Flutterby™! : Trials of a Jobseeker 2005-08-25 15:57:00.88631+00

Trials of a Jobseeker

2005-08-25 15:57:00.88631+00 by petronius 7 comments

I'm back in the market for a job, either as a classroom IT trainer or a writer of end-user manuals, and I'm searching through places like Monster.com. Perhaps this is to balance the karma of getting unemployment, but one of the things I dread is reading vague, stupid and badly spelled job descriptions like this one. I expect a certain amount of boilerplate due to legal requirements, but why oh why must I suffer through terms like "..create task enablement deliverables"? Also, what constitutes "high-level"? 10 meters? 7.9 on the Richter Scale? 98.6 Celsius? Argh!

Hmmm... I keep thinking that we need a Flutterby job search feature, but I think more of us here are looking for meaningful employment than looking to hire (or maybe that's the basic psychological shift that needs to take place).

One of the things about the world that I regularly puzzle over is discovering the economic need for people who, for instance, write job descriptions like that. And what does it mean that the last paragraph has in it the sentence:

Of course a place with the name "Spherion" immediately pegs all by BS detectors anyway.

That may be related to unemployment benefits. I had a number of acquaintances that wanted to stay on unemployment as long as possible. But they have to be "actively involved in a job search", so they just sent their resume to anyone and everyone, even if they were not even close to qualifying for a job. HR organizations, black holes in the best of conditions, get flooded with tons of useless applications.

The black hole effect runs in both directions. I notice that if I change a few words in my stored resume on Monster I get a flurry of calls as hiring agents' 'bots get triggered. Yesterday I got three calls from recruiters looking for contract workers, all three nearly hysterical in the need to get my data as quickly as possible, said data then lanquishing in the client's in basket for a few weeks. I also got two calls from financial service firms looking for "career changer" who wanted to become some sort of stockbroker/salesman on a tight commission. Having known a few new-age Willy Lomans like this, I didn't bite. Then I got a robot phone message looking for RNs and other nurses to work for an agency, which is nothing like my field. These people are also throwing oatmeal on the wall to see if it sticks.

"Job", presumably from Job: A Comedy of Justice

. Whenever I'm feeling like I have nothing to do, improving the topic picker could fall on my list...

#Comment Re: made: 2005-08-26 21:00:10.741111+00 by: jeff [edit history]

Although 'GeekLabs' is theoretically doing well, having a 'real' job is enticing from strictly a cash flow and benefits perspective - with one of those benefits being: not worrying about cash flow. I just had three 'auto-pay' bills hit my personal debit card account, normally not an issue, but this time I was $15 short of the several hundreds that hit my account, and the bank gigged me $32 for NSF, but covered the charges, so I can't really complain. I'll move some money from my business account Monday and cover it.. and I'll be nearly broke, but with a large AR balance that I am sure I'll get paid for some of it soon, just no telling exactly when.

Not sure what my point is: I just wanted to complain. It makes me feel better about being 'in business for myself', but sometimes, especially when the bank account is low, I consider doing just about anything that would pay on a more steady basis.

meuon: as someone who worked in the ACH/NSF industry, do you really feel that a $32 charge to "cover" your bill was justified? Basically, the bank saved themselves having to reverse the transaction. Better yet, ever have their $32 fee cause another transaction to get returned? It's amazing how the bank can charge you for their $32 fee and sometimes return a $10 check.

But as far as cash-flow and real jobs go, I'm still working on short-circuiting the process. I'm completing my MS this year and starting a PhD next year. By the time I'm 40, I hope to be in a tenure-track. And that leads me to a new comic I stumbled across: