Unemployed...help requested.

O.K., all...I NEED some help! I have JUST found myself unemployed as of last night.

I always believed in the "It's not the grades you make, it's the hands you shake" motto, so I am reaching out to my brethern / sistren in the Ferrari community for networking career leads, contacts, and/or hiring possibilities.

I have a financial background, with heavy customer service experience in many fields, but most recently in the automotive industry as a service advisor with Ferrari and Acura (both GREAT brands!), but I am wanting to focus on the finance area now.

I am searching for a new permanent career position as a credit analyst, underwriter, general accounting, or anything or a similar vein of work. I am most interested in a permanent, full-time position, in the Houston (current home), Dallas, Austin, or San Antonio areas.

If you are a business owner, hiring manager, human resources manager / personnel, or just have some hiring influence with your current company, let me know and I can send you my resume.

In advance, Thank You to all!

George LaFleur

PS: For a preview, here's my Linked In profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/profile/preview…

 

Need to edit your link.

 

Tried...these's no edit button. It's as if I'm reading it as you are, instead of as the original poster.

Yes, I'm logged in...

 

Wait, which link?

 

Got it...

 

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/preview

 

Nope. Ask a local moderator to clean up and correct. You need to paste the correct link.

Copy/paste/test!, then ask a mod to edit your post/Clean thread with correct link. And good luck!

 

If one goes thru Google using George's name you get this link:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebentonlafleur?trk=prof-samename-name

and hopefully the correct George.

Good luck in your search George. A lot of us have "been there, done that."

 

Odd, the link works for me.

Thank for the feedback and thoughts of support.

 

It's probably got a cookie on your computer that it's using to link the address.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebentonlafleur

How's that one work?

 

You can see the profile correctly, because you are "previewing" your own linkedin profile. Look at the URL. it says profile/preview. That isn't specific enough for anyone else. Hope this helps!

 

Thank you, that link works,

 

I certainly wish you good luck, and I don't want to be negative, but WOW - you have held a LOT of different positions at a variety of companies.
Most are short tenures - 3 months, 4 months, 8 months, 9 months, 13 months, etc.
Just curious: why bounce around so much??
Any future employer may see you as a "short-term employee" and be hesitant to "invest" into you....
Just my two cents. Sincerely though, hope all goes well on the hunt!

 

You could talk to my brother, long time with Frost bank, but he is more of the venture finance SBA loans type of thing, now....he knows TONs of people!

be a good spot to place your resume.

PM sent

 

+1. I'd get rid of a lot of those short term tenures from linked in and resume. They look absolutely horrible to an employer. I'd bin your resume right away just based on the significant amount of jobs you've had and all such short term runs. You look to be a very high risk candidate with all those.

 

Thank you for the constructive criticism feedback. Yes, I know how this appears.

I'm certainly open to any ideas of how to "get rid of a lot of those short term tenures" without lying and/or getting caught in said falsehood...which would be even worse.

The past is what it is. I can't change it. I can only learn from it, then move past it.

No, this is not because I'm a job-jumping gypsy with a grass-is-greener attitude. Each circumstance was different, but some examples include: losing my lending career due to the mortgage bubble bursting, or in the case of my last career change (that included a re-location across state), an unexpected lay-off beyond my control.

Pat times like this forced me into survival-mode scrambling to grab a less-than-desirable stop-loss job.

I have always made decisions based on the best information available in-hand at the time. Sometimes this is worked, sometimes it hasn't.

So now I need to improve my situation...

 

My two cents... Take a week or two off and decompress. The job market in Houston stinks anyway. You may want to ponder what you really want to do, which may mean a relocation.

Whatever direction you decide to head, put together a plan that is a no brainer for a potential employer. I know CPAs, for example, who audit paid bills for missed timely payment discounts. They split the savings 50/50 with the owner.

This stuff gets harder to do as you get older, but then you'll turn the corner. When I turned 63 earlier this year, I made two decisions. Number one: I'm going to live the next ten years as if they will be my last. Number two: I'm not going to do anything I don't want to do. Granted, you still have to take out the garbage, but maybe you get my point.

In my case, I quit my cruisy professor gig and got back in the professional game. I'd rather deal with crazy clients than brain dead administrators and whinny students any day.

Good luck.

 

It's whiney Professor

 

Thanks for having the nuts to say what most of us are thinking......

The OP might want to limit the resume to the most recent 10-15 year period.....in alot of cases a swiss cheese resume goes straight to the trash so there won't be opportunities to explain anything.

 

Howdy George. As I read your post and linked in, it sounds like your experience and capabilities would be a fit for companies who do equipment lease funding. I interact with a handful of this sort of companies, as I try to get large deals done with customers, but none in Texas. But a lot of the guys I talk to work from home because everything is electronic these days. It seems like a job that is probably small base plus commissions, with a low barrier to entry but lucrative upside if you are good at what you do.

Equipment leasing/financing can be useful in a variety of industries so it's maybe more insulated from ups and downs than a specific vertical or product.

The guys I've had good experiences with have been consistent and customer service oriented, and they seem to build themselves a nice book of repeat customers who are both buyers and sellers of equipment.

 

You might also want to put together what the HR people call a Functional Resume. For example, one section would be Automotive, another would be Financial, still another, maybe Marketing. You can cite larger blocks of time for each function and what you did also cite some of the employers within each category. Of course, you will probably be asked to complete an application at some point and the short tenures will come out; but hopefully they will like you by this point. One needs to get fairly along in the process to be asked to fill out an application.

Another suggestion: try to find some job support groups in Houston. When I lived there decades ago and was in your situation, there was NAM (Northwest Assistance Ministries on 1960) that had meetings once a week for 3 hours and brought in excellent motivational and search professional speakers for tips and guidance. They were staffed by retired HR people and had facilities available for research and computer support. The most valuable feature I found was that other people searching for jobs in areas other than my own frequently came across situations or contacts I was interested in and vice versa.

Preparing various types of resumes (starting this weekend) will also give you a chance to decompress and start to focus.

 

I've had some time to decompress and think. Now I'm taking action.

Being from Dallas, I'm not a fan of Houston. Too humid, WAY TOO MUCH TRAFFIC, no zoning laws, etc...I'm very open to relocating (back to Dallas...?)

Like yourself, I'm going back to where I was happiest: earning a living using my brain vs dealing with the public.

Yes, thank you for throwing it out there, I know it, and have no problem discussing it. So how does one overcome "Catch-22's" in the past without lying?

Nice idea, thanks Dave! I'll look into that.

GREAT advice...thank you!

I do have two resumes: one financial, one automotive, each emphasizing my experience in that field and down-playing other positions.

YES, I agree that filling out an application is usually a "we already want to hire you" formality...or a brush-off if they wan that up front. This of course can vary.

I will for sure look into this support group.

Thank you again to all for any input and suggestions.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/preview?vpa=pub&locale=en_US

I sent the Resume to "Jenny Craig" for some updates & revisions, and Linked In hyperlink has been corrected.

STILL UNEMPLOYED...

...and still trying to work-around, read the minds of, or just plain outsmart HR departments so I can become employed.

 

George, link still does not work. Yes, it works for you, because it is set to preview and edit your own profile. Try testing with a browser, where you are not logged into your linkedin account.