"The unemployed will not be considered"

[suranyi]

@joebuck20

While it is true that companies occasionally use layoffs as an excuse to get rid of deadwood, sometimes they may just cut out entire departments in a tough economy, which has happened in my industry. You could be the best person for your particular job, but if the company needs to make some cuts and feels that it can get by without the job that you do, you’re going to end up on the street.

Indeed that is also true. Which is why I think it’s not worth worrying about what individual companies are doing. If unemployment overall is remaining high or getting even worse, then unemployed people are still in trouble. If unemployment is going down, then some company has an opening that has to be filled by someone currently unemployed.

[Fear_Itself]

Perhaps this trend is related to the recent rise in the number of people quitting their jobs. If employers are avoiding the unemployed, more people would have to quit their current job to chase a better offer.

[Voyager]

@joebuck20

While it is true that companies occasionally use layoffs as an excuse to get rid of deadwood, sometimes they may just cut out entire departments in a tough economy, which has happened in my industry. You could be the best person for your particular job, but if the company needs to make some cuts and feels that it can get by without the job that you do, you’re going to end up on the street.

Very true. In my industry, sometimes entire projects are cut. Since the other projects are fully staffed, and moving people onto a project near completion is going to cause problems a la Brooks’ Law, even quite good people get let go.

In addition, I can see that there are some cases where you don’t want to hire a superstar - various support jobs, or important if tedious jobs. Even if a company save the top 5% of people, someone in the middle might be a better match for a given position. We can’t all be divas, and that is speaking as a diva.

[Voyager]

@Dangerosa

And there are employees significantly better or worse than other employees. I do project management. There are people I’m delighted to have on a team - and teams I know from looking at my resource list we might as well set the schedule out six months, hire expensive consultants and double the budget and call the project toast from day one. If I’m the one making layoff decisions - who goes? If I’m the one looking to hire, who do I hire?

So, as I asked above, you’d rather trust the judgment of a person in another company about who is good than yours? Isn’t it possible that Guy A who is laid off from Company X is better than anyone in Company Y who hasn’t laid off anyone - yet?

[sqweels]

@Rand_Rover

I guess kaylasdad99 et al are looking at the situation like this: You have to have a job to get a job–that’s a total catch-22!

But I think the better way to look at it is like this: You have to have a job to get THIS job. Just like you have to have a Master’s Degree or relevant experience or whatever to get certain other jobs. So, no big deal.

How about, “You have to already be married to marry me”?

[Voyager]

@sqweels

How about, “You have to already be married to marry me”?

Well, if it worked for Brigham Young …