finding employment!!

[Bob]

Its way to ahrd to get employed!! Ive been playing for over a year and im sick of chasing after people and things just to find employment I dont know how to get employedI ask someone about getting employed and they tell me what house and crap but I never see the people that employ me its getting real annoying! please where do I go!?! :cry:

[Eclipse]

If you can't find the people that're mentioned to you, you might consider sending an e-mail to the clan imm of the clan you're trying to get into. Ask them to forward a message for you to set up a meeting with the recruiter.

-----[*]Jenred's Guide to Employment in 4-5 Easy Steps.

1. Decide what you want to do.
---There are many professions available for people in Zalanthas. These include, but are not limited to, self-employed: hunters, merchants, crafters, or entertainers; house employed: guards, aides, servants, healers, domestic assistants, merchants, crafters, or artisans.
---You want to decide early on what you want to do, to ensure that your hired quickly and easily into a profession that you will preform well. (Or maybe not so well, depending on your intentions and character, but thats really not for this guide.)

2. Decide who you want to work for.[/i]
---This will depend alot on the first portion of the guide. If you want to be a weapon's merchant you might wish to pursue a career with Salarr, not Kadius. This is both wise and logicl as Salarr has a long-standing history in the dealing of weapons trade, whereas Kadius has little to none.

3. Find out how to get ahold of the hirers of who you want to work for.
---This can be accomplished in a number of ways, from posting IC messages on the IC boards stating your looking for a certain person or orginization. Using the above case, a proper IC message might be: "A young man (with such and such traits) has been seen about the tavern expressing his wish to meet with an agent of Salarr. He is known  to be about (such and such times), and actively seeking information about employment." Now, granted this is a harder way to go about it, as it requires the employers to not only read your message, but then work about finding you and arranging playing times to due so; which may or may not intrude on things they already have scheduled.
---Another way, if they are a Staff-member recognized clan, is to send an email to the Clan Imm expressing your wish to be employed, possibly in an IC form. That will let them know you wish to join them, and then if no PC is available to hire you, they might animate one of the NPCs of the house and do it that way, or tell you a better time to meet someone Ingame.
---Last, and most boring way is to just sit at local watering holes and pray you stumble across someone you are looking for. Dropping hints with the locals that should they see the person you are looking for to tell them you are interested in a job.

4. Be interviewed one or more times
---Usually employers have an intial interview with you, where you tell a little about yourself, what you wish to do, etc. And at the same time you learn about the place your seeking employment and find out if its for you. Some more hasty employers may then hire you on the spot. Depending on who you talk to, they might not be in a position to do so, but have to relay the message to a higher up, who will then in a varying length of time, hope to find you and conduct another interview. Which may lead to a third should they want a second opinion.
---If all goes well in the intial interview you'll likely be hired, or received a second interview, or be given time to make your final descision. This could be your last step. If not, proceed to number 5.

5. Repeat the above steps.
---So that job wasn't for you. Time to start over and look for a new place or even profession to pursue. Don't be discouraged! The worst that could happen is you'll starve. And if all else fails, join the Byn!

Thank you fore reading Jenred's Guide to Employment in 4-5 Easy Steps.
Any questions can be sent to Jenred.

[Angela Christine]

If you want to get experience finding jobs I'd suggest 2 things, in additon to what Jenred said:

1. Be human.
2. Be friendly.

1. I'm not saying other races aren't fun, but if your goal is to get hired quickly, then human can't be beat.  Few people really hate humans (most elves aren't crazy about humans, but elves are rarely employers).  Most of the time with human characters I have trouble -avoiding- being hired.  Everybody wants to hire humans.  Relatively clean and well spoken humans get hired even more quickly, but even with dirty 'rinther humans I've gotten job suggestions.

2. Networking is a major way of finding work, in real life and in the game.  Realistically most characters should have contacts;  family, friends, neighbours, former employers, etc., but a new character usually has none of these.  A character whose personality allows him to start conversations with strangers at a bar will get hired much more quickly than a very shy, surly, or paranoid character will.

A reclusive half-elf, a surly mullish escaped slave, or a timid dwarf can find work, but it is harder and takes longer.  

AC

[aeshyw]

Without getting too IC, I'll add the following:

In Allanak at least, there are options for both weapons-users and non that are having difficulty finding initial employment.  Ask around if there are any people that can help you learn your trade, whatever it is.  If you want to be a guard or soldier, ask if there are any mercenary organizations to help you better your skills.  If you want to be a noble aide, merchant or servant of some type, as around to find out if there is anyone that can help you learn to do that. You may find that there are actually people looking for people like you.

