  I remember a time when, while listening to the radio, I could feel as far removed from all the talk about the economy, the current administration, and the consumer/investor confidence ratings as I still do from stories about Rwandan genocide. It meant as little to me as a story about a hurricane leveling a Floridian suburb - that sucks, but I'm unaffected, and as such, I don't care.
No more. I am officially a casualty of our current economic conditions, for which we have to thank many factors; the largest of which is surely a big, silly WAR which is burning money at a rate so alarming that investors, and thus companies which employ people like me, are scared shitless to do anything but hoard what resources they have left, fire everyone who doesen't support the weight of their office ceiling with their own bodies, and wait for it all to pass.
It's like submitting resumes in a post-apocalyptic job market - bands of desperate foragers build crude shanties, and defend their piles of crumbs by grunting and shaking spears at everyone who passes by. It's monster.com meets Mad Max. Having been unemployed for awhile now, I've reached the point where I'm nearly qualified to go on talk shows as a guest expert on the job market.
I can predict patterns of behavior in response times of employers (which is easy because generally there IS no response), how long they take to review resumes, interview, review again, interview again, and the ENTIRE time leave you hanging, waiting haggardly for the phone to ring, only to hear upon calling them yourself, "My boss hasn't gotten to look at all the resumes yet. When I know something, you'll know something. " This is, of course, if you're lucky enough to even GET an interview to begin with. I've submitted to local employers over 275 resumes at this point, by my own estimation. (I suppose I should mention here, just to cover it, that my resume is extremely impressive.
) I've had a total of 6 interviews, out of a grand total of 10 replies to the literal flood of emails, faxes, and snail mails that I've sent out. They don't even have the decency to tell you that they GOT your resume anymore. They don't even bother to tell you that you suck and that they don't want you.
You just hear silence. NOTHING. This is a new phenomenon. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to the market I entered after college - this is a scary, desperate, down and dirty, rude job market, where anything goes - and they'll string you along until they figure out how to pay you the least amount of money when, what they fail to realize is, we're all working cheap these days. More later. 
