Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered

The Unemployed Need Not Apply

Yes, that's right. It's a strange job market out there. Not only are people getting laid off like crazy and the creation of new jobs isn't exactly on the right track, a new trend reported by the Huffington Post: there's a "Disturbing Job Ads: 'The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered'" Yes, that's right.. don't got a job? Well then, don't apply for this job. Thanks in advance.
Still waiting for a response to the 300 resumés you sent out last month? Bad news: Some companies are ignoring all unemployed applicants.

In a current job posting on The People Place, a job recruiting website for the telecommunications, aerospace/defense and engineering industries, an anonymous electronics company in Angleton, Texas, advertises for a "Quality Engineer." Qualifications for the job are the usual: computer skills, oral and written communication skills, light to moderate lifting. But red print at the bottom of the ad says, "Client will not consider/review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason."

In a nearly identical job posting for the same position on the Benchmark Electronics website, the red print is missing. But a human resources representative for the company confirmed to HuffPost that the The People Place ad accurately reflects the company's recruitment policies.

"It's our preference that they currently be employed," he said. "We typically go after people that are happy where they are and then tell them about the opportunities here. We do get a lot of applications blindly from people who are currently unemployed -- with the economy being what it is, we've had a lot of people contact us that don't have the skill sets we want, so we try to minimize the amount of time we spent on that and try to rifle-shoot the folks we're interested in."

There are about 5.5 people looking for work for every job available, according to the latest data from the Labor Department.

Sony Ericsson, a global phone manufacturer that recently announced that it would be bringing 180 new jobs to the Buckhead, Ga. area, also recently posted an ad for a marketing position on The People Place. The add specified: "NO UNEMPLOYED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONSIDERED AT ALL." When asked about the ad, a spokeswoman said, "This was a mistake, and once it was noticed it was removed."

Ads asking the unemployed not to apply are easy to find. A Craigslist ad for assistant restaurant managers in Edgewater, N.J. specifies, "Must be currently employed." Another job posting for a tax manager at an unnamed "top 25 CPA firm" in New York City contains the same line in all caps.
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A company's choice to ignore unemployed applicants and recycle the current workforce ignores the effect of the recession on millions of highly-qualified workers and could prolong the unemployment crisis, said Judy Conti, federal advocacy coordinator for the National Employment Law Project.

"In the current economy, where millions of people have lost their jobs through absolutely no fault of their own, I find it beyond unconscionable that any employer would not consider unemployed workers for current job openings," she said. "Not only are these employers short-sighted in their search for the best qualified workers, but they are clearly not good corporate citizens of the communities in which they work. Increasingly, politicians and policy makers are trying to blame the unemployed for their condition, and to see this shameful propaganda trickle down to hiring decisions is truly sad and despicable."

There is no law prohibiting discrimination against the unemployed, though advocates said the practice could be illegal if it had a "disparate impact" on minority groups.

Congressman John Dingell (D-Mich.), whose home state of Michigan has a 14 percent unemployment rate, was particularly disappointed to hear about the ads.

"While I appreciate that many employers are facing unprecedented competition for job openings, to close the door on such a large population of potential employees is shortsighted," he said. "Being unemployed is not a choice many workers choose to make. I would hope that companies that are discriminating against the unemployed will take into consideration that this choice is only further contributing to long-term unemployment in our country."

Ha ha ha ha ha. WHAT.THE.FUCK? This is just comically tragic. Oh man, you unemployed people.. you just got OWNED! For all you people who are coming out of school and graduating, good fucking luck. Just join the peace corps until this whole economic crisis blows over or America collapses. Which ever comes first. I know which one I have my money on..

But this course of thinking in employee selection makes perfect sense, don't you think? Why would you want a person who has clearly seen through the bullshit of corporate America in your company? Or maybe it's just that desperation has a distracting musky scent that cuts down productivity by 30%.

