Employer Fail #8: The Misinformation

One day I'm going to run out of synonyms for "lie" to use in my titles. I honestly don't understand why employers/hiring managers, on average, seem to be about as truthful as Baghdad Bob. Is there some kind of feedback mechanism where chronic liars are more likely to have jobs that give them hiring decisions? Well, considering that they'd be the ones to lie on their resumes... hey, wait a second! I think I'm on to something here. But this is no space for pontificating about conspiracy theories, at least not yet.

I received an email last week responding to one of my applications, this time for another position where I'd function as some sort of liaison between a medical software company's clients and their tech department. Curiously, it seems like every other job I interview for has me do something akin to coordinating between what managers consider "people," (i.e. customers) and "those-who-cannot-be-allowed-to-see-daylight-or-scare-the-children" (i.e. tech/IT/R&D/those things from Monsters, Inc. that my little sister really loves). While I shouldn't really be complaining about the fact that the market has somehow seen fit to create a position which I ostensibly qualify for, I do wonder if there could be a substantial gain in just teaching someone in one of the "stay out of sight" departments how to interface with customers/clients themselves. Then again, maybe that's why I never get hired for these jobs: the position simply doesn't exist, and they do just end up sliding a techie or what have you into that role.

In any case, we scheduled a phone interview, I brushed up on the position and its requirements, and sat anxiously by the phone at the appropriate time. Five minutes passed, and nothing. Ten minutes, nope. At around thirteen, I finally got a call. Hello, how are you, listen, I have to go into a meeting, can I call you back in twenty minutes or so? Well, so much for your adeptness at scheduling things. But hey, I'm a flexible guy, sure, twenty minutes is fine. Not twenty, but more like thirty minutes later, she called back. Why couldn't she just have said thirty minutes? This disrespect for applicants' time and punctuality is another annoyingly recurring feature of the job market, though I can't reason out a conspiracy conjecture for why people who either have poor time management skills or simply can't deal with numbers would be more likely to serve in hiring/human resources roles.

Gripes about lateness aside, the woman I spoke to was impressively pleasant. We even joked around, which is a rarity given that most interviewers generally give off vibes that they'd rather be eaten by a crocodile with gingivitis than continue speaking with you longer than they have to. I was asked a fair bit of detailed questions concerning my experience, which I answered in a way that aligned my work history with the position's listed requirements. All in all, this lasted for about twenty minutes, until the interview wound down to a close, perhaps because the interviewer had run out of questions. At that point, she went into the ubiquitous "let me talk a little about the position" mode, and dropped this gem: "Well, what we're looking for is really someone with more of a customer service background, in that working with customers and clients will take up the majority of their time."

Do I have experience in "customer service" that I can point to in a pinch? Absolutely. Do I have experience working with people who are effectively clients? Sure do. Are my current volunteering endeavors really anything more than efforts towards conveying complex, technical concepts face-to-face to people who don't quite understand them themselves? (I translate for members of the Russian community who wish to immigration paperwork on behalf of relatives still in Eastern Europe.) Indeed. So, "customer service background," well, that's not a problem for me. However, did any of the questions she asked of me actually relate to any sort of customer service at all? Nope; they mostly dealt with using technology for project-based goals as well as the details/culture of my past work experience. Okay, wanting one thing and not really indicating it in the interview, well, that happens if you're a bad interviewer. But here's the really ridiculous part: I'm going to copy-paste the listed requirements for the position on the original listing that I replied to, which was also emailed to me prior to the phone interview. Look on their works, ye mighty, and despair:

-BA/BS
-Ability to learn quickly, multi-task, and prioritize
-Must be proficient in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Internet Explorer
-Detail oriented, enthusiastic, self-motivated, eager, and have a customer service sensibility
-Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
-Highly organized and self motivated with the ability to work independently
-Bilingual capability (German, French, Spanish) - a distinct advantage

So, while I harped on my organizational skills and prioritization abilities, my affinity for assorted office programs, my attention to detail, the fact that I repeatedly and inadvertently find myself tutoring people in Spanish, for crying out loud, I was secretly being judged for lacking something beyond that which was buried in the line about random intangibles such as "enthusiasm." What does a customer service "sensibility" even mean? The dictionary defines it as, generally, "capacity for sensation or feeling." So someone with a customer service "sensibility" has the ability to "feel" a customer service role? First, why not just say experience, if that's what you're going for and want? Second, why not actually try to elevate that in importance, not only in the listing, but in the interview itself, if that's what you're really looking for?

Employer Fail #45: If you want something in a candidate, say it. Don't make them guess. Saying one thing when you want another just wastes everyone's time, which, given Employer Fail #42, is apparently something you don't seem to care a lot about.

