It’s no secret I’ve been hunting for stable employment for over a year now (I have been intermittently employed, which is better than nothing, but not satisfactory long term). After submitting hundreds of resumes (among other things) I wish to express my disgust at the following:
Obvious employment scams in job listings - you know these guys, “Make $1,000 a day from home while picking your nose!” and the like.
Training programs masquerading as job openings - they’ll show up on Monster or CareerBuilder or in classifieds saying things like “Dental Assistant! Great Career Opportunity!” or the like and you have to wade through crap to get to the fine print that tells you this is NOT a job opening but a training program (Sign up for classes now!)
Companies who won’t give their names - I see these all the time. They’re in job listings but “company name reserved” or “company name private” or “company name withheld”. Excuse me? You want to know all about me, but I can’t know anything about you? Are you hiring for Area 51 or something? I applied to a Federal job that requires a security clearance and THEY told me what department I was applying to! Seriously - expectations these days is a cover letter addressed to an individual saying how you’re a match for the company. How the fuck do you do that when you don’t even have the name of the company, much less the name of the person to address your correspondence to? Hell, most of the time they don’t even say what industry they’re in! I don’t want to accidentally apply to whorehouse, you know? I can’t determine how far these places are from where I live, how am I supposed to know if I’m looking at a 2 mile commute or a 100 mile? Holy fuck, you’re looking for dime-a-dozen admins, what’s the big fucking secret here?
Company websites from hell - if you’ve applied for a job recently you’ve encountered at least one. The most notable one involved software clearly designed for on-line shopping. You selected what you wanted to apply for, then put it in your “cart” and then “checked out”! The price fields were all set to “$0.0” Not only that, it was shitty purchasing software with crap navigation, dead ends, and - well, it was awful. The funny thing was I saw this company’s job offers on a job listing site for eight months - wonder if anyone managed to get through that interface?
Refusal to acknowledge receipt of resume (or anything else) - look, if I fax stuff in I can understand receiving no acknowledge because that actually requires a human in the loop. It would be nice to hear something, but I understand why it might not happen. However, if I am using (at your company’s request!) automated software can I at least get a bloody acknowledgment? You can set the system up to do that automatically, right? That way I at least know that your system has successfully received my humble offering. Otherwise, I haven’t a clue if the system worked when I clicked on “submit”.
I’ve often thought there is a business opportunity there for a job search site that doesn’t treat the job seekers like shit. There is a small fee to access the site but in return you get real jobs. No obvious bullshit or anonymous company listings.
Employers can be sure their real job won’t be lost is a sea of crap.
Also, I seem to get a flood of “job opportunity” scam e-mails whenever I upload a revised resume to CareerBuilder. (The most recent one was for “THOMAS Recruitment”; supposedly involving some kind of sales-related job, but for some reason requiring that I have an account with a particular bank. It looks like it’s actually an “opportunity” to give them access to my money for investment purposes.)
Employers should put up the job title, description, and requirements, as well as the usual contact information: Please contact (lazy-hr-person)@I’m never going to look at this.com, with an e-mailed resume: or Call Xxxxx ask for so and so, business location is xxxxxxx .
They could even weight the requirements. for example, if experience is more important than a field-related degree, it could have high priority, as could someone who is able to relocate etc… Help the seekers find you, and they will come. YOU save the time wading through a bunch of e-mails that have little to no match for your opening.
Not any more. I contacted several of them in central florida, and very few companies are paying any more. :rolleyes: They’ve taken to charging the applicants for most positions. the usual fee in my area is 2000.00 upon accepting a position they find for you.
One, I received back an “online application” that wanted to know the name of my cell phone carrier and asked if I wanted to recent educational opportunity updates (had nothing to do with the job or company mentioned).
The other was from asshat @ yahoo.com, who replied that he worked for the Monsanto Company (note the email address) and needed an office assistant to receive checks from clients, which were to be deposited into that person’s bank account and the balance forwarded to any of the offices that I would be contacted to send payment to. Riiiiiiiiiiiigt.
sweet jebus - i got 5 different ‘assistant’ position offers pretty much like that, though i think 2 were yahoo, 1 was gmail and one was some other juno or netzero or something like that …
i have communicated with people at monsanto in my current job, i know they have a corporate email, not a frelling yahoo address…
In my limited experience, the listings from companies who won’t provide their names are really listed by recruiters. Which is another kind of annoying thing. You think you’re applying to a company, and it turns out the person who calls you is from a placement agency.
