Job hunting sucks
Job hunting is one of the biggest wastes of time.
Yes, you need to do it to get jobs and yes it's almost impossible to get a job without doing this hunting but it's still a giant waste of time.
Then again, for people who work for jobs where they don't fill out applications, but instead send in resumes it's a lot better. Think about the fact that a person who does a large amount of work to make a good resume can send that resume to hundreds of companies, with little or no modification to it.
Compare that to someone who has to fill out applications. Every company asks for different things on their applications, so you can't just fill out one and spread it around, and the applications are normally so vague that there's no real way to answer.
The other day I was at Best Buy to price some networking equipment and was with Sarah and she was looking at a strategy guide for Morrowind while she waited. I found her and we went to go put it back on the shelf, when one of the workers (who was a manager, not just a grunt) started a conversation by mentioning the strategy guide. He owns the game as well and was saying that he didn't find the strategy guide to be as useful as he thought. Now this was cool, in and of itself, as he was being honest rather than just trying to push a sale.
We end up talking for a short bit about the networking equipment and he pushes the conversation into work, and finds out that I'm not happy where I am working. He tells me that he would be interested in acquiring me, though I have to go through the application system. No big surprise there, as why would you flat out hire someone you know nothing about.
So now I'm online and filling out this application and just getting more frustrated by the minute. It's not really the filling out of information, but instead is the sheer drudgery combined with the vague questions that they use to determine personality traits.
For example:
Your moods are steady from day to day.
Options are strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree.
Now I chose strongly agree, as my moods tend to stay the same from day to day, mostly satisfied with heavy traces of cynicism involved.
Now, as I am looking at this I am thinking in my head, "What answer would look good to a company?".
I'm a terribly honest person, however, every time I have ever been honest in these types of applications I have never been contacted. Actually, I can say for absolute fact that I have never gotten a single callback from any company that contains one of these personality profiles on their tests. I want to answer these questions honestly, but I also realize that the vagueness of the whole system of questions destroys any real usefulness.
So what does it say if someone's moods are the same from day to day. It means that they don't fluctuate wildly, which would not make a good employee. However, a person who is always happy, one who is always depressed and one who is always sad will all answer the same thing to this statement.
There's also the lovely loaded questions, like "In the past three years, how much in supplies have you stolen". There's no reason for anyone to answer anything but none, if they want to get a job. That makes those of us who can legitimately answer "$0" to this question, look just the same as those who are lying. I would almost be more interested in hiring the person who says they only stole a tiny little bit, as you'd assume that that person is being honest.
Then there's the questions that are a little more direct, in that they give you an actual situation and ask how you would deal with it. I once read one that talked about an employee was caught stealing from the company, what do you do?
So there's a whole range of situations here.
How long has this person been with the company?
How much was it that they were caught stealing?
Have they ever been caught for something like this before?
How did they respond when you talked to them?
Of course, they don't provide you with this information and still expect you to come up with a specific answer. Ask any manager if situations are ever this simple, and be prepared to be laughed at. Nothing in the world is ever this simple and well defined, yet these companies seem to expect you to have a catch-all answer that would cover the whole thing.
I also love this one I ran into today: Have you in the past 7 years been convicted of a crime?
Now, they already asked about felonies so that's out of the question. However, unlike most times they ask this question they didn't rule out traffic violations. So in my case the answer, if I were being honest, would be yes, as I got pulled over for speeding about five years ago. However, that's not even remotely what these people are talking about when they ask this question, but this company didn't further define it.
When I moved back to the area I live in now I decided to attempt to get a job at Blockbuster Video again, where I worked for 3 years as a grunt and six months as a manager. I didn't want to work there but I needed a job fast and figured it would be a good standing point while I lined up a better job. When I was there I was voted, by customers, as the best customer service person there and I still to this day have people recognize me from when I worked there, as I apparently made that big of an impression on them.
However, I ran into one little problem. I couldn't pass the personality test. Blockbuster has a policy that if they don't pass the Blockbuster standards on this test no one even looks at the app. I was able to find out that it wasn't my app that was the problem, but the fact that this test came back as a fail.
I even went back and filled it out again, this time trying to exaggerate on those items that I felt hurt me when I answered honestly. I still managed to fail this test.
So this makes me wonder, just who the hell is this company interested in hiring? They sound like the perfect person.
Lastly, with all the big corporation companies going to these types of systems, job hunting can be a real pain in the ass. During my last job search I ended up filling out the same information, and doing the exact same personality test, at the same website for multiple companies who outsource the application process to this company. Just think at how frustrating it is to be filling out a 96 question survey, over and over again.
This company should provide a login where they can store their data. See this way, if you fill out your data, it saves it. Then if you go to another company where the data needed is slightly different, it only has to ask about the data that is different.
The only downside to this, is that the company may use multiple entries to get a better view of a person, as who can always answer the same 96 vague questions the same, every single time they are asked them.
So, I'm going through the motions and all the bullshit so that I can find out if I qualify for a job that I will then have to compare to the job I currently have, and may end up turning this new job down.
