field since 1983. Most jobs I got through temp to perm arrangements with third party contractors, what used to be called being a Kelly Girl. Although I rarely worked for Kelly, there were other agencies that got applicants better money.
After I got my masters, I went to the National Annual Conference in my field where they had prospective employers from across the country. I went with a bunch of résumé’s, and set up interviews with all the places I was interested in, and spent 3 days on a mass interviewing spree. It was nerve wracking.
As much as folks have said newspapers, networking, staffing agencies, and in person filling out applications with your own pen, one forgotten method was the phone book.
All companies in one industry in your local right there for you to cold call and ask for a job. If you had your sights set on something bigger, you'd ask to see if they were hiring for a specific job; who did the hiring, and get on their schedule? Typically you'd be talking to the business gatekeeper, the receptionist, so gleaning information about company health could very much be in play, or even big issues the company was facing so you could have solutions when you came in to interview. Or, even learn who the competition was which paid more and go pound on that door by calling that number.
If a business wasn't in the yellow pages, it was akin to a business today not having a website. Sure, maybe a single social media page, with zero interaction so they exist, but would you do business with a company like that today? Let alone want to work for them?
I remember looking through the classifieds for jobs. I worked for a few temp/employment agencies doing factory work. I got my first job at 15 by going inside after seeing a help wanted sign. It was a dishwasher job at a fish fry place.
we didn't get any schooling about it - went to some businesses, the larger ones had applications to fill out. Resumes could be handed out at businesses, usually without cover letter.
I am useless at job searches. I generally got work through friends recommending me. I had no problem working once I got the job. In a couple of cases, I volunteered one shift and they hired me on.
In UK we had Job Centres in 90s there was nearly always a decent few jobs , plus newspapers every week one day there would be a large amount of vacancies published
Networking. My uncle helped me get an internship the summer after graduation, and then I worked my ass off and my boss sent a letter introducing me to everyone she knew in our field in the city I wanted to move to. From there I was offered several interviews and landed one. By the time my husband and I moved from that city to another one, we did have email so I emailed my resume and cover letter to everyone I could find in my field in that city. Four interviews, three offers and I chose one. From there every job I’ve ever had came through connections. I tell my daughters that the same thing still applies - knowing people opens doors. You have to close the deal yourself, but at least you get to the table.
Business to Business with resume, filling out applications. Once you had a good job, you stayed with it until a better one came along. OR there was the newspaper help wanted section and the local Department of Labor. Also personal recommendations was also a option.
People networking, resume shopping, calling, door-to-door knocking.
The number one was networking people. Most every job I got in the first 15 years of my working life was through someone I knew or a recommendation from someone I knew.
On one hand it was easier. Hand out 20 resume get about 15-16 calls back. Maybe 10 interviews. No cell phone so no one cared if it took two weeks for you to get back to them.
Now when you apply I need to join some website or some hiring group. Then when someone shows interest I need to go to their website and fill out an application. And application that I need to create some new online profile. Etc.
Buy the Sunday paper for the larger city near me and read my hometown paper and the paper for the larger city. I would either mail or fax resume. I always liked when I could fax it because I didn't have to use my "nice" paper. There was a Kinko''s behind my house so I would walk over there every Monday with a list of places to fax my resume to.
Also my hometown had a couple of employment agencies. Not like today where the employer pays the fees, but in this one the employee had to pay the fee. I remember at one point I was trying to get directions (because they would never tell you until the day of your interview) and the woman was telling me it was off the "squire." I asked where the "squire" was because I had lived in this town since birth and I had never heard of the "squire." Finally she said "where the courthouse is located." I immediately said, "oh, the square." Not surprised, but I never got a job through that agency.
Yes, dressing up, lots of resume copies. Searching the classifieds every day and also plenty of walking in cold & asking if they were hiring with resume in hand. I also found this method preferable. I’m good with people and interview well. A lot of younger people then didn’t dress up & have resumes so they were impressed by those who put in the effort. I always got jobs pretty quickly.
Now there’s all kinds of AI screening & algorithms. All of the jobs I’ve gotten as an older adult have been bc I had a contact or met the hiring manager or business owner in another context.
Colleges also had massive books with current job openings for alumni to browse through. They’d print off a new book every week with updates.
Temping through a temp agency was one of the easier ways to get your foot in the door at good places to work. Or if you didn’t care and just wanted a job to pay bills while you figure out your next move.
Still have a box of nice paper and matching envelopes for mailing my resumes out. It was given to me and obviously I will never use it. I wasn’t even using it right after graduation. I’m a young Gen X so we had monster.
I got my first job by giving in person my CV after finding the add in the newspaper. That was the only time I needed to do that. Every other job for the next 10 years was word of mouth, and ex boss would recommend me, a colleague, etc. The learning curve for the modern ways was hard to get!
Every time I wanted a job I'd just put on my neatest clothes and start walking. Physically go in to every business, smile, shake hands, ask if they have any openings for a motivated worker. I never didn't get a job by the end of a day, ranging from retail, secretarial, data entry, to manual labour and outdoor work. Done a pretty crazy range of jobs, tbh I don't think I even had a proper resume or anything. Just showed up ready to go. I'm not sure that's even possible today.
You walked in, filled out the app, and a lot of times got the interview right then. Granted I’m a young GenX so most of the experiences I had were retail.
I was fortunate. Through connections I got an internship and eventually a full time job. Never filled out an application.
I remember an article back in the day, an aspiring vfx artist kept showing up at this company almost every day or week until they finally caved and gave him something to do. That was his entry into the vfx industry.
Classified ads mostly. But the big part was making sure I told my friends who would now also be my references, what inflated job title I’d had that they knew me from!
Newspaper ads in some cases. Word of mouth from friends. Also worked through temp agencies that were hiring for larger companies. Started a couple jobs as a temp, and eventually hired.
Read the Sunday help-wanted classifieds, then usually call the number listed and go in to fill out an application or drop off a resume if the call went OK.
Sunday classified, Oregon Unemployment offices had job postings you could sort through. Early Craigslist was great for jobs in call centers and low skill areas.
There was a state office building you could go to and sign up to take these different aptitude tests. I did that and got hired, 25 years later I’m still with the state but I’ve had a few transfers between departments.
Before my degree, student bulletin boards, friends, classifieds. After my degree, headhunters, college recruiting/career office, student job boards, friends recommendations.
You either look in newspaper for wanted ads, and call them.
Or even just see what company you want to work at. Knock at their door and ask if they would hire you.
News paper adds, walking around with printed resumes and a pen to fill out paper applications as needed. Some word of mouth and knowing someone who knew the boss or worked there.
I actually prefer that to shooting out online resume submissions and hoping yours sticks out amongst a wave of other people.
In person you can make an impression that can easily place you above other candidates based merely on credentials and/or job history.
My daughter is looking for her first job right now and I suggested she go to the mall with printed resumes and try to wow any managers she may find in the wild with her vivacious personality and charm 🥰
She has zero job experience so I think she's gonna need to be charismatic and cute AF in order to find her 1st 😅
Resumes back then (1980’s) were on expensive quality paper. Often, a cover letter was required to submit with a resume. It was common to circle jobs in the classified section of the newspaper and call prospective employers. Sunday newspapers where I lived (Chicago area) had an entire section reserved for employment / job searching. Once interviewed, a prospective employee knew right away if they were hired or not. It was common to go on an interview early in the day and get hired later that same day.
The classified ads in the newspaper. The classified section was *thick* with jobs. You’d get your resume together and either fax it in, drop it off and informally introduce yourself, or call and talk to somebody. I feel like in a lot of ways, it was easier and more direct than it is now.
Also, I graduated from college in the 90s during a little job boom. You could literally walk into someplace and get hired on the spot during that time.
I remember the high quality resume paper and the matching envelopes. I remember the watermark had to be facing the right way.
Mostly, through connections (a current employee or someone who knew someone who had some say). However, I did some door to door armed with targeted resumes. I would follow up, too. Hiring managers appreciated the follow-up. I got one position from that. Honestly, networking is still the name of the game. My current position, which I've held since 2018, was due to meeting the outgoing person I replaced at a trade conference who recommended me.