Upon hearing those words about the desire to have a candidate well-versed in customer service, I initially tried to blurt out, in protest, "Wait! Hey! I have that too, let me tell you about it." But, it came out more as "W--!" as the interviewer cut me off with a firm but pleasant, "Okay, well, that wraps this up. We'll be in touch. Thanks for taking the time to interview with us." I figured forcefully interrupting the niceties of a goodbye would've been uncouth, so I went along with the disappointing denouement.

If it had ended there, with just that degree of fail, it would have been frustrating and maddening, but without a pointed insult. That was to come too. Before the requirement turnaround, I had gotten to asking the interviewer a few questions about the organization she represented, as well as the job itself, and got to talking about timetables for the position. I asked when they were looking to have someone start by, assuring her that I was available as soon as possible, and was told that they planned to finish the phone interviews within the next couple of days and start calling people in to interview on-site. In the course of this, despite me not asking her to, she promised me (promised!) that she would call me back within two days, at the most, letting me know one way or the other. It's been over a week, and still no phone call.

Why make a promise you're going to break, especially if I didn't ask you to guarantee me anything? At this point, it could still turn out to be Employer Fail #38, with her calling me back two months from now, where she will regret to inform me that the position went to a chronic liar who can't tell time but has customer service sensibility flowing out the proverbial yin-yang, but for now, it's just insulting.

Oh, and for those keeping score at home, I have yet to receive a single reply from any of the fourteen things I applied to a couple of days ago. Stay classy, job market!

A New Record!

Today I applied for 14 jobs. Cover letter, occasional employment/EOE questionnaire, and all.

Responses I'll get? Zero at par, one if I'm lucky, two at the utmost. Those are my bets, anyway.

More fail to come just as soon as I have enough time to write about fail as opposed to actually carry out fail.

Employer Fail #7: The Horde

No, not that Horde. Not the one with green-skinned brutes, towering cow-men, rejects from Night of the Living Dead, and the Pasadena Anorexics Anonymous club. This one:

A few weeks ago, I encountered a listing on Monster that talked about a new hotel opening, and the corresponding drive to staff it before its inauguration. As a result, a "casting call" would be held in a nearby theater, and the listings stressed that no experience was necessary and that a wide variety of positions were being exhibited. Not really wanting to work in the hospitality industry, I still figured I might as well show up if only to get some hilarious stories out of it. I mean, how dour could a place that described its application process as a "casting call" really be?

Not dour at all, it turns out. The "casting call" was for two days, Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, the listed start time was noon, so I headed out a little early and made my way across downtown towards the venue. As I was approaching it, I happened to be across the street, which was fortuitous for it let me behold what this impending hotel-opening had wrought. Across the street was not a line but a throng, a horde, a teeming mass of suits, polo shirts, heels, skirts, pantsuits, those-fancy-but-useless-things-people-use-to-hold-their-resumes, and so on. It was only 12:03. The line stretched all the way down an entire city block, and was winding around the corner as it became more and more tumescent. In addition to its length, most people were also sardined width-wise, as each "spot" in line was 3-6 people deep. I walked up and down the street opposite this event, taking in the view and making some calculations. I figured that at this rate, even with the corresponding drop-off as the day went on, they would have a thousand people come in over the course of the day. I stood around for five minutes and noticed that they were only taking in a person at a time, with only two people ever taken in simultaneously, and calculated that it would be well into the evening before I got to go in, provided I got in line right then and there. I decided not to waste my time, chances for hilarity notwithstanding, and headed for the nearest subway station.

I did notice a few hilarious things even while not in line. The coordinators seemed absolutely stunned and agape at the turnout, and their efforts to somehow manage the massive turnout seemed frantic, flailing, and futile. Some police had shown up, perhaps also confused as to why a riot/protest/demonstration/Harry Potter release queue had shown up without notifying the authorities beforehand. (In the end, I found out that 600-700 people had shown up that day. Not quite a whole grand, but still a ridiculous figure.)

After I got home, I decided, on a hunch, to investigate why turnout was so ridiculously large. Google answered this for me rather quickly, as it generally does. The hotel company had posted the same listing everywhere it could have: every local newspaper, Monster, Craigslist, LinkedIn, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Japanese Facebook, and the moon.

Employer Fail #41: More is not better when it's overkill. If you can't process that many candidates, don't try to set records for "longest line of unemployed people." Also, Japanese Facebook, really? Really?

The next morning, however, brought with it another day of unemployment, and I found myself going right back to that same block for a glimpse of hilarity at best, and a hotel job at worst. This time, the horde was nowhere to be seen. Of course, this makes tons of sense--if you're unemployed, it doesn't matter whether you go to something on Monday or Tuesday, and as a result, most interested parties would have shown up on the earlier day. Given what I overheard on the street, most people there on Tuesday were those, like me, turned away by the pulsating throng of the prior day, not those that generally couldn't make it on a Monday for whatever reason. Ah, double-digit unemployment, so effortlessly imposing its own will on the citizenry.

