Your Future Endeavors

Looking for a job has changed quite a bit over the years.  I am old enough to remember the old days of going through the help wanted ads in the newspaper.  Then as the Internet became more central to American life, various job boards replaced it and one another.  Some of the old job boards such as CareerBuilder and Monster are still active, but Indeed seems to have become the dominant one these days.  Pardon the pun, but indeed, Indeed is the one I mainly use in my current job search.  There are some other sites I eventually will branch out to when I expand my search if the current parameters don't pan out (if they do pan out, then expect this blog to be abandoned, forever I hope, no offense . . . there appears to be no danger of that at the moment though so I may be with you dear readers for a long time), but Indeed has proved to be all I need at the moment.  I was using LinkedIn, but I analyzed my job applications and realized that all the responses have come from Indeed applicat

No matter how used I get to the incompetence of employers, they still manage to amaze me.  Case in point, I apply to a job, and two days later, the employer messages me asking if I am still interested. Um, yeah . . . I mean I am a pretty awesome job applicant, but reaching out 48 hours later isn't like reaching out two weeks later, the employer should reasonably expect me to be open to the opportunity.  This whole communication is pointless; just set up an interview already. In this case, I replied, and then it was crickets.  It's been over two weeks, and I didn't get a response.  If I were dealing with rational people, then I'd assume perhaps my response got lost in the proverbial shuffle, and I would follow up.  But this is an employer.  As much as they gripe about candidates ghosting them, they do the same.  I've had multiple potential employers say they were going to get back to me, and then you never hear from them again.  Following up tends to be useless becau

  I still come across job ads requiring COVID-19 vaccinations.  Apparently, these companies, mostly in healthcare but also other industries, either seldom update their job descriptions, a problem in itself and a red flag that the company is kind of clueless in general, or in 2023, they are actually still caught up in the virus panic of 2020, an even worse sign of a shitty company.  Even if those vaccinations worked to prevent transmission, which they don't--even the companies who make the vaccines know that--, this sort of paternalistic knowing better than the potential employee about her or his health is offensive.  When I see that in an ad (and the only good thing you can say about the ad is that at least don't spring this bullshit on you later so you don't have to waste time applying and whatnot), I know to skip applying for that job.  No thanks, I don't need to risk winning the clottery just to work your stupid job.  It's like the company equivalent of someone w

Corporate America continues to be run badly.  If I ran a company and I needed to hire someone, so I could make more money because I'm not hiring someone unless it makes me more money than I will be shelling out for the hire, I would hire someone quickly.  Otherwise, I'm wasting money by leaving a needed position unfilled.  I'm either paying overtime or burning someone else out to cover it in the meantime or I'm just leaving potential revenue on the proverbial table, which may not show up on the accounting books but has a cost in revenue foregone or opportunity cost. Why then do I see garbage like the image posted above on LinkedIn?  I see this all the time.  A company advertises a job.  Presumably, unless they're wasting money paying HR morons to do stuff that doesn't need to be done, they need this position filled.  This position has been open for at least a month.  They keep relisting it once a week or so in order to put it on top of the help wanted pile.  It&

Pundits love to yap about how easy it is to get a job these days. Horseshit! Sure, there are some shit jobs you can work, and you can plug into the gig economy at will and get exploited, but, otherwise, it's as miserable as ever trying to get a job.  The job listings are filled with scammers and companies that want to exploit you.  Assuming you avoid those pitfalls, there is still the employment agency ads, the jobs of which are nonexistent.  What the staffing agency is trying to do is to get you to come in, so you can be added to their candidate database.  So when an employer shows up with a job order, they can pull out a candidate from the database and send her or him over.  Then they write up an ad for the job they already filled and post it. Isn't that illegal though?  Like false advertising? Well, probably, but good luck proving it.  They'd spin the procedure as just making sure they have a backup in case the first candidate craps out. That's a lie, of course.  The

  Look at this picture of geese and tell me what you feel.  On second thought, let's not waste the time of both of us; this exercise, while perhaps fun, will not tell us much, despite what psychologists might claim otherwise.  The hucksters who sell personality assessments to HR morons are just doing the social science version of astrology.  Hell, doing real astrology probably would have as much of a success rate in terms of actually predicting who's a good hire or not ("Hey, you're a Libra!  That's great!  We need one to balance out the team.  We have too many Leos at the moment.").   Unfortunately, expect more of this nonsense, especially as the recession worsens and more people are seeking jobs.  1 job I applied to has 1,545 applicants. How the fuck do you sort through 1,545 applicants?  Well, you use bullshit like personality assessments and whatnot, but you might as well just pick someone randomly.  If he or she looks good on paper, then call her or him f