How Do You Job-Hunt If You Work Overtime?

Lord_Dweomer asks: "As a recent college grad, I took a job to pay the bills, but soon realized that it would end up sucking the life out of me. I work a lot of overtime in a high-stress, tight deadline job. Once you get into that kind of downward spiral, how do you find another job?" "All my free time, during the week, is completely non-existent, and the weekends are needed to take care of chores, and preserve my mental health. Are potential employers typically sensitive to the fact that I may not be able to interview during the week or during standard work hours? Also, will having left here after a year seem like a real black mark on my resume? My reasons for leaving, aside from the overtime (I am non-exempt), would be that I've basically been promoted in work load and responsibilities -- and have even taken on another job role, IN ADDITION to my current one. All of this without a raise in pay, or new title.

I'd quit if I had a choice, but I really need the money, yet I'm unable to look for a new job because of lack of time. How am I supposed to job hunt under these circumstances?"

Comments

Re:Headhunter?

[ScrewMaster]

Yeah ... I used one for my current job. That was seven years ago, and in addition to my own hunting I suffered through a series of useless headhunters. One of them quit her position and (quite unethically) took her contact list with her. When I finally called to find out what was going on the office manager apologized and told me he was sorry but they didn't even have my phone number anymore! However, I finally got a fellow that listened to what I was capable of / interested in, and spent about three hours with me going over my background in detail. Then the next day he called and said he had a possibility ... I went in for an interview and was hired a couple of days later. I'm still there, so I guess he earned his commission. So yes, a good recruiter can be a tremendous asset, but my experience is that good ones are hard to find. Most of them kept offering me positions that had little to do with what I do, other than that they were software/programming jobs. I got very used to hearing, "But, you could do that, couldn't you?" Sure, I probably could ... but it's not what I told you.