The next day, the process was set to begin at 10:00, so I headed out even earlier. I got there at around 9:30, and found no line, just a lone man sitting outside, perhaps not even for event, but solely for lack of another place to be. I stood with my back to a wall and read a book, positioning myself to keep the sun out of my eyes so I could read undisturbed. As a result, a lot of people leapfrogged me in the theoretical line, and were generally confused by my presence. By 10:00, a line of twenty or so had formed, but for some reason, no movement was taking place at the front; they were apparently late getting started despite the lack of a horde.

In the course of this delay, a bitter irony transpired. A destitute Asian woman, perhaps homeless, noticed a line of well-dressed people and went over. Starting from the back, she would pop into someone's field of vision, exclaim "Hello!" and shuffle two dimes between the fingers of a raised hand. The greeting was almost certainly the only English she knew, and her strategy was not particularly effective, as most people in line seemed to think she was offering them change rather than asking if they had any to cede to her. Perhaps if she had known she was asking for change from people who themselves had no ways of making living, people who were dressing up in suits to get jobs as bartenders at a hotel, she may not have proceeded as she did. But then again, what other choice did she have? Certainly her choices are worse than those whom she was asking for pennies, people who themselves had few choices other than being there and waiting for the interviewing to mercifully begin.

Eventually a man came out, assuring us that everything would start shortly, and asking if we had any questions. Unfortunately, he would not dignify "Do you happen to know what the meaning of life is?" with a response. (Yes, I did actually ask. No, he didn't think it was funny.)

Employer Fail #42: Can you at least show everyone the respect of starting on time? I don't show up late to my interviews unless I'm really suspected to be Michael or Marielle, so you shouldn't start interviews late. It's rude and insulting to presume that I have nothing better to do than wait around, even if that happens to be true.

Finally, at 10:10, or closer to 10:15, we were allowed to file in. We were filing into a gaudy, ornate, ancient-looking theater that resembled an opera house. Everything was golden, velvet, and winding, and the ceiling had exquisite, intricate patterns. At the front desk, people handed out clipboards with applications, which I turned down because I came prepared with one already filled out. Still, this didn't prevent me from having to wait in line behind those who hadn't come prepared--the way they had it structured was that you had to stand in the same queue that existed outdoors, and the indoor queue existed to give people time to fill out their applications. Not that it mattered; the application was rather short and hence the total wait was only a few minutes despite having about a dozen people in front of me, but still, a display of efficiency and competence would be nice.

Employer Fail #43: Sometimes people know how to use lines. No need to enforce something that just slows the process down. Then again, at other points, people utterly fail at using lines, so maybe this is less of a fail than an unfortunate prophylactic measure.

After coming up to the desk when it was my turn and handing in a completed application and resume, I was told to "go upstairs" and have a seat. Upstairs meant to the balcony theater seating, and that's where I took my seat and gazed upon something terrifying. On stage were a number of brightly-colored white, black, and red furniture props--couches, tables, chairs, and so on. There were also a lot of middle-aged people on stage dressed in fancy party clothes--tuxedos, cocktail dresses, and so on, also of the black, white, and red variety. A mix of disco and club music blared over the theater's speakers, and the people on stage were dancing and laughing awkwardly. Thoughts of terror ran through my mind: "They're going to make me dance, aren't they?"

Employer Fail #44: Is this an interview or a burlesque show?

Fortunately, I didn't have to dance. After a few minutes of watching the most terrifying thing this side of a Sarah Palin presidency, a secretary appeared at the other end of the balcony and started calling names. My name was first and I headed over--seven other names were called, but no people bearing said names appeared. She read them again and again, and after a while, two of the remaining seven showed up, but we were still missing five. I joked that I didn't mind waiting as long as she didn't call the cops on suspicion that I began to murder people in the theater to increase my chances of getting a job, but she just looked at me with a look of confusion and left to go retrieve the missing people. For a company that had strange people dancing up on stage, the people I initially spoke to sure lacked a sense of humor.

After failing to find the remaining five, she led the three of us down the stairs, then ran off, failed to find people once more, led us down another flight of stairs, magically found four of the five people, and then decided to forge ahead without the remaining person. However, she mysteriously revealed herself, emerging from a nearby restroom at the final second. All of this led me to wonder: how do you expect these people to work in a hotel if they can't follow simple directions such as "go upstairs and stay there until your name is called?" Hotels presumably have lots of stairs, and travel via them may be necessary, so getting lost in a considerably smaller building isn't exactly an auspicious start.