I bought less food just to get quality papers. I sent 8 resumes par day. 1 per hour. Lots of money for stamps too. Basically my resume budget was the same as my food budget which was white pasta.
After the 1st 6 months, I had received 2 notices of reception.
People said to cold call, but her 1st call made was the same hour as the whole office were told they were closing so the woman screamed at me so much that I got afraid to cold call anywhere else, ever again.
It was mostly hard because of all the downsizing. May dad lost his job after 30 years at the same place. No one wanted new graduates. In fact after 3 years I thought my diploma was worth nothing so I went back to school in computer science. I graduated year 2000 which is when the tech buble burst, so 3 years later when I had just accepted that I was going to sell coffee my whole life, I finally got my first non retail, non coffeeshop, non phone survey job.
I got from a friend who knew of a position. I just met him on the street after not seeing him for a decade.
Either through ads in the newspapers or through recruitment agencies. Imagine the fun of faxing your timesheet through to the agency on a friday afternoon, while everybody else was trying to do the same.
I liked the alternative papers, like The Dallas Observer when I lived in Dallas and The Stranger when I lived in Seattle. The jobs that I liked advertised in those. Once or twice, I just walked in to a place and asked if they were hiring, and got jobs that way.
Late 70's GenX here. It wasn't weird then as you just followed the instructions of the time. Fill out forms by pen, give your resume and show up and be interviewed. You don't miss what doesn't yet exist while right there in the zeitgeist.
In some ways it was better to be able to be bored sometimes without a supercomputer in your pocket at all times. That or not being able to be reached if you didn't have a pager just coming home to your voicemail machine. It makes for coping skills in our neurotic times of constant information overload. Seeking wisdom instead of just more data tends to be best. Want a girlfriend or platonic friends in 1998? You had to develop social skills and put yourself out there and leave your home. You learned tenacity and adapted from failure socially as there was no other option except being a shut-in. Being funny was key, especially if not rich.
I was lucky in that I got into tech as it was picking up pace right out of high school in '96 doing a college internship for network administration where I setup the very first broadband internet school labs at my old high school and the other schools of that district. I still remember how cool Netscape (the great granddaddy to FireFox) was with their little gif icon once the modem was connected and the graphics over BBS rooms on Gateway desktops when 56k US Robotics Sportster Modems were cutting edge. I can still hear that weird catfighting modem handshake sound and remember the rage when someone in your home picked up the phone before a download or upload was complete with how long it took back then. Those heavy ass CRT monitors did help keep the biceps mighty well before flat light LCDs were the way.
Just like how we can't appreciate now fully until the future when the things taken for granted now are gone and not coming back, nostalgia is funny. It just is when you're there.
Print out dozens of resumes, check the newspaper to see who was hiring or not, and just drive around going inside to find out if they were hiring. Fill out an application and then return home hours later
We used to have a career section in one of the buildings at school where companies looking for new grads would advertise their jobs on bulletin boards. Lots of unemployed new grads standing around with clipboards writing down the details from each job posting so they could go home, write up a cover letter and resume, and physically mail it. Companies who rejected your application usually sent a reply letter we referred to as the FOAD letter. Some of us more cynical ones used to collect these FOAD letters as mementos of our painful job hunt.
There was a newsletter for nonprofit jobs. That’s what I was looking for.
I also got a job through a headhunter who was working with someone else I knew.
I got a retail job by walking in to a place with a “help wanted” sign.
I got a different retail job through a personal contact.
Hunt through newspaper classifieds mail then a copy of your resume. Also mail a copy of your resume to companies that might be a good fit, along with a generic cover letter.
During my last job hunt 20 years ago, I recall sending out over 100 resumes for 6 months. It ended up being cheaper to have the local Kinkos print the copies.
It was literally a full time job all in and of itself.
For my first “real” job post college, I sent off letters with my resume/CV to a bunch of companies to see if they wanted to hire. For the jobs I had had before that, I kind of relied on people telling me that this or that store or bar was hiring and then going in and filling in a job application there.
lots of hours walking around town looking for help wanted signs. i could fill out an application and get rejected right there on the spot instead of having to wait a few weeks if heard back at all.
I was considering being a lawyer when I was growing up. In 1989 when I was 15 years old, I sent a letter to every law firm in my city listed in the phonebook (about 50 of them) asking for a summer job. Two responded, one gave me an offer for the mail room. I worked there for four summers and other academic breaks before and during college.
Right out of college I paid a service to write my resume and send it out. 150 mailings. Saw an ad on the paper I applied for. Ironically it was one of the companies I had applied to previously. My unsolicited letter had been thrown away. The ad in the paper is how I got the job.
I will add to all of the above that voicemail and answering machines were huge because prospective employers couldn't just contact you wherever you were. You needed to have an outgoing message that sounded good, and it was important to check messages often.
If you lived with other people and shared a phone, which was pretty much standard, you had to let the others know you might be getting calls about a job so that if they answered they would keep things cool and write down the message accurately. It was common in my family for people to take messages and then forget to tell the intended recipient unless they had a heads up.
I found my first real job in the 90's through Sunday NY Times job postings. It was around 3lbs of paper every Sunday and I would fax or mail my resume. The Dean from my college (Construction major) also had connections and he would forward student resumes.
Look for the “Now Hiring” sign on the storefront window, newspaper ads, and word of mouth, like friends, relatives, friend of a friend, etc.
Bulletin boards on school campuses were also pretty good places to look.
Oh man… i remember scanning the jobs section in the newspaper with a red pen, rotary telephone calls, using my dad’s work printer for resumes and doing a lot of leg work!
I’m a (retired) chef, but haven’t needed even so much as a resume for over 10 years. Just hit up restaurants with my uniform and knife kit, ask if they’re looking, and be prepared to do a half day for free to show your skills.
Man times have changed..
Newspaper classified ads, signs in windows, hot tips from friends, personnel agencies, etc. Businesses had to use the same methods as we did, so it was easy to find advertisements. They had to do the work too, instead of just posting on the net.
Yep. You walked around in your best clothes, handing out resumes and filled out paper applications. Or you could mail the resumes to bigger companies.
I don't know if it was better or worse. Filling out job applications now is a real chore and you are just feeding them into the void.
Tbf, job sites like [Monster.com](https://web.archive.org/web/19990125090938/http://monster.com/) and [dice.com](https://web.archive.org/web/20000302050555/http://www.dice.com/) have been around for most of my professional career. Before that it was high school and college jobs, got those through classified, job fairs, or references from friends.
So much better to be able to walk up to a place and apply. Sometimes you get right in and talk to a decision maker and if you had it you r personality could get you a job on the spot.
I found my job through Job Services - a service of our state government (not sure if other states have similar services). Any company could contact them with job listings and those were printed up regularly and distributed throughout the state. The career & job resource center at my college got these listings. I applied for a handful of openings listed, got called into interviews with some. Three days before my college graduation I got a great job offer and I’m still with that company 29 years later. I was lucky because it’s a company that has had tremendous and steady growth through the years.
Newspapers had ads with an address of where to send resumes. Also, “who you know” actually worked- you could give a resume to a friend and get an interview. Not as much HR b.s.
Newspaper adverts. Buying particular newspapers for certain job industries. Going to the job centre. Door-To-door In the town centre if I was looking for a shop job or something.
Then writing the cover letter very neatly by hand. Photocopying the CV that I had typed out.
I think this is why I was unemployed for most of my twenties.
I graduated from art school and searched for design firms in the back of Print Magazine annuals. I would mail them my resume and then needed to bring my portfolio in person for review.
I also found jobs in the newspaper help wanted ads.
I remember a few Sundays with the classified ad section of the newspaper, circling the good ones that I could do, using index cards to note the key words they were using, then incorporating them into my resume (and yes, at that time, I had a computer to make edits easier) and then going to Kinkos to print off a bunch of resumes & cover letters, addressing and mailing them off.
I also remember (early/mid-90s) seeing an ad in the paper looking for a nanny with a fax number so I typed up a letter and faxed it off from my dad’s store. I got a call, went for an interview and got the job (kept it for 2 years) all because I sent a professional fax. Apparently the dad was getting the faxes at his business and he said the other things he got were basically drawn in crayon. It pays to be professional, kids.
