The Low down

When you say you live in Las Vegas the first thing that comes to mind is...wait for it....CASINO!  And the reality of this all is there are a LOT of casinos.  In fact in a story posted on http://www.worldcasinodirectory.com/nevada-casinos/las-vegas the city of Las Vegas has 122 casinos listed in their directory. Their database also reveals that within those 122 casinos there are 116063 gaming machines and 4323 total table games.  Now putting this into perspective and taking in account all the possible positions that are needed to operate and manage a casino you would think that the unemployment rate in Las Vegas would be low right?  Wrong!  The unemployment rate in Las Vegas sits at slightly above 13% not to mention that Nevada right now holds the highest unemployment rate within the United States. 

Let's dig deeper, before I moved to Las Vegas about 7-8 months ago I resided in the state that had the second highest unemployment rate....Michigan.  So coming from that dismal place to this one you would think that I would be pessimistic about the state of affairs in terms of employment but I haven't been.  Actually to my surprise I have had far more interviews here than I ever had in Michigan but the downside to this is that I have heard many more "No's" and that begins to wear on one's ego, psyche and self-confidence. 

What I'm getting at here is that work is hard to come by at this point in time...especially for people who feel like they made the right choice to reach for higher education, we now make up about a third of the unemployment rate in Nevada at about 4.8% (http://thenevadaview.com/?p=66). Looking at the numbers and statistics it is often hard to see the light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.  News reports periodically talk about a rise in the employment rate in Nevada but for what types of jobs? 

I find myself competing with people who have high school diplomas and GEDs and probably very little actual work experience.  It feels like a punishment or a scarlet letter to be college educated or to have more than retail work listed on your resume.  I often feel mocked for applying for positions that I know my skill sets exceed what they are looking for because that puts my resume into the "Better Luck Next Time" pile. I can't count the number of times that people question my intentions during a pre-interview screening.  I keep asking myself is it better to be under-qualified or over-qualified because it seems like there are very occasions that my resume fits into that "just right" category.