We were led down into the main theater hall and made to sit in the front row. The soul-wrenching dancing had stopped, but the music hadn't. We sat for a few seconds, and then were pulled up on stage into what was possibly the most ineffective group interview ever.

We sat in a circle, the eight applicants and three interviewers. The circle itself consisted of chairs, a couch, and weird futuristic granite chairs that looked like some three-dimensional version of what a 6-year-old might make the first time they're exposed to MS Paint. The interview proceeded as such (feel free to stop reading at any time to either laugh hysterical or off yourself at the realization that this is what employers are now using to judge candidates):

1) An interviewer would look at all the applications/resumes and then ask a question to one of the candidates. The question would be a generic question, such as, "What's the most important part of work to you?" or "Is it important to do something you enjoy?"
2) The candidate answered. A follow-up question might be asked.
3) Another interviewer would ask a different candidate a question.
4) This process was repeated until each candidate was asked a question, and perhaps a follow-up question.
5) Some questions open to the group were asked at the end.

The whole thing took about forty-five minutes. How they expected to learn anything about anyone by virtue of asking each person one or two generic questions, well, that's beyond me.

Employer Fail #44: Group interviews are one thing, but group interviews where your total exposure to each candidate involves hearing them give answers to a few generic job interview questions, well, that's just pathetic.

My interview group was the most eclectic assortment of people this side of Lost, condescending surgeons with martyr complexes notwithstanding. The cast of characters was, as follows:

1) Yours truly.
2) An adult Latino male who had worked his entire life in the airline industry as a steward, now out of a job as a result of continued fail by the airlines.
3) An African-American young adult, the same one I initially saw by the building when I first walked by. He was homeless, and offered up the best part of the interview when he responded to a question about why he wanted to work for the company by saying, "Look man, honestly, it's about the money. It's about that paycheck. Times are tough and I need some stability now, you know?" The interviewer asking the question looked displeased, but what did he expect, a homeless man to shred his dignity even further by pretending to subjugate his material desires for the lofty spiritual goal of working for a hotel? Please.
4) A middle-aged African-American woman who had worked as a line cook and pastry chef in bakeries and restaurants.
5) A mid-20s white woman who had just moved here from Phoenix, ditching a stable marketing job in the process. When an interviewer asked her why she threw away something like that in the middle of a recession, the woman responded with a nonsensical, "Well, I've always been the type of person that just needs to change it up once in a while," which drew a reproachful silence from interviewers and candidates alike.
6) Another African-American young adult with experience in retail (mostly Best Buy), who had been in the Army and took a bullet in the arm during training, getting himself an honorable discharge in the process.
7) Another Latino man, friends with #2, who had worked his entire life in the hotel industry in every capacity: janitor; concierge; bellboy; front desk; bartender; you name it.
8) A thirty-something African-American woman with a degree in accounting who currently worked as a medical secretary at a small local hospital. Why she thought working at a hotel would be any kind of upgrade is beyond me.

I tried my best to be vibrant and snarky because it seemed like the thing to do, but given that all I got to answer was, "Why are you here today?" and "What was the last time you had fun at work?" that came off as rather difficult. Seriously, this was possibly the worst interview format ever, made worse by these facts, divulged to us after the interview:

1) The company considered itself an anti-hotel chain and thus wanted to project an image and aura very different from most hotels. For this reason, they actually preferred their employees to have little or no hotel experience.
2) As a result, the interviewers stated that they wouldn't be looking at our resumes unless we were called back, meaning that the two questions we answered was all they had to go off of.
3) I was pretty much the only person in my group acting reasonably loose, probably because I didn't care at all about any of their positions. That I didn't get called back despite exhibiting "personality" beyond everyone else makes me think that their selection process isn't consistent even in their own minds.

So, two questions. That's my new interview low. Will it be topped (or bottomed, in this case)? Only time will tell.

Employer Fail #6: The Blasphemy

Once more, this particular event had more fail than malice on the part of the employer, and as a result it's difficult for me to get particularly incensed about it. Well, most of it. At one point, I applied to a Jewish organization of a nearby university, thinking at the time that they would never get back to me by virtue of not being, well, Jewish enough. Much to my surprise, the reply was relatively instant: in a few hours, I received an email back from the rabbi I had sent a resume and cover letter to.

(As an aside, I think it's befitting of this chronicle to point out that for some strange reason, I generally only get replies to my applications/inquiries if I get them within around a day of my initial email. I'm not quite sure why this would be the case. Perhaps it's because my resume is generally attractive to anyone that looks at it, but the only eyes that are in a looking mode right now are those held by those that have desperate, immediate needs at their organization. On the other hand, as I also tend to apply to things less than 24 hours after they are posted on the great wide internet, it may be because my resume is appealing at first glance, but is considerably less so relative to the immensely overqualified candidates that come pouring in after. That would be consistent with why I've yet to find employment, but without a hiring manager telling me the truth one of these days, it would be difficult to ascertain the reason, or compose a test to divine a statistically-supported theory for this phenomenon.)

