Doing Free Data Entry

Companies seem to delight in making the job application process as cumbersome as possible.  It should be a simple matter of just sending a resume along, but the larger companies often want you to do free data entry for them (working for free is, of course, always a bad sign) and enter in manually again the information you already uploaded in the form of a resume.  Sometimes, the company computer manages to get the resume material in the right fields, but usually a candidate has to go through this whole annoying process of reentering the information.  Basically, one is doing free data entry, so a human resources drone can have an easier time ignoring you when they search a resume database by keywords.

If that weren't bad enough, really awful companies repeat this tiresome tendency across the entire hiring process.  Recently, I had the misfortune to apply at a company that's always hiring (another sign of a bad company) and not only did I have to do the free data entry when they should have just been hiring any warm body that showed up at the office, but they had a whole host of other timewasters for me and the other applicants.  Since I need a gig, I suffered through it right up to the final interview.  First, I had the call from the recruiter, just to schedule a time for her to read back my resume to me.  Then once I jumped through that useless hoop I got called into the office to shadow for an hour or so.  

I saw more bad signs there, but, once again, the phone ain't ringing otherwise and I need to eat, so I kept going.  First of all, everyone at the office looks depressed and miserable.  Second, the first dude I shadow with is in a rock band, which would be cool, but he couldn't go on tour with them because he needs to work, which is as about as uncool as possible.  So his band is in Indiana or somewhere, and he's in Ohio sitting in this office because he can't afford to go on vacation (I guess the band doesn't make money either).  He tells me how a lot of the time, his clients have problems and he's on call 24 hours a day to solve them and they can take extra hours to solve.  Anyway, the company brags about how much money their reps make, but this guy has to work 50-some hours a week even when things don't go south and he still has to bartend on the weekend to pay the bills.

Hmm . . . 

The second guy I shadow with is some dude who used to work in an Avery-Dennison factory, where from what I gather, they're so desperate for workers that they'll hire anyone with a pulse.  So much for this company bragging about how they only hire the best.  In any case, this dude didn't like the factory, so he got a job here, since this place also will hire anyone, and he's been here all of a month, and he'll be in training for half a year doing grunt work for minimal pay until he graduates to being as miserable as the first guy.  He also has to work about 50 hours a week, but he has to work more weekends.

After this inspiring shadowing, the company puts me on a video interview with my recruiter.  I apparently pass that, so I have to go back to the office again to take a test and interview with the managers.  Again, the phone is not ringing, so I agree.

I go back the next week and take the tests, which are simple math, geography, and facts about the company tests, which make me wonder how anyone who couldn't pass these tests could figure out how to get to the office for an interview in the first place.  I pass and meet the hiring managers, who, like everyone else, seem miserable and overworked.  The first dude used to be a magician, and the second dude worked in time share sales.  They seem nice enough, but they shortly catch on that I'm not interested in working 50-60 hours a week for years on end just to make six figures at some nebulous point down the road.  Given the company's turnover, I doubt many reps ever make the six figures.  It seems for some unknown reason, the company overhires and has too many reps chasing too few leads, so people quit, and the few sales they've made go to the survivors, who presumably acquire enough over the years to make some bank (the company's commission rate is very good--their problem seems to be having too few sales).  There even seemed to be some indication that the company expected people to wake up at 4 in the morning to put leads in one's name before showing up to work early in the morning and then staying into the evening.  The time share guy said he worked from 5 in the morning to 7 at night usually, but reassured me the financial awards were more than worth it.

The company also had a ping pong table to attract candidates.  I don't know when one would have time to play ping pong.  Anyone playing it would probably also be pretty annoying to the people working next to it, and after 50-60 hours at work, I doubt anyone much wants to stay even later just to play ping pong.

Despite the ping pong table, I decided that I preferred to have a life beyond that of work and told them I'd think about it, but I had decided not to take the job even if they offered it.

They must have caught on because they didn't offer it.  We could have all saved some time if they ran their company better:

1) Hire fucking fewer people

2) See 1 (I bet it would cascade to solve the other issues).

But the company's apparently been run like shit since the beginning, so don't expect things to change.  The kicker was that the company had earned several of those meaningless "Best Workplaces" awards (I'm guessing they just pay money or something to the companies that award those).