And to emphasize what Angela Christine said - being human really, really, really helps.

[crymerci]

I would tend to disagree with Jenred's first two points.  While it is helpful to know what sorts of jobs your character might be interested in or qualified for, narrowing things down too far can eliminate good options.  I find that it is much more useful to have 3-4 possible jobs you might like, rather than setting all your hopes on one clan or sector.

You almost never get what you're hoping for anyhow.  One time I made a character whose lifelong dream (in her background) was to hold a certain position in a certain clan, but the recruiter was suspicious when told that, so she ended up in the Byn.

Anyhow, there's a lot of good advice in this thread.  If you're interested in a job that involves fighting you might want to join the Byn, and then you have an IC year to set up a job for after graduation.

[Cenghiz]

I'm in a time zone which's +7 EST, so AFAIS *chuckles* if you're in a very different time zone, it's OK that you can't find and employer easily. And, as an addition, dwarves also can't stay unhired for long. Usually the dwarves I play are forced to be hired by a house. Maybe I'm writing too sweet character descriptions, eh?

[Malifaxis]

Cenghiz Prawn (sorry, had to) said:

Usually the dwarves I play are forced to be hired by a house. Maybe I'm writing too sweet character descriptions, eh?

This is exceptionally true.  If your character has an awesome, awesome description, people are much much more likely to hire you... unless you have an awesome, awesome stanky-arse, bug-ridden 'rinth desc.  A lot of the newer folks looking for jobs fly on with long descripts that barely crest the six line mark.  I'm not saying that shortened long descs are a bad thing, I have seen very awesome long descs that were like six lines, but it's rare.  The more work you put in to the long desc, the more notice you're going to get out of it.

Personally, when I crank out a long-desc, if I don't beat the eight line mark, I start for looking for things that I could be more verbose on.  For example: My character has hair, lets say a deep reddish brown.  My original thoughts may be "His hair is shoulder-length, of a deep reddish-brown."  And then I go back and go, hey, wait, I can make that look 1337 with just a bit more finger effort... and I turn it in to something utterly pretentious like:  "Hair the color of expertly treated pure baobab sweeps back from the crown of his head, flowing over his softly rounded ears and bracketing his face like a picture frame until it lights upon his shoulders in a thick, gentle wave."
:twisted:
Pretentious as hell, isn't it?  Well, yes... but it also gives a definite picture of that character's hair style, and people who are looking to hire you 80% of the time will notice that and say "Hey... this dude who seems new has some good potential.  Lets cut him in on the cashes."

Just like a real interview... looks matter, sometimes more than the actions you take.

[Barzalene]

I both agree and disagree with Malifaxis. A well written description is an asset. But length is not the measure of quality. I'd rather read four terse, and exact lines than eight if both give the same picture. Writing style is writing style. No one should be forced to make stylistic changes, but everyone should be looking to make stylistic improvements.

[X-D]

Hhhmm, Somebody said play a human to get hired, yet I've found that dwarves get hired as easily if not easier then humans, a well written desc does not hurt either, me, I rarely use more then 5 lines in my descs and none of my chars have ever had any problem getting hired, matter of fact, normaly if I am playing a dwarf I have to nearly beat em off with sticks.

[Frog Fairy]

<snip>
Pretentious as hell, isn't it?  Well, yes... but it also gives a definite picture of that character's hair style, and people who are looking to hire you 80% of the time will notice that and say "Hey... this dude who seems new has some good potential.  Lets cut him in on the cashes."
<snip>.

Hahaha!
Actually, when I play a character who recruits, I sometimes think the exact opposite way.
"That seems to be a pretentious guy. Better hold off to see just how pretentious he is."
Pretentious players have a definite pain-in-the-ass-potential.
It's good to have a couple "free thinkers" in a clan, but if you have too many characters that would rather seek their own counsel than follow orders, things can get a bit weird.

The player type that I find absolutely most enjoyable to hire is an eager-to-learn newbie or semi-new player. Not only for their enthusiasm, but also because it's really enjoyable to help a character - and player - develop.
Plus of course, that you are in a good position for molding them to your desired treats.  :twisted:

As for getting in touch with absent employers, I totally agree with the poster writing that you should email the imm.
A leader who recruits players might find it useful to hand out his/her email at the time of recruitment, in my opinion, especially if the leader knows he/she is not available 3 hours a day.
It's a shame to lose the interests of new recruits just because your playing hours don't coincide very well.