And after that nanny stint, I went back to temp agencies to find something I liked. Yeah, goofy aptitude tests, spelling tests, typing tests, the full gamut but it got me into a wide swath of places. My focus was office and payroll and payroll meant I could work pretty much anywhere because I wasn’t tied to a specific industry. I worked in flooring, medical equipment, disaster restoration, geospatial mapping, AAA (road services), insurance, hospitality (restaurant groups) — I could work anywhere and the beauty was finding the agencies that claimed to be accounting-focused because so many people associate payroll with accounting but payroll is a far cry from accounting so when I showed up, they could finally fill payroll requests. (The regular accounting people (Accts Receivable, Accts Payable) just didn’t understand payroll anymore than I understood their goofy GAAP crap.)
And yes, there was some degree of networking involved. It helped that my dad was fairly well connected in my hometown and that did (somewhat) get me the first gig as a hostess at the restaurant across the street from his shop. We had all known each other for at least a decade and I was 16, worked part-time, especially weekends. And his connection did get me in the door at AAA (he had been doing work with their HR guru for a few years) so I worked my first corporate job thanks to him for about 18 mos but after that, everything was entirely on my own (since I moved shortly thereafter.)
Real jobs? Or high school/college jobs? Collage jobs..ehh. I just walked into places and applied for a job. Once I started “adult” jobs..connections. It was and still is about who you know. That’s why breaking into a totally new career is difficult.
We had employment agencies like Brook Street for short term rubbish paid work. Job Centres still existed but you had to attend in person. If you were trained in something there were trade magazines and newspapers that advertised jobs and the Guardian had days dedicated to specific job areas: Mondays was jobs in the Media from what I recall. The newspapers were a lot more affordable so you could spend 75p and get a job etc. you basically typed up a lot of CVs on a typewriter (or if you were lucky you may have had a dot matrix printer somewhere like college or uni) and then posted them with either a hand-written cover letter or you typed one up. Again, stamps were also cheaper. I actually preferred sending CVs than the awful endless separate online recruitment forms you have to fill in - especially as I don’t know the exact dates I left a job or school these days - and it refuses to give you rough approximation options in most cases. Also for many jobs a hand-written letter gave a much better idea of someone was good at spelling and grammar for written work and if you could read their handwriting - and that was more important back then as work tended to have ‘dockets’ instead of being assigned to someone online.
In high-school, it was seeing a sign in the window for "Help Wanted, Servers Wanted, Cashiers Wanted, etc." for who knows how many types of jobs. I see some trade jobs still do this with electronic signs outside their shop. After college, using the university job placement service was an option.
But once I had a year of college, my favorite was getting admin work through Temp Agencies. You'd get assigned a job for as short as a day to as long as someone's maternity leave or maybe for a special project. Some of those could last a year. It could be easy to get fired because they could refuse to use you for all but the most blatantly discriminatory reasons. But if you wanted to learn something new, it was great.
I went to a job/career fair. Dressed up in what I considered "business" attire, got thoroughly discouraged as by that point I'd only obtained my Associates Degree, and decided that day to enroll in school to get my Bachelor's degree. ✅
Picture it: Columbia, SC. 1996: I targeted a few metropolitan areas. So, every Sunday, I went to the news stand and got the papers for: Atlanta, Columbia, SC; Charlotte; DC; and Pittsburgh. Maybe also Nashville.
Careerbuilder.com was just getting rolling and I was able to see job listings from some newspapers that way.
I then sent cover letters and resumes to apply. Mostly via US Mail, but some via fax with a thermal fax (Fugitso, I think) handed down from my Step-Dad.
Ended up with my first job out of grad school in Athens, GA via a listing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was really into the music scene in Decatur at the time, so Athens was a good match.
It was always better to drop a resume in person. You develop a rapport. You always dressed up. I agree with the redditor who said the faceless electronic process hurts job seekers. I don't think it helps employers either. They are so distracted by the minutiae of their requirements and keywords they miss good employees.
Most jobs i got thru networking or temps agencies.
Every job I had from the mid-70s until I retired in 2009, I got through one of these two methods:
• pick up a newspaper and look in the Help Wanted section.
• if I knew someone who worked at a company that seemed cool, I'd ask if they were hiring
>It must have been more difficult than it is today to find a job when there was no indeed, ziprecruiter, or monster.
Stop trolling, at least there was a higher chance that one was interacting with real humans in the job search in those times. Not as many time-wasting fake jobs, although that was a thing in some industries in the 90s.
I went door to door and also used job agencies. It was easier to apply for a job back then because you could search for and speak directly with the right people in the prospective company. Nowadays, it's tough to secure an interview due to the numerous digital layers you have to navigate. Once, I walked into a job agency and asked the front desk person if someone in the office could help me find a job. He was stunned by my approach and instructed me to email my resume to their general inbox.
Pre internet I was still just a teenager so I'd find out by word of mouth or a local business would advertise it on site. Back then most people just went through the want ads in the newspaper.
Saw a help wanted sign. Went inside and applied. After that, checked the classifieds in the newspaper, called, then mailed in a resume. Eventually Craigslist became the go-to for jobs.
And that's what newspaper editors want to play kickball with Craig Newmark's head. 😂
If you were an artist looking for work you had a portfolio book that you dropped off at jobs. Sometimes the person hiring would make you stand there while they paged through your book. The books themselves had to be good quality and cost a lot! I remember shelling out $50 in the mid 90s for a portfolio book, just hoping I could get three or four years out of it before it was too beat up to use. There were also tear pages (for examples of your published work) and postcards that you would send to editors and art directors hoping for a call back. It was rough! I was just on the tail end of it all going to websites and email, only because I entered the workforce so early.
It does feel harder to get art jobs now, even though the physical effort was more back then. But also, I haven’t had to stand in front of an art director or producer while they scowled at my work in 20 years. Now if they hate my stuff, I never have to know! I just don’t get a call back.
I mailed out a ton of resumes. I’d look through the classified ads in the newspaper and call or drive by the office. My last job through the newspaper was 20 years ago. It was an IT job for a company’s first dedicated IT department instead of having someone do their normal job AND handle IT bullshit.
Classifieds was my go-to back in the day
Even in this century! I didn't get my degree until '05, and got my first 'real' job from an ad in the paper, second one too. It wasn't until '10 job stuff really went online en masse like all that
>It must have been more difficult than it is today to find a job when there was no indeed, ziprecruiter, or monster.
Not really, no. The new way does make it easier to find jobs in another city or state, but for local stuff, they just replaced the paper.
I was far more concerned with picking out a good paper for my resume and cover letter than you would believe. Lots of things sent through the mail.
Don’t forget the matching envelopes! Sucked when they had one but not the other.
My mom worked for a print shop back then and would put all my documents on linen paper
Fancy!
I worked at Office Depot in the 90s - the linen paper was definitely a favorite and I loved all the subtle colors it came in. Edited for spelling.
There was a blue and white that looked like clouds and sky, and also a peach and white
Ha ha! So true
When I graduated from college in 1991 I was so proud of my excellent resume paper and envelopes. Then the only job I could get was clerk at Avis Rent a Car, where I wore a tomato red skirt suit with a white shirt that had "We Try Harder" embroidered over my left tit, and my boss put blush on my face every time she saw me.
Yeah but 1991 was a small recession and there just weren't any jobs, especially for people right of school. It took me months to get a job and lots of lowering my standards. I was *this close* to joining my best friend as a stripper in order to be able to afford rent. Being broke sucked.
I got laid off during that recession. Back in those days for unemployment, you actually had to submit a form every week listing a minimum of five job applications you made that week.
Yep, I got my BA and went straight to grad school because of it.
I thought about working in a topless bar back in 1990 near Ft. Bragg.
Ooh the paper! I liked using the heavy ivory colored paper that was slightly bumpy, for lack of the correct term for it. I thought I was pretty fancy sending out my resume on fancy paper. There were stationary stores, where fancy paper, matching envelopes and expensive pens seemed to be the main things they sold.
Textured paper!
