" * Do you have a security clearance: o YES o NO "
The online application asked. It was a mandatory question with an asterisk in front of it.
The next question was,
" * If you do not have a clearance, will you be able to get one: o YES o NO"
Now that I have a clearance, how should I answer this particular question? Since it is not applicable to me, I thought I would not answer this and go to the next question.
The next mandatory question was whether I was eligible to work in the USA.
Is there not a sequencing problem here? Will I get a clearance if I am not eligible to work in the United States? Or, have they started giving clearances to noncitizens during recession?
The computer programmer who wrote this online application probably never heard of the nested IF, THEN statements. So, I give a –C for that programmer and clicked "CONTINUE".
Bang, it came back with that exclamation mark embedded in yellow triangle saying I need to fill the second question! Well, I mark "YES" and go to the next page.
In some other web sites, after you create your profile you click the job search. Viola, it takes you back to the Login page! Hey, am I not logged in already? Probably, it is "Onion Peel" programming!
Then, there are cases of "Black holes". After you identify a job out of the Search Results and apply, you simply cannot go back to the "Search Results" page that you were in at all. You have to start all over again, identifying the type of jobs, locations you prefer and any other keywords that you may want to enter!
Some web sites will take you to the beginning page of the search results even when you were in the 13th before you decided to apply. And, these are the web sites of not small businesses, rather, they belong to the major government, defense contractors, IT and telecom industries. They also display jobs opened back in 2007.
After all these, if you manage to apply, you may receive an email within a few seconds (they were not that quick before the recession) saying that the jobs that you spent nearly two hours applying are frozen due to budget. Could they have not posted that sign on the Career Page in Bold Flashing Red Letters?
Job boards generally do a good job. In fact, I got my two previous jobs via one of these big job boards. No, it is not due to the much hyped "Networking", as they emphasize everywhere. More on that later.
However, in one of them, after I spent nearly an hour to create a profile and clicked a job to apply, instead of sending my resume directly to the hiring company, it takes me to the company's website. Now, that company wants me to create my profile there before I could apply.
There are job carts in every career website these days, where you put your selected jobs. But, never for a moment imagine that you minimized your efforts by checking out all the jobs in the cart by one click or series of clicks! No! The programmers who write this must be getting their salaries based on the number of lines of codes they produced. As a result, when you go to your job cart page, you are expected to apply to each individual job separately, entering the same information every time! I think if all the jobless people join and create an union asking all the employers to pay us money for entering our information like this, they might do some optimization there. Probably, we need to take the employers to the grocery store and show them how the carted items are checked out. Do we go again and again to the checkout counter for every item we have in the cart? Do they run our credit card separately for each item and give us separate receipts?
There is a lot of emphasis on networking these days as a means to get a job. After I got laid-off in the last wave of telecom industry downturn, the company that laid me off paid to one of those companies (perhaps the only companies that thrive when the job loss escalates) to train me in my 30 second speech, 3 minute speech, etc., how to write a resume, how to interview (first fifteen impression creating seconds) and create opportunities to network, etc. But, after nearly two years, I still was networking with the jobless people only. That was in Dallas.
Now, again, in Los Angeles, my current company has paid to one of these companies to train me again in this arena. They would not pay that money to us, instead. I enquired!
I am thinking, whether employers really care about my 30 second speech or my resume or my interviewing skills. The last two jobs I landed via one of the job boards interviewed me over the phone before making an offer. The most recent regret email that I received, for the interview that I could manage to get two weeks ago, told me that my resume was impressive, but I may not have the background to do their job. That was not what they told me when they talked with me over the phone before the interview and called me for the interview or during the interview.
I tried approaching a local company via networking after I lost my job in January. I was asked whether I had an active clearance. When I said yes, they asked whether I have filled a particular form. After digging up that information and confirming that I had, I was told to fill it again in case there is any change and keep it ready. I said okay. But, they told me, the jobs do not have the funding yet! Then, it was complete silence! And, that is the end of that branch of the networking tree.
Another much hyped word is "Diversity". These days we find one more button to click on the job boards. I am only wondering which is the "super set" here! Suppose I do not mark "Diversity", will my probability of being found by a potential recruiter decrease? Or, increase? Are they looking for a token employee when they search for "Diverse job seekers"? What defines "diversity"( I did not find a definition for that on the job boards)?
Do they really give equal job scale and pay to an equally competent woman? And, if that woman belongs to minority ( race)? And, if that woman is not tall and young and attractive (they still do not have buttons for that)?
Incidentally, in the last interview I had, the whole set of interviewers consisted of a homogeneous group of one race and all male except for one, out of eight. And, I was rejected. I think, now I know the probability. And, that is in an organization that represents the government work.
I may have to take up this as a hobby during my this, yet-another, unemployment trough, to collect statistics on various parameters involved in the job search, the logic, if any or the lack of it, that connects them all and the criteria that leads to the employment. Once I figure that out, I may open another unemployment management company to help me out during the next unemployment wave.
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