I’ll add a tip.
Do not lie on your resume. This may get you an interview, but it won’t help if you don’t know what you are talking about when you get the interview.
You know what, I could give a shit if they think about my feelings. It would be nice if they could read and write basic english and save everyone’s time if they can’t.
Seriously - there are boatloads of posts on here about people struggling to find work, and why oh why won’t someone hire them, and HR sucks donkey balls etc, etc.
I have a lot of sympathy but I have to wonder if at least part of the problem is they’re applying for jobs they’re not qualified to do, and have no intention of becoming qualified for.
Yes, I get that the job is ‘just a low level secretary’; however, that’s a position which requires a certain amount of smarts and knowledge. Expecting applicants to have at least a little bit of both doesn’t seem that out there.
Except that this isn’t always the case. I have actually been told by some temp agencies that they wouldn’t consider me for admin temp work because they only gave those placements to women. And those are just the places who would actually admit it.
On a different point I also think it’s worth noting that “CV” and “resume” [sorry - assume accents in appropriate places] are frequently used interchangeably by employers as well as employees and mean different things in different parts of the world. It doesn’t make one “dumb” to confuse the two.
The only place I’ve ever seen CV used is in academia. 150 applicants for this job and only one used it - it’s just not used that way in this part of the world. And before you ask, yes, she was from this part of the world based on the info on her resume.
Maple syrup?
On a different note, if you were applying for this job and got it, what would you use the flexible spending account for? Clothing? Is it really that out there for me to think that most guys might want to do something else with the money?
Yes, followed by my Pointy-Haired HR Douche Naked Dance of Decision.
The last 11 applications that remained stuck to my naked body after the dance completed are the ones getting interviewed. Good thing too, otherwise the male applicants wouldn’t have had a chance…
No you don’t. You said as much. They don’t meet your requirements, so there is no job available for them. They know that the vast majority of employers they apply to find them unacceptable. There is no margin in trying to appeal to every employer when you are using the shotgun approach. Think of it as spam; you are expecting spammers to feel guilty that you don’t like sifting through their crap. But since the tiny number of targets that actually respond provide a nice income, they have no incentive to care what the majority think.
Gaudere’s Law has bitten hard in this thread, but we’ve all felt its bite in our time…
I think the problem is that you’re making gender-based assumptions at all. Men need professional clothes for the office too (suits ain’t cheap), and women go to the gym and use iPads. Best just to leave it at “flexible spending account”.
I knew a guy who the company gave money for to get them some outfits. I think it was SAIC or maybe it was a UPS type job (I can’t remember, he was in the mail room). They had a specific dress code (which is why I think UPS) which said that he had to wear a specific color (IIRC). So the boss gave him the company card and said get a few outfits.
True enough; I just couldn’t resist a little joke. The pore/pour thing is always one of my favorite conflations.
For what it’s worth, I completely understand where the OP’s coming from, but I don’t get why she’s so upset about it. This is nothing new. Crappy job applicants have been around as long as there’ve been jobs. Pluck out the good ones (sounds like there were plenty), shake your head and roll your eyes at the bad ones, and get on with your life. What’s the point of getting all worked up?
Yes, of course. I just recommended that my friend make it VERY flexible - as I mentioned, I have a flexible spending account and there’s no way I could use it for clothing. Botox, on the other hand, is OK. Go figure.
The current company I work for has a reimbursement plan for ‘healthy lifestyles’. So if you join a gym, you get $200. Or if you run a 5k or something like that you get $100.
The theory is that if you maintain an active lifestyle, you cost benefits less, therefore we want to get our employees active.
I knew this was going to go well!
My, alice_in_wonderland, aren’t you a dazzling ray of sunshine!
Nah, I’m not actually particularly upset. More…bemused.
I guess it’s a bit like selling your home when there are 150 in your price range in your neighbourhood currently on the market. You would think a savvy home seller would tart the place up a bit, make sure it was clean, perhaps have something baking when people are coming to view it. While many people do that, there seem to be just as many, if not more that leave the place in a tip, with wet towels on the floor and dog turds on the back lawn.
I mean, it’s their place, they can do what they want, but it still makes me scratch my head and go WTF??
I think Fear Itself may be on to something; however, I must point out that pretty much everyone finds spammers annoying. I find going over 150 applications for a job and finding more than half that weren’t even spellchecked kind of annoying, ya know?
I also find it a bit annoying that sometimes my gaunch rides up my ass in a public place and I have to walk around to the bathroom before I can pull it out, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. This is a bit like that.
N/M
Please refer to signature field.
I think the OP is right on the money, with one exception: I don’t agree that it’s automatically dumb to use CV for résumé or vice versa. I agree that outside academia in the US and (presumably) English-speaking Canada, it’s not the first choice, but in much of the rest of the world, the terms are interchangeable. Your rebuttal was:
Really? Her resume detailed where she was born, where she grew up, where she went to elementary school? Where her parents (from whom she might have learned ‘CV’) grew up?
Come on. That was a pretty obvious attempt on your part to justify something you didn’t, and couldn’t, know.
Moreover, CV is not wrong. Curriculum vitae means “the course of [my] life.” The expected use in the US and English-speaking Canada is different from a résumé; the latter is a short summary of previous employment while the CV is longer and more focused on academic work, but this is a matter of practice, nothing more. And given the interest in English-speaking Canada to be open to French-speaking Canada, the summary rejection of a job applicant’s use of ‘CV’ as ‘dumb’ is even less palatable.
Uh oh. Here comes a remediation session with the dolphin puppet.
-Joe