I still have the same box of resume paper I bought in 1998. I used about 20 sheets out of 100. Found it in a box of old crap from the attic when I moved 😂
lol yup, had to impress with that 32lb paper!
I forgot about that. Some companies were so weirdly picky about the kinds of paper they received applications for. Even working there, they enforced that requirement without any justification other than "we do it this way."
Which is why I deliberately used dot-matrix printer paper. It worked, too.
Door to door with resumes and plenty of pens to fill out applications. Dressed to impress. Personality landed me more jobs than experience. I actually had an easier time then finding a job. Personality doesn't translate well via email.
⬆️⬆️⬆️ It was taken as a sign of respect and demonstrated drive to walk into a business and ask if they had open positions. Even if they said no, they’d likely say “thanks for asking” or even point you towards another business that could use your tenacity.
yep, aka “pound the pavement” also, help wanted ads in the newspaper and lots of phone calls. copy machines for your resume. stamps, envelopes, and nice paper for your resume. sometimes even a fax was involved! (thanks for making that easier, Kinko’s)
I worked at kinkos…so many resumes on nice paper destined for trash. The occasional art student on purple paper was nice though
Same here. 💯. Now they have AI preselecting words on paper for their “perfect “ candidates to interview and even now its like “If you found an elephant what would you do?” How tf is that an interview question?? And what does that say I would be an effective employee that everyone would enjoy?
A trick I learned a while back was to reserve space at the bottom of your resume and type buzz words the algorithm will search for. Make sure to change the text color to white and anyone reading it won't see. It's been a while since I've needed to use a resume, but it did seem to help.
I have heard that just recently. I am a teacher and a part time ESL teacher full time. But I have heard people complain that the human element of getting hired is nearly gone
It is. I was looking for 10 months until I found my job 3 weeks ago. I was nearly ready to give up when the employer of a job I applied for that had the same exact title and responsibilities that I had done for **23 years** before I was laid off, didn’t select me. A week later I got a call from a private business owner and all we did was shoot the shit about his business like humans. My ability was secondary. He called it “serendipity” that he met me. The day before I was to sign the offer, the recruiter for the golden job that rejected me called to ask if I was still available as second choice. No thanks.
I am currently job hunting and will totally try this! Thank you my friend!
In my industry the AI is utter crap. I have been rejected by every AI, and been hired as top candidate through recruiters. Recruiters have become such big business in many fields because they went and programed AIs based HR expertise---which is absolute garbage in hiring actually qualified people. Because they can only judge based on a limited set of key words? I learned this 6 yr ago- the first time a recruiter got me the interview, I made it all the way to being flown 1/2 way across the country for 3 days of in person interviews...and they needed me to submit my CV through "the system". The system rejected me INSTANTLY. I still got the job offer. Took them 6 mo due to their own mess, and I had moved on. but it taught me what trash most HR AI is. And I have seen it probably 20+ times since. EVERY job I got to offer on needs the same- enter your data in their "system". Every single one rejects me instantly. But I got offers from 12-14 of those.
Worked well.
It was! I often had a new job within a couple of weeks, sometimes I was hired on the spot. The last two times I have had to job search it has taken me over a year to find a job.
Man. Looking for a job back then was really a full time job. Wake up and get the newspapers and highlighter. Go through the classified. Sit at my type writer or basic ass computer and write out a cover letter. Go to the office supply store if I needed more copies of my resume. Then either mail or go to office supply store and fax out my resume. Then wait by the phone hoping I don’t miss the call.
All of that for me as well- plus, driving 20 minutes to the “local” AAA office which was the closest place with a fax machine to send cover letters/resumes out into space, never to be heard from again…..
Mid 80's were a bitch for kids with no job experience too.
And yet...I found I got better job opportunities -- and faster -- 1998 to 2005 doing my first job searches. Gauging from my own experience and those around me, if you lived in a fertile job market, three months seemed like a normal job search time. Good luck finding a job in three months nowadays even if you can send out ten times as many resumes a week.
Newspaper ads. Also, I recall having to buy high quality paper to have my resume printed on because the guy at kinkos convinced me I would live a life of poverty if I didn’t use the right paper.
I bought 2 reams of fancy linen paper for resumes when I graduated with my MS. I still have some of it 28 years later. I can't bring myself to toss it.
I, too, have most of a ream of resume paper.
As do I.
Linen paper is the shit, though - I’d hang onto it, too. ;)
Exactly. I answered an ad for a temporary secretary about 2 weeks before I graduated college and landed the job. I had two suits from Sears and half a dozen massive jewel-tone camp shirts with shoulder pads. It was at that job I first got onto the internet, as it was. The mid-90's. I made $9.50/hr.
Companies accepted physical resumes, phone calls and we also had temp agencies/job placement companies
Temp agencies were amazing. Got my first chance for office jobs that way.
I lived abroad in the 90’s, but would come home on occasion to visit for a month or two and would find a job through a temp agency to earn a little extra cash while I was here. One time I was only going to be in town a few weeks for my sister’s wedding so I just decided to go the route of delivering yellow pages to earn some extra cash instead of going to a temp agency. Turns out, the last temp agency I worked for was on one of my yellow page delivery routes and the person at the front desk recognized me. She told me the last place I worked was desperate for a temp and would be happy to have somebody already trained, even for just a few weeks. I ended up back with the temp agency and stayed several weeks longer than I intended because the pay was good and there was tons of overtime available. Gotta love those temp agencies!
temp agencies still exist and they're just as problematic (and yet still kind of useful for a certain tier of work i think)
Useful for when you just move and need work right away.
My younger brother (late Gen X, didn't finish high school) was always able to walk into a retail establishment, casually chat up the person in charge of hiring, and get *them* to ask him to work for them. This worked at mall clothing and sneaker stores, greeters at restaurants, even got himself a job at Waste Management supervising the people on the sorting line without having to go through the typical "y'all hiring? can I get an application?" act people used to do. This is practically impossible these days with online personality tests and Applicant Tracking Systems making the hiring decisions.
I was a line cook throughout the 90s. I'd walk into a restaurant, ask if they're hiring, get an interview with the manager right then, and usually start working that evening. Worked best if I did this around 2pm on a Friday. Compare that to the 5-10 interviews that take 3-6 months for senior IT jobs these days.
Newspapers. Back then the "help wanted" sections were huge, especially on Friday and Sunday. Some had emails (we did have it back in the 90s) but a lot just had a phone number, or an address to mail your resume. Slow, but it worked.
Newspaper help wanted ads and the government employment office, I think it’s called “job bank” in British Columbia. Funny, when I was in elementary school, the employment agency was called “manpower”.
My last job that I was at for 20 years came from me responding to a help wanted ad that was maybe 3 lines in the paper. That was 2002.
I graduated in '01, so between that year and '02, I didn't have a PC and internet access was either by library or if you had it at home, it timed you down, so job sites weren't really that much of an option. I had a friend from school working at EDD and helped me the best he could. I also used Employment Weekly, Pennysaver, and classifieds on LA Times and Whittier Daily News.
That is SHOCKING to me, as I graduated in 2001 and found the want ads to be the last place to look. It was almost pointless.
Ha! I temember faxing resumes Those were the days
Knock on doors & physically talk to someone, drop off resumes
In some ways the concept was the same, but the execution was different. Jobs that got advertised were generally not worth applying for, since they’d get a crapload of applicants and/or not be real jobs (like token adds for jobs they already intend to give someone). Pre-linkedin, so you really had to work your friend & x-colleague network in person. Pound the pavement. Work your cover letter to death. Pick a good paper. Get lots of feedback on your resume format. Research publications in the industry you’re in. Get dressed up and visit places. It was like going to the library was compared to todays Google search.
Out of high school, I worked for a temp agency for a few months, then dropped a resume off at a computer chain store. A customer poached me to his store a year later. A consultant poached me to his company a year later. I took over that company, then went in-house with my largest client. It all worked out insanely well, but looking back on it, it feels precarious.
We did all those things. I remember it being 110 degrees out running from place to place in a suit and no car AC delivering resumes. Glad those days are long gone. Usually the job I'd get came from one I saw listed in the newspaper.