In any case, the email I received was rather brief, simply stating that the organization would love to have me in for an interview, and that they would get back to me within a week about scheduling a time to meet. There was a slight issue inherent in that setup because I would be going out of town for a week that next week, so if they wanted to interview within that time period, I would have to make a gracious excuse that hopefully wouldn't end up taking me out of the running. Of course, none of this came into play, because I received no follow-up email scheduling an interview, not that week, nor the week that I was gone. Nor did I the week after returning home, nor did I after sending a friendly reminder email. And then, on a Monday night, essentially three weeks after I would be told that they would contact me "within a week," I received a phone call that the caller ID identified as the rabbi I had sent my emails to.

Employer Fail #38: No matter how you slice it, three weeks and one week are not the same. It is not that difficult to send an email, even if it's just to say there are scheduling difficulties, or that your office is busy revising the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

I picked up the phone, and after the usual small talk at the beginning, the rabbi inquired concerning my desire to interview. After hearing that I was still willing and able, he gave me the choice of "doing it right now" or "coming in tomorrow." As it was already 9:40, I didn't fancy leaving the house on a trek of any sort, but when I said as much he expressed confusion: he had a phone interview in mind. Not wanting to be rejected once more because an interviewer didn't put in the effort to get to know me and my qualifications, I hastily averred that meeting face-to-face was definitely preferable, and that it wouldn't be a problem to come by the next day. I didn't ask for directions, just a time, and yet the rabbi launched into a veritable dissertation about getting there, telling me how to get there from every part of the metro area and then debating with himself, while I was still on the line, about whether it was easier to take one subway line, a different one, or a third one and then hop over to a bus. He decided on the third, but at this point I had already interjected meekly with, "I'm sure I can find it," "I can use Google Maps," and "I have friends to call if I get lost," so I decided to agree and bring the seminar on public transit to a close.

The interview itself was devoid of unecessary monologues. Aside from one more-awkward-than-anything moment where I walked into the building as the rabbi was returning from seeing another candidate out the door, resulting in me making eye contact with him and thanking him for holding the door for me, and then having him backtrack over to me in recognition that I was the next candidate to be interviewed, it was quite pleasant. What floored me was the distinct similarity between what I had already done for two years and what this position entailed: every question I asked only confirmed this. The office atmosphere, the schedules, the way the workload was handled, absolutely identical to what I had already been exposed to functioning within. I made sure that he knew as much. During the interview, I gleaned a couple of interesting tidbits:

1) The reason they took so long in getting back to me is that they had already found someone for the position, who then promptly accepted a spot at a seminary, leaving them in a real bind. The disconcerting thing about this is that they clearly told me that I would be interviewed, and if they had already chosen someone prior to interviewing me (regardless of the fact that he bailed on them), I would have essentially been interviewing for a position that I couldn't get. Awesome.

Employer Fail #39: No, seriously, waste my time. I don't mind. How is that an acceptable employment practice? When, say, trying to rent an apartment, does the landlord have people show up to sign a lease, only to tell them afterward that the complex is full and there are no vacancies? Why do job-seekers get treated like subhumans sometimes?

2) They presumably wanted someone to begin at the start of September, then a couple of weeks away. As such, they would have to contact me concerning a second interview pretty quickly.

As the interview drew to a close, the rabbi told me that he had no final say in the decision-making process. He would simply report his impressions of every first round candidate to the two bosses responsible for conducting the second batch of interviews, pass on the resumes and cover letters, and fade into the background. Still, as he walked me out of the building and we turned to shake hands, he said to me something akin to, "We will start calling people back soon, and you'll definitely be hearing from us."

I didn't. Oh, sure, I did about ten days later, when I received a rejection email, but I don't think that's quite what he meant. Yes, he didn't have any decision-making powers, like he stated. But why say something that can't translate into reality? Over the course of my job search, I've been lied to by company representatives, interviewers, sinister financial masterminds possibly running a fraudulent company as a tax write-off, and now, a representative of a faith. How much lower can I sink?

Employer Fail #40: Lying is bad, whether you're Richard Nixon or an HR staffer for a box company in Tustin. If you don't know something for sure, make that clear in your statement. If you can't promise something, don't. The job search is disappointing enough without being sucker-punched via a rabbi's misleading words.

With that, this chronicle has almost caught up to my life, at least in terms of the major ordeals. I'm currently embroiled in just one more opportunity, one that has proven to be a veritable cornucopia of fail, and as soon as that completes, excepting the unexpected, I'm going to have to rely on something other than my own sob stories for material.