What a mess, and a waste of time.
Yes, you need to do it to get jobs and yes it's almost impossible to get a job without doing this hunting but it's still a giant waste of time.
Then again, for people who work for jobs where they don't fill out applications, but instead send in resumes it's a lot better. Think about the fact that a person who does a large amount of work to make a good resume can send that resume to hundreds of companies, with little or no modification to it.
Compare that to someone who has to fill out applications. Every company asks for different things on their applications, so you can't just fill out one and spread it around, and the applications are normally so vague that there's no real way to answer.
The other day I was at Best Buy to price some networking equipment and was with Sarah and she was looking at a strategy guide for Morrowind while she waited. I found her and we went to go put it back on the shelf, when one of the workers (who was a manager, not just a grunt) started a conversation by mentioning the strategy guide. He owns the game as well and was saying that he didn't find the strategy guide to be as useful as he thought. Now this was cool, in and of itself, as he was being honest rather than just trying to push a sale.
We end up talking for a short bit about the networking equipment and he pushes the conversation into work, and finds out that I'm not happy where I am working. He tells me that he would be interested in acquiring me, though I have to go through the application system. No big surprise there, as why would you flat out hire someone you know nothing about.
So now I'm online and filling out this application and just getting more frustrated by the minute. It's not really the filling out of information, but instead is the sheer drudgery combined with the vague questions that they use to determine personality traits.
For example:
Your moods are steady from day to day.
Options are strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree.
Now I chose strongly agree, as my moods tend to stay the same from day to day, mostly satisfied with heavy traces of cynicism involved.
Now, as I am looking at this I am thinking in my head, "What answer would look good to a company?".
I'm a terribly honest person, however, every time I have ever been honest in these types of applications I have never been contacted. Actually, I can say for absolute fact that I have never gotten a single callback from any company that contains one of these personality profiles on their tests. I want to answer these questions honestly, but I also realize that the vagueness of the whole system of questions destroys any real usefulness.
So what does it say if someone's moods are the same from day to day. It means that they don't fluctuate wildly, which would not make a good employee. However, a person who is always happy, one who is always depressed and one who is always sad will all answer the same thing to this statement.
There's also the lovely loaded questions, like "In the past three years, how much in supplies have you stolen". There's no reason for anyone to answer anything but none, if they want to get a job. That makes those of us who can legitimately answer "$0" to this question, look just the same as those who are lying. I would almost be more interested in hiring the person who says they only stole a tiny little bit, as you'd assume that that person is being honest.
Then there's the questions that are a little more direct, in that they give you an actual situation and ask how you would deal with it. I once read one that talked about an employee was caught stealing from the company, what do you do?
So there's a whole range of situations here.
How long has this person been with the company?
How much was it that they were caught stealing?
Have they ever been caught for something like this before?
How did they respond when you talked to them?
Of course, they don't provide you with this information and still expect you to come up with a specific answer. Ask any manager if situations are ever this simple, and be prepared to be laughed at. Nothing in the world is ever this simple and well defined, yet these companies seem to expect you to have a catch-all answer that would cover the whole thing.
I also love this one I ran into today: Have you in the past 7 years been convicted of a crime?
Now, they already asked about felonies so that's out of the question. However, unlike most times they ask this question they didn't rule out traffic violations. So in my case the answer, if I were being honest, would be yes, as I got pulled over for speeding about five years ago. However, that's not even remotely what these people are talking about when they ask this question, but this company didn't further define it.
When I moved back to the area I live in now I decided to attempt to get a job at Blockbuster Video again, where I worked for 3 years as a grunt and six months as a manager. I didn't want to work there but I needed a job fast and figured it would be a good standing point while I lined up a better job. When I was there I was voted, by customers, as the best customer service person there and I still to this day have people recognize me from when I worked there, as I apparently made that big of an impression on them.
However, I ran into one little problem. I couldn't pass the personality test. Blockbuster has a policy that if they don't pass the Blockbuster standards on this test no one even looks at the app. I was able to find out that it wasn't my app that was the problem, but the fact that this test came back as a fail.
I even went back and filled it out again, this time trying to exaggerate on those items that I felt hurt me when I answered honestly. I still managed to fail this test.
So this makes me wonder, just who the hell is this company interested in hiring? They sound like the perfect person.
Lastly, with all the big corporation companies going to these types of systems, job hunting can be a real pain in the ass. During my last job search I ended up filling out the same information, and doing the exact same personality test, at the same website for multiple companies who outsource the application process to this company. Just think at how frustrating it is to be filling out a 96 question survey, over and over again.
This company should provide a login where they can store their data. See this way, if you fill out your data, it saves it. Then if you go to another company where the data needed is slightly different, it only has to ask about the data that is different.
The only downside to this, is that the company may use multiple entries to get a better view of a person, as who can always answer the same 96 vague questions the same, every single time they are asked them.
So, I'm going through the motions and all the bullshit so that I can find out if I qualify for a job that I will then have to compare to the job I currently have, and may end up turning this new job down.
What a mess, and a waste of time.