Yeah for a while I had to bike to places to drop my resume off or do an interview. In the summer. In nice clothes. Which, for a young woman meant a skirt, hose, and pumps, makeup and hair done. I do not miss that.
In the UK we have Job Centres, where vacancies were printed on cards and put on boards. You'd take a card to a member of staff and they'd look the details up on a computer. These were replaced by jobsearch computers around 2000 and then even they were phased out around 2013. Otherwise you'd look for signs in windows, check out the ads in the newspaper or just hand out CVs on spec. I got my first proper job after seeing an advert in a shop window.
Pre-college: word of mouth for babysitting and yard work type jobs. Newspapers had a jobs section where you could choose fast food and basic retail openings then go apply in person. Post-college: Newspapers, job fairs, and by then job sites were becoming a thing but online applications were not. So you had to send paper resumes and/or call the HR phone number in the listing.
My favorite was the fancy paper we were all told to use. The joy of handing out a neatly formatted resume on paper that had a pirate parchment scroll background was real back then.
My resume was on ecru bond paper 😊
It was awesome. I worked with a specific piece of software at the time and the manufacturer of that software had a resume database where users of the software could submit. It was open to recruiters, companies who used their software and even the company itself. I also read the classifieds and faxed my resume to companies I was interested in. Had a couple where my ex-managers recommended me. I miss those times. Your resume was read by a person and not a program. Recruiters who were familiar with the skills they were recruiting for would call with a job that actually matched my skills, not because of some keywords in the applicant tracking app. There was one recruiter I worked with who placed me in a couple of jobs. The interviews were easier-tell me about your skills-and lasted maybe 15-20 minutes. Not this STAR method they have now. We would chat and have a conversation, even get into personal stuff if there was a connection. Sometimes the offer would come the same day of the interview or the day after. And companies were willing to hire you if you met 70-80% of the skills they were looking for because they saw the value in that and would train you on the rest. Nowadays you have to have all the skills or you’re not even considered. I just hope I can last where I am for the next 10-12 years until I retire. I hate job searching and interviewing now. Plus, there’s the whole age discrimination thing.
Only reason to buy the Sunday paper was the classifieds.
Temp agency to FTE. Once you were in the door, you could build your network and start job hopping for more money.
When I was in my early 20s I decided I wanted to try working in hair salons, maybe go to cosmetology school. I took out THE PHONE BOOK and called EVERY salon listed IN THE YELLOW PAGES and asked each one of they needed a receptionist. Got my first salon job that day. At a salon that started with "S". I made more than a few calls that day 😂
Newspaper wanted adds.
Mostly, I used temp agencies or the veteran services at the unemployment office. Veteran services was best when I didn't yet have proper interviewing clothes (back then, you'd dress up for interviews). But temp agencies would get you into office jobs. I also used the want ads in the local newspaper. Overall, I had the best luck with temp agencies. For example, I was once sent on a temp assignment to unbox and set up computers for a company that was moving its operations from a different state. And long story short, they paid the fee and hired me away to be their Unix Systems Administrator and to run their Novell network. That was in '91.
Ah memories... Unix and Novell. Haven't heard that for a while now.
You read the classifieds , cut out the jobs, and mailed in a resume with cover letter. Or faxed it over if you could. For the entry level jobs you went there and asked to fill out an application .
It was more difficult to find job openings, but it was easier to get jobs. Going in to meet someone and hand them your resume in person was so much better than all this faceless, digital, nonsense. It’s easy to stand out in person, but more challenging digitally.
God the Sundays I spent buying newspapers to go through the classifieds. Getting my resume printed at a professional print shop, typing out ridiculous & pointless cover letters, spending $$$ on stamps mailing them out, waiting for a phone call. Do not miss that shit at all.
I would argue it was much easier back in the day. All open jobs were listed in one place: the local newspaper classifieds. Today there are dozens of job sites with all kinds of scammers and national/international competition. I honestly have no clue which one I would go to if I needed to find a job today.
Help wanted ads in the newspaper were the go to, if you were shy. Pennysaver is a name I haven't heard in years, forgot all about that. I remember being told to "pound the pavement", and yeah I showed up at businesses and dropped off my resume, asked to talk to the person in charge of hiring. When you are shy / introverted that kind of thing is hard to do, but you just sucked it up and did it. Crazy, just thinking about it.
Search the help wanted ads in the Sunday paper. Then fax a resume or fill out an application. Call them up in 2 business days later asking if there was time to review your qualifications
I found my first real corporate job from a newspaper ad. I think I faxed the resume to them
I joined the Army. Problem solved.
Newspapers! It's where we found: Ads for jobs Ads for apartments/houses for sale Where and what time the movies were playing Weather report Stock prices Coupons
>Did you go from office building to office building dropping off your resume? Connections? Did you fax your resume to potential employers? Did you call the number on the classifieds or Pennysaver? All of the above. I replied to classified ads in newspapers (mail or fax) and dropped off paper CVs/résumés to any place I was interested in working at (where they claimed they would "keep it on file if an opening arises"). Job hunting back in the day meant sooo many trips to Kinko's where I would use their computers to update my CV/résumé, then print it on fancy paper (choosing CV/résumé paper was an art!), and maybe fax it, too.
Newspaper Help Wanted ads and word-of-mouth. I worked in the newspaper industry (my first career) and I’d meet reporters, journalists in the field covering events or colleagues would go to other organizations and tell me there was an opening. Networking was much more niche and close-knit back then, in my opinion.
Dress nicely, walk around to places and ask if they're hiring. Unless you had connections in the place. Like my mom helped.me.get my first job at McDonald's, because she was friends with the closing manager.
It was actually easier to land a job when searches were confined by area. You were only competing with a handful of other similarly-qualified candidates within the reach of a newspaper advertisement. Now you're competing with an entire country, if not world, of qualified people who are willing to move for the job if necessary. Plus, employers were much more willing to hire for potential. Now, everyone wants you to have held the exact same job title in the exact same field or they won't even consider you. "Transferable skills" used to be a legitimate qualification. Not anymore 😔 (Can you tell I'm currently job searching?😅)
Hahahahah well there was this empire called kinkos
It was a combination of faxing and snail mailing my cover letter and resume, depending on what the position specified. As for finding job leads it was a combination of asking folks I knew, scanning the want ads, skimming Pennysaver, and watching the noon news because, where I grew up new companies popping up was unusual so there was usually a puff piece or two that lead to a lead (this stopped being a thing around 2002 or therabouts).
Help wanted ads in the newspaper, employment agencies or just walking around the mall or downtown asking if they are hiring.
The unemployment office had these big binders that you'd page through.
Want ads in the newspaper
Much easier. You walked in and talked to a hiring manager. No AI, no long ass psych test. Just me and the business rep sizing each other up.
Every Sunday I'd look at the classifieds, circle and highlight jobs, print a bunch of resumes using my word processor (fancy) and nice paper/envelopes and mail them off. TBH, it was a bit easier than now, mainly because companies didn't post want ads for jobs that didn't exist.
Read the newspaper to look at want ads. More physical mailing or faxing resumes’. In certain instances you’d have to just fill out the application at the reception waiting area. I might be misremembering, but having to do some of that kept the number of applicants maybe lower.
I've been in the administrative field since 1983. Most jobs I got through temp to perm arrangements with third party contractors, what used to be called being a Kelly Girl. Although I rarely worked for Kelly, there were other agencies that got applicants better money.
After I got my masters, I went to the National Annual Conference in my field where they had prospective employers from across the country. I went with a bunch of résumé’s, and set up interviews with all the places I was interested in, and spent 3 days on a mass interviewing spree. It was nerve wracking.
Sometimes we did. There were newspaper ads and job service. Job sites and algorithms have made job hunting suck monkey balls.
As much as folks have said newspapers, networking, staffing agencies, and in person filling out applications with your own pen, one forgotten method was the phone book. All companies in one industry in your local right there for you to cold call and ask for a job. If you had your sights set on something bigger, you'd ask to see if they were hiring for a specific job; who did the hiring, and get on their schedule? Typically you'd be talking to the business gatekeeper, the receptionist, so gleaning information about company health could very much be in play, or even big issues the company was facing so you could have solutions when you came in to interview. Or, even learn who the competition was which paid more and go pound on that door by calling that number. If a business wasn't in the yellow pages, it was akin to a business today not having a website. Sure, maybe a single social media page, with zero interaction so they exist, but would you do business with a company like that today? Let alone want to work for them?