Guest Employer Fail #1

Just so no one gets the idea that all the employers fail when dealing with me and me only, I'm going to retell a gem that happened to a girlfriend of a friend of mine. She's still in school, in her senior year, but recently purchased a car and needs a steady part-time job to help pay for it.

So she goes and starts applying everywhere. Ross. Target. Walmart. You name it. Despite the positions' meager appeal, she gets no replies. Zero, over the course of six months. That in and of itself is highly ridiculous. But, get this. At one point, she sees that the local movie theater is hiring, so she submits an application, marking that she'd do anything, including serve as a janitor, if it meant a paycheck of some sorts. She finally gets an interview, and goes to talk with a manager.

He asks her what kind of hours she's looking for, and she informs him that as a full-time student, she can obviously only make it when she doesn't have class, but she can work as much as needed on the weekends. He immediately tells her that that isn't acceptable, because they require that someone be available to work every weekday. She gets rather confused, in part because the listing stated that part-time positions were available, and in part because he's being very hostile despite her reasonable situation, and starts trying to bargain or reason with him. She asks about working full-time over the course of later shifts and weekends. No. She asks if it would be possible to get a friend to also sign on to the same job, thus splitting their hours to cover all of the shifts the manager wants covered. No. In the end she gives up and starts to pleadingly ask him to realize that she's a full-time student and that she wants to work, but just can't actually come in during the first shift every day because she has classes. He stops being hostile for a minute, and asks her about her major. Marine biology. And then he delivers the hammer: "Oh, well, you can always come back for a position with us after you graduate."

Yeah, because they have dolphins at the movie theater.

Employer Fail #5: The Idiocy

Around the same time that I was dealing with the dual fail of the staffing agency and the organization they shoveled me off to, I was also called back for an interview with an American university located abroad, albeit with its supporting staff offices still stateside. I was excited because, from the job description, the position sounded exactly like one I had already held for two years. What better way to be qualified for a job if not already having done it, right?

Unfortunately for me, the deluge of fail began soon after I applied. On the bright side, I received a reply that was almost instant by job application standards, about a couple of hours. On the not-so-bright-side, it was addressed to Marielle. Quickly running through my brain to verify that I was not, indeed, Marielle, I replied with alacrity that I was not Marielle, but that I would still like to interview if the message was intended for me and the misnomer was simply a mistake. An hour later, I received a reply stating that that was in fact the case, and that I could come in and interview even though my name was not, in fact, Marielle.

Employer Fail #33: Addressing your correspondence incorrectly. Seriously, is this how little you care?

I was also notified that I would be alerted as to the interview's time and location in the future, despite already being given an interview date. So, I waited for that, and actually waited for quite a while, as I didn't receive any details about where my interview would be or what time of the day my appointment was until just two days before.

(Personal pet peeve: I hate it when a listing tells you to apply by contacting Mr./Ms. X, and even though you email them, it ends up being a secretary that contacts you back and actually talks to you. If the secretary is going to be handling my application anyway, why not just ask me in the listing to contact the secretary? I know about half of the listings do that anyway, so why don't the other ones just realize it makes more sense and follow suit?)

When I was told where my interview would be, I was chagrined that it was at some secondary office outside of my current metro area. To get there, I would have to take a train. Not a subway-type train, a chugga-chugga-choo-choo train. The reason provided for why I would be interviewing so far away, and not in the offices where I would presumably be working? "There is a lot of noise on the premises." What I should have started my interview with: "I'm a problem solver. I see you had a problem with noise management, which is why this interview is taking place out here. Here's my first solution for you. CLOSE A DOOR."

Employer Fail #34: Doors. They are integral parts of many offices. Learn how to use them.

The whole having-to-take-a-train-to-my-interview situation created some unfortunate timing conundrums (conundra?). My interview was at 1:00. According to the train schedules, the train arrived at the station just six minutes before my interview--not enough time to make it on time, especially given that trains are often late. Unfortunately, such trains only run once an hour, and as a result I had to arrive far earlier than necessary.

Being unemployed for as long as I had been, I was used to entertaining myself through long stretches, so I simply brought a book, hoping to find a nice place to sit prior to my interview and pass the time that way. I made my way to the train station and then onto the train itself, and rode it until I arrived at my stop. Or, well, it was supposed to be a stop. Instead it was a little clearing by the side of the tracks that presumably had the title of my stop, though there weren't any signs visible that could have confirmed or denied this one way or another. I got off the train, walked through the clearing, walked through a very empty parking lot, walked alongside a road ensconced by thick woods until it curved, and finally came out to civilization, including the building where my interview would be held. I was about an hour early, as a result of the train somehow arriving ahead of schedule. If only I had known...