I think I see where this chain of logic is coming from. If you were laid off, you obviously were useless to begin with, why would you want to hire someone useless? Bootstraps, bitches. Maybe if they had gotten A JOB, they wouldn't be in the situation of looking for a job. Those lazy, selfish fucks wouldn't be looking for one! This is a clear example of Reagonomics at its finest.

But from a loyalty standpoint, why would you self-select to only get people willing to fuck their current employer? Especially in this economic situation were it's clear they obviously made sacrifices and decisions to keep them at job A. Oh right, that's because sociopathy is proportional to capitalist business acumen, tch! Silly me.

But just think about it. They think that if you're unemployed, it's probably for a reason and they only want unhappy workers from other company because then.. maybe they could be unhappy in this new job? I don't know. It sure as hell is not a measure to fill your company with productive team members if they're going to be so fickle at their previous job.

In truth, most companies practice this anyway. They just aren't dumb enough to put it on the job description. Even back when the economy was good. Almost every place I had worked at did this. If they see a long gap between your last employment you can pretty much assume that the employers were looking at you with one raised eye brow wondering what exactly it was that prevented you from getting a new job. As if you were filled with some sort of sickness.

So this brings up a good question - How do you get back into the work world after a long gap in employment? You want the truth - Lie! Lie your heart out. Lie to the fucking cows come home. Then when they do, lie that they still haven't shown up.

If you get fired and find yourself lucky enough with an interview, tell them that you were fired for developing a way to save the company money, but it wasn't policy so they were forced to fire you. This will make you look like an innovative and highly sought after commodity that just didn't fit in with wherever you were previously.

If that doesn't work you can always lie out of your fucking ass about your status and wher eyou live. Relocation is a great excuse to having to lose a job and chances are HR isn't going to call out of the area code to look up your references. That's another thing. Don't have references or a credible back ground? Lie about it!

You can most likely make up the fact that you earned such and such degree on a resume. The best resume lie I ever told was that I had experience installing blowout preventers on deep sea oil rigs. Oooh yeah, Mr. Cool right here.

You know what always works? "My weakness? I'd say I just tend to work too hard!" Oh yes. That right there is gold. Any of these following statements will do nicely in that situation;
"I care too much about getting it right the first time"
"I'm a workaholic"
"I don't know when to stop"
"I find it difficult to form relationships outside of the office as it is my life"
"I will kill for the company. No one will ever know."

Okay, maybe that last one is a bit much, but you get the idea. You need to sell yourself to the company. So start selling! And if you don't want to lie, you do know that you can always get a business license, establish an S-corp, and be a 'consultant' even if it's just bullshit advice to friends and family. Then again, HR still doesn't look kindly on self-employment because to them it's practically unemployment. But still, you're technically employed so they can't get you on that one.

HR departments are really bad about checking previous employers though. So really, just make shit up. Maybe one or two catch you, but sooner or later you slip past their nets and have yourself a couple of paychecks.

I mean it. If you want a job, lie about your past and if you get fired say you were let go with a group of other people, aka Laid off. Insert a fake company somewhere and have a friend who sounds good on the phone take the call /act as your old manager from a respectable company. Especially corporations. Fuck them! Lie through your teeth to them. I guess it's not as good to small businesses. If you work hard and are smart they'd want you anyway and not be retarded in pushing away those who have been unemployed for a while.

While you're at it, you can always lie about diplomas as well. When I was a lot younger it got me into some serious companies. When I did jury duty a while back the defendant had invented a school, going so far as to create a really bad website for it. Somehow he even got an .edu domain for one of them. The only way they figured this shit out was investigators went to its physical address in person.

He got hired by the county as a hydrology engineer. He worked there for something like a year and a half before he got into trouble. Best part was that it wasn't even for not being able to do his job. He had a good performance reviews and his supervisor said in court that he had done very well in his job.

Then there's that situation where a self taught via flight simulators pilot got a job and spent close to a decade flying planes back and forth with fake credentials before they caught him and you know what they did? Suspended him from flying commercial air planes for 12 months only.

You tell me if lying on your resume isn't looking more and more attractive by the day.