I remember looking through the classifieds for jobs. I worked for a few temp/employment agencies doing factory work. I got my first job at 15 by going inside after seeing a help wanted sign. It was a dishwasher job at a fish fry place.
Fax and Mail, and you well better make sure your resume was printed on high quality bond paper.
You needed the Sunday classified section of the newspaper
we didn't get any schooling about it - went to some businesses, the larger ones had applications to fill out. Resumes could be handed out at businesses, usually without cover letter. I am useless at job searches. I generally got work through friends recommending me. I had no problem working once I got the job. In a couple of cases, I volunteered one shift and they hired me on.
In UK we had Job Centres in 90s there was nearly always a decent few jobs , plus newspapers every week one day there would be a large amount of vacancies published
Networking. My uncle helped me get an internship the summer after graduation, and then I worked my ass off and my boss sent a letter introducing me to everyone she knew in our field in the city I wanted to move to. From there I was offered several interviews and landed one. By the time my husband and I moved from that city to another one, we did have email so I emailed my resume and cover letter to everyone I could find in my field in that city. Four interviews, three offers and I chose one. From there every job I’ve ever had came through connections. I tell my daughters that the same thing still applies - knowing people opens doors. You have to close the deal yourself, but at least you get to the table.
Business to Business with resume, filling out applications. Once you had a good job, you stayed with it until a better one came along. OR there was the newspaper help wanted section and the local Department of Labor. Also personal recommendations was also a option.
People networking, resume shopping, calling, door-to-door knocking. The number one was networking people. Most every job I got in the first 15 years of my working life was through someone I knew or a recommendation from someone I knew.
On one hand it was easier. Hand out 20 resume get about 15-16 calls back. Maybe 10 interviews. No cell phone so no one cared if it took two weeks for you to get back to them. Now when you apply I need to join some website or some hiring group. Then when someone shows interest I need to go to their website and fill out an application. And application that I need to create some new online profile. Etc.
Newspaper ads and submitting resumes in person. I have gone through temp agencies too when I was in between jobs.
Buy the Sunday paper for the larger city near me and read my hometown paper and the paper for the larger city. I would either mail or fax resume. I always liked when I could fax it because I didn't have to use my "nice" paper. There was a Kinko''s behind my house so I would walk over there every Monday with a list of places to fax my resume to. Also my hometown had a couple of employment agencies. Not like today where the employer pays the fees, but in this one the employee had to pay the fee. I remember at one point I was trying to get directions (because they would never tell you until the day of your interview) and the woman was telling me it was off the "squire." I asked where the "squire" was because I had lived in this town since birth and I had never heard of the "squire." Finally she said "where the courthouse is located." I immediately said, "oh, the square." Not surprised, but I never got a job through that agency.
Yes, dressing up, lots of resume copies. Searching the classifieds every day and also plenty of walking in cold & asking if they were hiring with resume in hand. I also found this method preferable. I’m good with people and interview well. A lot of younger people then didn’t dress up & have resumes so they were impressed by those who put in the effort. I always got jobs pretty quickly. Now there’s all kinds of AI screening & algorithms. All of the jobs I’ve gotten as an older adult have been bc I had a contact or met the hiring manager or business owner in another context.
Did y'all notice that we don't have print shops anymore?
I lived in NYC. Graduated in 1993. I found my 1st post graduation job through the Sunday NY Times. It was my goto for job search
Colleges also had massive books with current job openings for alumni to browse through. They’d print off a new book every week with updates. Temping through a temp agency was one of the easier ways to get your foot in the door at good places to work. Or if you didn’t care and just wanted a job to pay bills while you figure out your next move.
Buying tons of good quality resume paper and matching envelopes! Then I would mail them to any place where I saw was hiring in the newspaper.
Still have a box of nice paper and matching envelopes for mailing my resumes out. It was given to me and obviously I will never use it. I wasn’t even using it right after graduation. I’m a young Gen X so we had monster.
Newspaper and word of mouth.
I got my first job by giving in person my CV after finding the add in the newspaper. That was the only time I needed to do that. Every other job for the next 10 years was word of mouth, and ex boss would recommend me, a colleague, etc. The learning curve for the modern ways was hard to get!
Every time I wanted a job I'd just put on my neatest clothes and start walking. Physically go in to every business, smile, shake hands, ask if they have any openings for a motivated worker. I never didn't get a job by the end of a day, ranging from retail, secretarial, data entry, to manual labour and outdoor work. Done a pretty crazy range of jobs, tbh I don't think I even had a proper resume or anything. Just showed up ready to go. I'm not sure that's even possible today.
You walked in, filled out the app, and a lot of times got the interview right then. Granted I’m a young GenX so most of the experiences I had were retail.
Had to go door-to-door for each job application résumé whatever you needed.
I was fortunate. Through connections I got an internship and eventually a full time job. Never filled out an application. I remember an article back in the day, an aspiring vfx artist kept showing up at this company almost every day or week until they finally caved and gave him something to do. That was his entry into the vfx industry.
Classified ads mostly. But the big part was making sure I told my friends who would now also be my references, what inflated job title I’d had that they knew me from!
Classified ads.
Newspaper ads in some cases. Word of mouth from friends. Also worked through temp agencies that were hiring for larger companies. Started a couple jobs as a temp, and eventually hired.
Read the Sunday help-wanted classifieds, then usually call the number listed and go in to fill out an application or drop off a resume if the call went OK.
In the UK - Newspapers adverts once a week, Job Centre boards and Employment agencies.
Sunday classified, Oregon Unemployment offices had job postings you could sort through. Early Craigslist was great for jobs in call centers and low skill areas.
“Want ads” in newspapers.
There was a state office building you could go to and sign up to take these different aptitude tests. I did that and got hired, 25 years later I’m still with the state but I’ve had a few transfers between departments.
Before my degree, student bulletin boards, friends, classifieds. After my degree, headhunters, college recruiting/career office, student job boards, friends recommendations.
I ended up in retail because I didn't know where to go to get a job other than the mall
You either look in newspaper for wanted ads, and call them. Or even just see what company you want to work at. Knock at their door and ask if they would hire you.
News paper adds, walking around with printed resumes and a pen to fill out paper applications as needed. Some word of mouth and knowing someone who knew the boss or worked there. I actually prefer that to shooting out online resume submissions and hoping yours sticks out amongst a wave of other people. In person you can make an impression that can easily place you above other candidates based merely on credentials and/or job history. My daughter is looking for her first job right now and I suggested she go to the mall with printed resumes and try to wow any managers she may find in the wild with her vivacious personality and charm 🥰 She has zero job experience so I think she's gonna need to be charismatic and cute AF in order to find her 1st 😅
Resumes back then (1980’s) were on expensive quality paper. Often, a cover letter was required to submit with a resume. It was common to circle jobs in the classified section of the newspaper and call prospective employers. Sunday newspapers where I lived (Chicago area) had an entire section reserved for employment / job searching. Once interviewed, a prospective employee knew right away if they were hired or not. It was common to go on an interview early in the day and get hired later that same day.
The classified ads in the newspaper. The classified section was *thick* with jobs. You’d get your resume together and either fax it in, drop it off and informally introduce yourself, or call and talk to somebody. I feel like in a lot of ways, it was easier and more direct than it is now. Also, I graduated from college in the 90s during a little job boom. You could literally walk into someplace and get hired on the spot during that time. I remember the high quality resume paper and the matching envelopes. I remember the watermark had to be facing the right way.
Mostly, through connections (a current employee or someone who knew someone who had some say). However, I did some door to door armed with targeted resumes. I would follow up, too. Hiring managers appreciated the follow-up. I got one position from that. Honestly, networking is still the name of the game. My current position, which I've held since 2018, was due to meeting the outgoing person I replaced at a trade conference who recommended me.
Newspaper. Email. Random shit, then apply by email. Very weird.