I decided to use my time taking a stroll down through wherever I was, hoping to find a place to maybe grab a bite and read until it was time to head out. Unfortunately, nothing in the area looked particularly appetizing or edible, and the few places where I could have grabbed something lacked sitting room. This was problematic as it had started to rain, thwarting my plan of sitting and reading on a bench somewhere. Having nowhere to go to keep dry but the one place I was supposed to be, I headed on in, went up some flights of stairs, went into the office, and introduced myself, stating my name and the fact that I had an interview at 1:00 clearly. The secretary, the same one that had earlier addressed me as Marielle, told me that the interviewer was busy and that I would have to wait, which were wasted words because I didn't exactly expect anything different. I asked if I could just sit and read until my interview, and handed her a copy of an application form that had been mailed to me, as well as my resume.

I sat and read for about 40 minutes, watching two other candidates, people about my age, begin and terminate their interviews. At 12:55, 5 minutes after the guy with a 12:30 interview time left the office, I walked up to the secretary and asked her if there was anything else they needed before my interview began, and if not, whether I could expect to go on in soon. After all, the other two candidates I had seen went in one after the other, with no delay. The secretary replied that as long as I gave her my application and resume, I just had to hang tight. 1:00 passed. So did 1:05. The interview came out of her office, asked what the hold up was, then went to make herself some coffee. On the way out, she apologized to me for some kind of delay. The secretary began to dial someone's number, got no response, and looked up a different one on her computer, and began to dial that, still to no avail. 1:10 passed. 1:15 did, and the interviewer came back out and struck out another conversation with me. At 1:25, she threw her hands up in the air with a facial expression that indicated "screw it" and led me into her office.

The interview began. Better late than never. Five minutes in, however, it was interrupted by a knock on her door. The secretary asked to borrow the interviewer for a second, and they talked outside for a few minutes. When the interviewer returned, she explained that there had been a mix-up, one which I had already figured out.

For some incomprehensible reason, the secretary figured that I was not, in fact, that guy with "a weird V name" and/or Marielle who had the interview at 1:00, but some guy named Michael with an interview at 1:30. She figured this in spite of the fact that I had told her upon arriving my name and interview time (neither of which were Michael) and in spite of the fact that I had handed her my application and resume, both of which had my name printed in large, clear, boldface letters. I don't know what was going through her mind. "Oh, that guy is white, so he can't possibly have a weird name! He must be a Michael!" Furthermore, whatever numbers she was dialing to get in contact with whoever was missing the interview, well, they weren't mine. Neither my cell phone nor the landline received any calls while I was at the interview. Maybe she was calling Marielle. In the end, I was made to wait over half an hour, for myself.

Employer Fail #35: Assuming that white people have names like "Michael," or whatever other train of thought that leads you to ignore my own declarations of my name and interview time and decide that I'm someone else that's interviewing later. Additionally, not putting two-and-two together when realizing that there's someone sitting there waiting for an interview, especially when you have the means to figure out their name right next to you.

In all fairness, though, I shouldn't be too mean to the secretary. She was perfectly nice, and even offered me the chance to take whatever coffee/water/donuts I wanted from the kitchen and no expense. But she did massively fail at her one job--being a secretary.

The interview itself featured a few noteworthy things. The interviewer was very different from the norm in that she seemed to be interested in me as a person, asking me about my attitudes towards higher education, why I chose the college that I did, and even the book I was reading while waiting. She wasn't exactly affable, but it was an improvement over most hiring personnel. I found out that she did not technically work for the university and nor did her secretary; they comprise a small "HR consulting" firm that basically serves as the HR department by proxy for small nonprofits that can't afford to staff those positions in-house. She did, however, tell me that the reason we couldn't interview on-site was because there was an institutional shutdown for the week, and that the offices were unfortunately closed. While a better excuse than the "it's too loud and doors confuse us!" tripe I had gotten earlier, why couldn't that have just been given as a reason to begin with?

Employer Fail #36: Why lie to me about the reasoning behind requiring me to go to a different interview location? What am I going to do, decide that I suddenly don't need a job from a place that gets locked out of its own offices occasionally?

The interview generally went pretty well, at least in my uneducated opinion. Seriously, how do you tell a good interview from a bad one? The one unfortunate thing was that, while we talked, the interviewer told me that the university was weary about hiring younger candidates (read: recent graduates) because they had done so a lot in the past, and many showed that they were incapable of doing the work satisfactorily, either due to an inability to comport themselves well around older prospects and beneficiaries, or the lack of self-discipline necessary to be productive even while working in an office without clearly-defined goals. If that went into her judgment of me by default, well, that won't make me a happy camper. But it's not like I'll ever find out.

Employer Fail #37: Prejudice against candidate groups based on past experiences. It's not my fault that sometimes people can't handle the jobs they're given. Why punish me for it?

