« A Quick Welcome to Chez Louise | HomePage | New Strings for My Cello! »
02/01/2006
The Job Hunting Circus: Part 1
I've been looking for a job for about a month or so, and even then, not too seriously. (Living with my parents has its merits!) The more I look though, the more I feel like standing back and watching the show rather than actually participating. Gone are the days where you go to school, learn about something specific, and then get a job doing that something specific. These days, it seems, I not only have to be an engineer, but have five years' experience in this, that, the other thing, as well as proficiency in about 20 different software packages, only about 3 of which the university can actually afford, and less than half of which any reasonable person might even have heard of. Then you must be an all-round individual so you need to be outgoing, über-motivated, willing to work long hours (including evenings, weekends, and holidays), serve on the board of no less than three committees, be president of a club (two is better), have international experience, and last but not least, play a musical instrument and participate in a variety of rewarding leisure activities such as golf, tennis, sailing, and/or mountain climbing (a successful Everest climb is an asset). And this is all for an entry-level position which pays peanuts, and is not likely very interesting in the first place. True, there are exceptions to this, but I see enough of these types of job ads that it has actually become funny rather than depressing. When I see some job ads like this I'll try to post on this blog in the "Job Hunting" category, as is this particular blog entry.
The above requirements, however, really only matter if there actually is a competition for a particular job, which is surprisingly, not necessarily the case when a job ad is posted. Three recent situations stick out in my mind.
1. My boyfriend, through contacts, was about to be appointed to a job for which he was highly qualified. Being a government job, the union wouldn't allow appointments to a job, so they set up a competition and posted the job so others could apply. The idea was, if he was that skilled, he'd have no problems jumping through all the hoops, and end up with the job anyway. (A huge waste of time, but OK.) The only problem with the theory was that they included geographical restrictions to the job, which disqualified him from the position. It's a wonder it's legal to do that, since both he and the job are Canadian.
2. Another friend was also almost appointed to a government position because she was already working in exactly the field they needed, and was very qualified. Once again, she had to go through all this bureacratic nonsense of creating a job description, posting it, waiting for applications, interview (when the interviewers basically already know everything they need to know, since they nearly appointed her), and get hired anyway. Of course, well over half a year has gone by in the process...
3. Yet another friend of mine was on the other side of the coin. She saw a job ad that she thought would be perfect, and went to the trouble of sending in her application. She never heard anything back, and later found out (through someone else working there) that they never looked at any of the applications; they already had someone in mind and the whole job ad was just for show. This friend has been making ends meet by working at a deli in a small grocery store for years, a job which she hates and can't wait to quit. She really had her hopes up for this new job. It isn't fair to do this to her. If her application was considered but wasn't as good as someone else's, fine. Life's like that. But to get her hopes up when she never had a chance in the first place? Not fine.
4. The best example I've ever seen though, was a job ad which just made me shake my head. It had all the typical information about the responsibilities of the position, the required experience and education, and so on. At the bottom there was room for notes, and the note read something like: We already have a candidate in mind for this position; her name is [full name of candidate was given right there in the ad]. (I have to paraphrase because the closing date of the position has gone by and the ad is no longer online. I should've copied it when I had the chance, because it was just such a jewel.) For heaven's sake, why bother posting the ad??
All this headache stems from the rule that you have to have a fair competition for every job. I guess the idea was to prevent friends from giving jobs to other friends who weren't necessarily qualified, but were just appointed as a friend-to-friend favour. Fair enough. The current "adaptation" of this rule is just ridiculous though. I didn't have to look very far to find these examples, and they all happened within this past year, so I wonder how rampant this really is! If you want to appoint someone because they're qualified, just make sure they have the qualifications and are suitable for the job, then hire them. Don't put them (or other hopefuls who really don't have a hope) through all this misery. I've seen enough of this for my liking...
14:20 Posted in Job Hunting | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this