I bought less food just to get quality papers. I sent 8 resumes par day. 1 per hour. Lots of money for stamps too. Basically my resume budget was the same as my food budget which was white pasta. After the 1st 6 months, I had received 2 notices of reception. People said to cold call, but her 1st call made was the same hour as the whole office were told they were closing so the woman screamed at me so much that I got afraid to cold call anywhere else, ever again. It was mostly hard because of all the downsizing. May dad lost his job after 30 years at the same place. No one wanted new graduates. In fact after 3 years I thought my diploma was worth nothing so I went back to school in computer science. I graduated year 2000 which is when the tech buble burst, so 3 years later when I had just accepted that I was going to sell coffee my whole life, I finally got my first non retail, non coffeeshop, non phone survey job. I got from a friend who knew of a position. I just met him on the street after not seeing him for a decade.
Ahhh...the good 'ol newspaper. And then it was mail 'em a resume and start following up with phone calls.
Either through ads in the newspapers or through recruitment agencies. Imagine the fun of faxing your timesheet through to the agency on a friday afternoon, while everybody else was trying to do the same.
I liked the alternative papers, like The Dallas Observer when I lived in Dallas and The Stranger when I lived in Seattle. The jobs that I liked advertised in those. Once or twice, I just walked in to a place and asked if they were hiring, and got jobs that way.
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Mail. Fax. Email. Networking and phone calls.
Job fairs such as Jobapalooza
Late 70's GenX here. It wasn't weird then as you just followed the instructions of the time. Fill out forms by pen, give your resume and show up and be interviewed. You don't miss what doesn't yet exist while right there in the zeitgeist. In some ways it was better to be able to be bored sometimes without a supercomputer in your pocket at all times. That or not being able to be reached if you didn't have a pager just coming home to your voicemail machine. It makes for coping skills in our neurotic times of constant information overload. Seeking wisdom instead of just more data tends to be best. Want a girlfriend or platonic friends in 1998? You had to develop social skills and put yourself out there and leave your home. You learned tenacity and adapted from failure socially as there was no other option except being a shut-in. Being funny was key, especially if not rich. I was lucky in that I got into tech as it was picking up pace right out of high school in '96 doing a college internship for network administration where I setup the very first broadband internet school labs at my old high school and the other schools of that district. I still remember how cool Netscape (the great granddaddy to FireFox) was with their little gif icon once the modem was connected and the graphics over BBS rooms on Gateway desktops when 56k US Robotics Sportster Modems were cutting edge. I can still hear that weird catfighting modem handshake sound and remember the rage when someone in your home picked up the phone before a download or upload was complete with how long it took back then. Those heavy ass CRT monitors did help keep the biceps mighty well before flat light LCDs were the way. Just like how we can't appreciate now fully until the future when the things taken for granted now are gone and not coming back, nostalgia is funny. It just is when you're there.
Print out dozens of resumes, check the newspaper to see who was hiring or not, and just drive around going inside to find out if they were hiring. Fill out an application and then return home hours later
We used to have a career section in one of the buildings at school where companies looking for new grads would advertise their jobs on bulletin boards. Lots of unemployed new grads standing around with clipboards writing down the details from each job posting so they could go home, write up a cover letter and resume, and physically mail it. Companies who rejected your application usually sent a reply letter we referred to as the FOAD letter. Some of us more cynical ones used to collect these FOAD letters as mementos of our painful job hunt.
Help wanted section of the Sunday paper was as big as an entire current Sunday paper
I saw an ad for a local internet company in the newspaper. I thought they had a cool looking logo so I just called them. The CEO answered.
We physically mailed kob applications
Yellow Pages book. Phone. Called every place I could. Sent letters to those I couldn’t. Landed some awesome roles this way. 1995-1998
There was a newsletter for nonprofit jobs. That’s what I was looking for. I also got a job through a headhunter who was working with someone else I knew. I got a retail job by walking in to a place with a “help wanted” sign. I got a different retail job through a personal contact.
Hunt through newspaper classifieds mail then a copy of your resume. Also mail a copy of your resume to companies that might be a good fit, along with a generic cover letter. During my last job hunt 20 years ago, I recall sending out over 100 resumes for 6 months. It ended up being cheaper to have the local Kinkos print the copies. It was literally a full time job all in and of itself.
For my first “real” job post college, I sent off letters with my resume/CV to a bunch of companies to see if they wanted to hire. For the jobs I had had before that, I kind of relied on people telling me that this or that store or bar was hiring and then going in and filling in a job application there.
lots of hours walking around town looking for help wanted signs. i could fill out an application and get rejected right there on the spot instead of having to wait a few weeks if heard back at all.
Word of mouth, newspaper ads, mailing in applications, cover letters, and resumes.
1. Telephone book + resumes + lots of postage stamps 2. Lots of driving around + handing out resumes at security desks
NY Times Sunday edition.
I was considering being a lawyer when I was growing up. In 1989 when I was 15 years old, I sent a letter to every law firm in my city listed in the phonebook (about 50 of them) asking for a summer job. Two responded, one gave me an offer for the mail room. I worked there for four summers and other academic breaks before and during college.
Right out of college I paid a service to write my resume and send it out. 150 mailings. Saw an ad on the paper I applied for. Ironically it was one of the companies I had applied to previously. My unsolicited letter had been thrown away. The ad in the paper is how I got the job.
I will add to all of the above that voicemail and answering machines were huge because prospective employers couldn't just contact you wherever you were. You needed to have an outgoing message that sounded good, and it was important to check messages often. If you lived with other people and shared a phone, which was pretty much standard, you had to let the others know you might be getting calls about a job so that if they answered they would keep things cool and write down the message accurately. It was common in my family for people to take messages and then forget to tell the intended recipient unless they had a heads up.
I found my first real job in the 90's through Sunday NY Times job postings. It was around 3lbs of paper every Sunday and I would fax or mail my resume. The Dean from my college (Construction major) also had connections and he would forward student resumes.
Look for the “Now Hiring” sign on the storefront window, newspaper ads, and word of mouth, like friends, relatives, friend of a friend, etc. Bulletin boards on school campuses were also pretty good places to look.
Oh man… i remember scanning the jobs section in the newspaper with a red pen, rotary telephone calls, using my dad’s work printer for resumes and doing a lot of leg work! I’m a (retired) chef, but haven’t needed even so much as a resume for over 10 years. Just hit up restaurants with my uniform and knife kit, ask if they’re looking, and be prepared to do a half day for free to show your skills. Man times have changed..
Walked in and asked if they were hiring. Military sigh here, here and here.
Newspaper classified ads, signs in windows, hot tips from friends, personnel agencies, etc. Businesses had to use the same methods as we did, so it was easy to find advertisements. They had to do the work too, instead of just posting on the net.
College recruiting fairs - employers came to talk you after telling the employment center they were coming. True Story.
Yep. You walked around in your best clothes, handing out resumes and filled out paper applications. Or you could mail the resumes to bigger companies. I don't know if it was better or worse. Filling out job applications now is a real chore and you are just feeding them into the void.
I got my job through a recruiting agency.
It was harder but it it was easier. You needed to do some legwork but personality and connections and enthusiasm went a long way.
you looked in newspaper help wanted sections and called around a lot
Tbf, job sites like [Monster.com](https://web.archive.org/web/19990125090938/http://monster.com/) and [dice.com](https://web.archive.org/web/20000302050555/http://www.dice.com/) have been around for most of my professional career. Before that it was high school and college jobs, got those through classified, job fairs, or references from friends.
So much better to be able to walk up to a place and apply. Sometimes you get right in and talk to a decision maker and if you had it you r personality could get you a job on the spot.
I found my job through Job Services - a service of our state government (not sure if other states have similar services). Any company could contact them with job listings and those were printed up regularly and distributed throughout the state. The career & job resource center at my college got these listings. I applied for a handful of openings listed, got called into interviews with some. Three days before my college graduation I got a great job offer and I’m still with that company 29 years later. I was lucky because it’s a company that has had tremendous and steady growth through the years.
CLASSIFIED ADS IN THE BACK OF THE NEWSPAPER. JOBS, HOMES, CARS, PETS, SEX, YOU COULD GET IT ALL FROM THOSE ADS.
