The recession provides a dark economic backdrop for the telecommunications industry, where job losses and the growth of outsourcing have been rife for the last decade.
Many people in that industry, such as Seth Daniel Hotchkin, have been greatly affected.
Hotchkin, a Clarksville resident, was laid off from his job as a technical support representative for Asurion in October 2008. At Asurion, he assisted customers with equipment malfunctions and damage as the firm dealt with everything from cell phones to computers.
“I have had a hard time finding work because the jobs in my field are not here; they’re overseas,” Hotchkin said.
Before the layoff, and then afterward, he also worked part-time for Dragonfly Enterprises in Nashville as a science-research consultant. That job ended when the owner died in August.
Since then, Hotchkin hasn’t been able to find a new job. His unemployment benefits have run out, and he is now reduced to selling coins from a childhood collection to make ends meet each week.
“I’m resourceful,” he said. “I use the local library, where I get movies for no charge. I use their computers for work.”
Hotchkin moved from Florida to Tennessee in 1993 when he was 13. He attended Austin Peay State University for about three years until he ran out of money for tuition. He then got a job at Convergys representing AT&T Wireless.
“Companies have always given me better work, better jobs,” Hotchkin said of his overall career experience. “I was moving up in the world until this happened. I was doing quite well, actually.”
Since his layoff, Hotchkin said he has turned in hundreds of applications, averaging about five a week. He has had some luck in getting interviews, but offers with extremely low pay have been a problem.
“A lot of days, you know, I just feel like giving up,” he said. “I just think, ‘I have got to do something on my own, start my own business or something.’”
Since Hotchkin has worked in telecommunications for 10 years, including a gig at T-Mobile, he said he would prefer to go back to doing technical support for a mobile phone company.
However, he also has crossover skills that he thinks would make him a good candidate for doing warehouse inventory. He was once a project leader for a company called Communications Test Design Inc. There, he coordinated equipment repairs and managed inventory levels for the firm’s warehouse.
“I would think a warehouse would have the highest amount of interest in me for inventory control,” he said. “They need people to talk to their customers. There’s got to be an intelligent person there to communicate with their customers. Why not me?”
Hotchkin has gained fluency in creating databases and running multiple reports with charts, graphs and metrics. He knows a variety of Microsoft computer programs, including Excel, PowerPoint and Microsoft Access.
“I have a ridiculous amount of experience,” he said. “I’ve worked with online databases, offline databases, company intranets and various companies’ systems software.”
If he gets a job, he’s staying put for the long haul. But if he can’t find work in Clarksville, he will leave.
“If Clarksville can’t provide jobs, then people should move away,” he said. “That’s how I feel.”
His other plan, if there’s no job on the horizon by August, is to return to college.
“I would make a complete change and go into the medical field, because there’s always going to be a need for that,” he said.
For now, he continues to hope and to look for that job, any job. But he does have a “dream job” in mind.
“It would involve helping customers and working with computers,” he said. “And having my own office would be nice. I’ve had that before, and there’s nothing better.”
JOB LISTINGS, CAREER ADVICE
# Jump start your job search with help from the experts at Career Builder. In today’s Leaf-Chronicle, Page A6.
THE JOBS PROJECT
# This is part of a special 12-week project to attack the core problem of the lingering U.S. economic struggle. This project on unemployment in Montgomery County is designed to connect those who are out of work with job opportunities.
Source:http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20110206/NEWS01/102060331