In the end, it has worked out for me, and hey, I’m getting a call back, but I just don’t get why they don’t say that it’s a posting from a recruiter.
If the recruiter posting the listing doesn’t mention the company’s name, the applicants can’t bypass the recruiter by contacting the company directly and depriving the recruiter of his/her commission.
What pisses me off are sites which require you to create an account (something like Monster.com, I can understand, but when I’m trying to apply for a job at XYZ company, WTF should I have to create an account), upload your resume, then ask you to fill out an “job seeker profile,” which consists solely of filling out information that can be found on your fucking resume! Now, I’m not some kind of resume writing genius, who is able to concisely squeeze my work experience into two pages, these guys are asking for things like previous employers, and its not an “either upload a resume, or fill these webforms out” its “upload your resume, fill these webforms out, and then apply for the job.” Fuck you.
Another job I applied for, wanted me to spend two hours doing an “online evaluation.” This was a multimedia evaluation, complete with sound and video. WTF? I am not applying for any kind of a decent job, its a shit CSR job, with shitty pay and shitty benefits, and you want me to spend two fucking hours on this?
Changing the name of job descriptions every six months or so. This necessitates you trying to stay on top of the currently-PC nomenclature of the damned job. Here’s a good one that turned up recently: “Facilities Coordinator” - it was a receptionist’s job.
Asking for the sun, the moon and the stars in the description of the opening. Christ, is there anyone who’s well-versed in the 101 assorted skills they ask for? Once my husband got a position which had asked for his foreknowledge of several kinds of programs, and he went in letting them know that though he didn’t know them, he had the ability to learn new applications quickly (true). He nervously awaited having to learn them on the fly, and it turned out he didn’t have to really know dick-all beyond one or two main applications. After that, I’ve never believed half the requirements they post.
Asking for college degrees when they’re not remotely necessary for getting the job done. Really, a CAD drafter does not need a bachelor’s degree.
When I was applying for jobs while still working for Shittiest Boss in History, I wonder how many times I unknowingly applied for the position of my replacement. SBiH was interviewing while I was job-hunting and I made it clear to him that I was looking for a new job as long as he continued going to great lengths to keep doing nothing about my abusive coworker. I like to think that my resume arrived in his inbox and he said, “Damn, this guy is perfec–oh, that’s the guy I’m shitting on* right now!”
*Figuratively, so shut up.
Given the zillions of resumes these places get, I’d assume employers do database searches. Forcing you to fill out a webform cuts down on the number of ways you can write hash slinger or whatever. Extracting that from a Word or PDF resume is not that easy. So, I’d give them a pass on that one.
The last time I hired someone, a long time ago, the HR person who helped me did a search on keywords I gave her, and I sorted through the resumes which turned up. I might well have missed good people, but there is no way anyone could sort through every resume received.
I’m sure when our OP gets further along she will ad applying for jobs listed on web sites that have been filled six months ago. That is a problem even when I submit a resume I’ve gotten from a friend to our internal site. Fact is, they’ve laid off most of HR years ago, so the ones who are there don’t have the time to keep the site up to date let alone actually respond to resumes. Even seen from inside, the process of applying for jobs has gone to hell in the last 30 years.
So? They want a CAD drafter that has one, doesn’t matter if one isn’t needed in your opinion. If a company wanted a receptionist with a JD, an MD, and a PhD in Physics, then they sure can look for one if they want to.
What’s more, in my market, a lot of these jobs are not real. They’re “examples” to fill in their database. Of course, they also put drastically unrealistic salaries in place to lure you in, as well.
I’ve had several agencies that called me in for an interview when I was looking for entry-level stuff. You’d go in, take a long test and do a ton of paperwork, do an interview with them, only to find out the job you applied for isn’t just taken, it never actually existed. When they asked to come to their office, and not a client’s, I learned to ask to know the client or specifics about the position (e.g. what part of town is it in?) before I took the time off work. In every case, it was one of these phantom jobs, or they’d offer me something drastically different from the ad at about half the pay.
Boy, you never get tired of being antagonistic, do you?
Yes, it’s totally within their rights to look for a receptionist with a JD. It’s then totally within our rights to think they’re idiots who are shooting themselves in the foot.
A job ad I recently checked out had a list of 9 requirements for the job:
“4. Einstein-like problem solving skills”
Wow.
Another one, relating to degrees… the company that wanted a person with a CPA and 5 years of experience. Starting pay? $32k a year. Uh sure, good luck with that guys.