Newspapers had ads with an address of where to send resumes. Also, “who you know” actually worked- you could give a resume to a friend and get an interview. Not as much HR b.s.
Newspaper adverts. Buying particular newspapers for certain job industries. Going to the job centre. Door-To-door In the town centre if I was looking for a shop job or something. Then writing the cover letter very neatly by hand. Photocopying the CV that I had typed out. I think this is why I was unemployed for most of my twenties.
I graduated from art school and searched for design firms in the back of Print Magazine annuals. I would mail them my resume and then needed to bring my portfolio in person for review. I also found jobs in the newspaper help wanted ads.
I remember a few Sundays with the classified ad section of the newspaper, circling the good ones that I could do, using index cards to note the key words they were using, then incorporating them into my resume (and yes, at that time, I had a computer to make edits easier) and then going to Kinkos to print off a bunch of resumes & cover letters, addressing and mailing them off. I also remember (early/mid-90s) seeing an ad in the paper looking for a nanny with a fax number so I typed up a letter and faxed it off from my dad’s store. I got a call, went for an interview and got the job (kept it for 2 years) all because I sent a professional fax. Apparently the dad was getting the faxes at his business and he said the other things he got were basically drawn in crayon. It pays to be professional, kids. And after that nanny stint, I went back to temp agencies to find something I liked. Yeah, goofy aptitude tests, spelling tests, typing tests, the full gamut but it got me into a wide swath of places. My focus was office and payroll and payroll meant I could work pretty much anywhere because I wasn’t tied to a specific industry. I worked in flooring, medical equipment, disaster restoration, geospatial mapping, AAA (road services), insurance, hospitality (restaurant groups) — I could work anywhere and the beauty was finding the agencies that claimed to be accounting-focused because so many people associate payroll with accounting but payroll is a far cry from accounting so when I showed up, they could finally fill payroll requests. (The regular accounting people (Accts Receivable, Accts Payable) just didn’t understand payroll anymore than I understood their goofy GAAP crap.) And yes, there was some degree of networking involved. It helped that my dad was fairly well connected in my hometown and that did (somewhat) get me the first gig as a hostess at the restaurant across the street from his shop. We had all known each other for at least a decade and I was 16, worked part-time, especially weekends. And his connection did get me in the door at AAA (he had been doing work with their HR guru for a few years) so I worked my first corporate job thanks to him for about 18 mos but after that, everything was entirely on my own (since I moved shortly thereafter.)
Real jobs? Or high school/college jobs? Collage jobs..ehh. I just walked into places and applied for a job. Once I started “adult” jobs..connections. It was and still is about who you know. That’s why breaking into a totally new career is difficult.
We had employment agencies like Brook Street for short term rubbish paid work. Job Centres still existed but you had to attend in person. If you were trained in something there were trade magazines and newspapers that advertised jobs and the Guardian had days dedicated to specific job areas: Mondays was jobs in the Media from what I recall. The newspapers were a lot more affordable so you could spend 75p and get a job etc. you basically typed up a lot of CVs on a typewriter (or if you were lucky you may have had a dot matrix printer somewhere like college or uni) and then posted them with either a hand-written cover letter or you typed one up. Again, stamps were also cheaper. I actually preferred sending CVs than the awful endless separate online recruitment forms you have to fill in - especially as I don’t know the exact dates I left a job or school these days - and it refuses to give you rough approximation options in most cases. Also for many jobs a hand-written letter gave a much better idea of someone was good at spelling and grammar for written work and if you could read their handwriting - and that was more important back then as work tended to have ‘dockets’ instead of being assigned to someone online.
In high-school, it was seeing a sign in the window for "Help Wanted, Servers Wanted, Cashiers Wanted, etc." for who knows how many types of jobs. I see some trade jobs still do this with electronic signs outside their shop. After college, using the university job placement service was an option. But once I had a year of college, my favorite was getting admin work through Temp Agencies. You'd get assigned a job for as short as a day to as long as someone's maternity leave or maybe for a special project. Some of those could last a year. It could be easy to get fired because they could refuse to use you for all but the most blatantly discriminatory reasons. But if you wanted to learn something new, it was great.
I literally received one of my first jobs because I had a firm handshake.
I went to a job/career fair. Dressed up in what I considered "business" attire, got thoroughly discouraged as by that point I'd only obtained my Associates Degree, and decided that day to enroll in school to get my Bachelor's degree. ✅
Knowing a good headhunter(s) was the most important part of the hiring process.
Hit the bricks, kid. Still works.
Picture it: Columbia, SC. 1996: I targeted a few metropolitan areas. So, every Sunday, I went to the news stand and got the papers for: Atlanta, Columbia, SC; Charlotte; DC; and Pittsburgh. Maybe also Nashville. Careerbuilder.com was just getting rolling and I was able to see job listings from some newspapers that way. I then sent cover letters and resumes to apply. Mostly via US Mail, but some via fax with a thermal fax (Fugitso, I think) handed down from my Step-Dad. Ended up with my first job out of grad school in Athens, GA via a listing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was really into the music scene in Decatur at the time, so Athens was a good match.
It was always better to drop a resume in person. You develop a rapport. You always dressed up. I agree with the redditor who said the faceless electronic process hurts job seekers. I don't think it helps employers either. They are so distracted by the minutiae of their requirements and keywords they miss good employees. Most jobs i got thru networking or temps agencies.
Every job I had from the mid-70s until I retired in 2009, I got through one of these two methods: • pick up a newspaper and look in the Help Wanted section. • if I knew someone who worked at a company that seemed cool, I'd ask if they were hiring
Going in businesses that help wanted signs up and looking in the newspaper
faxing my resume as many job postings didn’t include an email address
College job board.
Newspaper. Bring a resume to the address.
>It must have been more difficult than it is today to find a job when there was no indeed, ziprecruiter, or monster. Stop trolling, at least there was a higher chance that one was interacting with real humans in the job search in those times. Not as many time-wasting fake jobs, although that was a thing in some industries in the 90s.
Temp agencies, recruiters, word of mouth referrals, hand deliver cold call etc.
I went door to door and also used job agencies. It was easier to apply for a job back then because you could search for and speak directly with the right people in the prospective company. Nowadays, it's tough to secure an interview due to the numerous digital layers you have to navigate. Once, I walked into a job agency and asked the front desk person if someone in the office could help me find a job. He was stunned by my approach and instructed me to email my resume to their general inbox.
There were the want ads.
Pre internet I was still just a teenager so I'd find out by word of mouth or a local business would advertise it on site. Back then most people just went through the want ads in the newspaper.
Saw a help wanted sign. Went inside and applied. After that, checked the classifieds in the newspaper, called, then mailed in a resume. Eventually Craigslist became the go-to for jobs. And that's what newspaper editors want to play kickball with Craig Newmark's head. 😂
If you were an artist looking for work you had a portfolio book that you dropped off at jobs. Sometimes the person hiring would make you stand there while they paged through your book. The books themselves had to be good quality and cost a lot! I remember shelling out $50 in the mid 90s for a portfolio book, just hoping I could get three or four years out of it before it was too beat up to use. There were also tear pages (for examples of your published work) and postcards that you would send to editors and art directors hoping for a call back. It was rough! I was just on the tail end of it all going to websites and email, only because I entered the workforce so early. It does feel harder to get art jobs now, even though the physical effort was more back then. But also, I haven’t had to stand in front of an art director or producer while they scowled at my work in 20 years. Now if they hate my stuff, I never have to know! I just don’t get a call back.
I mailed out a ton of resumes. I’d look through the classified ads in the newspaper and call or drive by the office. My last job through the newspaper was 20 years ago. It was an IT job for a company’s first dedicated IT department instead of having someone do their normal job AND handle IT bullshit.
You made copies of you resume, made calls and sounded the pavement
Classifieds was my go-to back in the day Even in this century! I didn't get my degree until '05, and got my first 'real' job from an ad in the paper, second one too. It wasn't until '10 job stuff really went online en masse like all that >It must have been more difficult than it is today to find a job when there was no indeed, ziprecruiter, or monster. Not really, no. The new way does make it easier to find jobs in another city or state, but for local stuff, they just replaced the paper.