At the interview's conclusion, she told me I would be notified by the end of the week if I were going to move on to interviewing with the department's current employees. I didn't hear back from them. Not for about three months, anyway. A few days ago, I received an email that informed me that the position had gone to another candidate.

Employer Fail #38: It takes you three months to reject me? It's not like I have the cognitive function to realize that if you didn't call when you said you would, it was pretty much over. No, actually, I was a writhing mass on my apartment floor this entire time, howling, "When will they let me know?!?!" over and over out into the starry night, waiting desperately for a response, if only to free me from my endless torment. Seriously, don't waste your energy, I know a silent rejection when I get one.

In retrospect, I don't know what I could have done differently. Not been my age? (I need the Satanic magicks used in Employer Fail #4.5 to age Miss Teen South Carolina to get a job, apparently.) Said my name and interview time more emphatically, and repeated it more times? Maybe I should have just pretended to be named Michael. Or Marielle.

Mini-Fail #3: The-My-Position-is-More-Important-than-the-Job

Unlike most of the other anecdotes posted here, this one actually took place long before I could consider myself unemployed. I was in college, and wanted a job so I could get some money to defray the costs of well, living. One fine day, I saw a listing for an open position for a supervisor of an on-campus Psychology computer lab. It sounded pretty perfect, so I printed out the application and turned it in a few hours later. The administrative assistant that I handed the form was startled at first--I had responded so fast she hadn't even been aware that the listing had already been posted. She glanced over my application and resume, told me that I was exactly what they were looking for, and stated that they would contact me soon. (Man, how many times have I heard that recently?)

If you've been paying attention, you probably have already guessed that I didn't hear back from anyone, despite assurances to the contrary. Already knowing by then that not getting a response was about as expected as a politician with a sex scandal, I put it out of mind.

Fast forward about three months, and I was heading back home for Thanksgiving with a carpool of people I didn't know to save myself the cost of buying a plane ticket. Towards the conclusion of the drive, the topic of on-campus jobs came up, and the driver began to gloat about how his job as overlord of the Psychology computer lab was excellent in that, since no one ever used it, he didn't even have to show up, but could still say that he was putting in his hours and get paid nonetheless. Another passenger raised the possibility of him getting caught, or at least being made to show up by perhaps a resentful coworker, at which point he delivered this bombshell:

"Nah, I mean, the department tried to make me hire someone. But I told them I could do it all myself, since I can, since no one ever shows up anyway. There was this one guy that applied, had a weird name, starting with V or something, and I couldn't give him the job because he was waaay more qualified than me, and they would've had no reason to keep me around if they had him. So yeah, his application disappeared."

This was, of course, pretty perturbing, even aside from the fact that this guy was apparently stupid enough to gloat without noticing that I also had a "weird name" that began with a V. Part of me wanted to reach my arms around his neck and start strangling him right then and there, but the twin realities that he was driving and that I would need him to be functioning to be able to grab a ride back down prevented me from doing so.

At least the other employers that presumably reject me for being overqualified don't make it a point to regularly tell me how awesome I would be at their job while rejecting me to my face. Not yet, anyway. There's still time.

Employer Fail #4.5: The Troika

After the uselessness that was interview prep, the next day I headed over to my on-site interview. Getting there was generally uneventful, except for a couple on the train that kept staring at me, only to notify me once we got off that part of my tie was crooked. Thanks, I guess, but I really could've gone without having you two ogle me the entire ride over. I found the company's monolithic headquarters without a problem--finding the proper entrance in such a large building was harder. I went in and came up to the front desk, staffed by two very disgruntled secretaries.

My explanation that I was there for an interview was met more with confusion than understanding. Probably not a good sign. This confusion, however, didn't discourage the secretaries from handing me a gigantic form on a clipboard, and telling me to fill it out. I grabbed a seat on a bench and proceeded go through five pages of really boring questions, all of which I had already filled out on the staffing agency's serpentine form a week ago.

Agency Fail #5/Employer Fail #27: How hard is it to require applicants to submit personal information in such a manner that it can be easily transferred to your clients with open positions they'd like filled? It's not like we live in an age where transmitting information electronically is free and instant or anything, right?

In another rather unfortunate sign, another applicant, presumably for the same position, that had arrived a few minutes after me, was sitting on another bench with his clipboard-bound application, talking loudly on his cell phone about "this bitch" and "that bitch" and generally not really putting any effort into looking presentable--or filling out his application. At one point, he actually just left the application on the bench and went outside so he could presumably elevate his voice. I'm not sure whether he just left then or actually returned for an interview--by the time I left mine, he was nowhere to be seen.

The initial interviewer, an HR rep for the company, was much more pleasant than I expected. She was nice and personable, which I guess is her job as a member of HR, but still jarring given the sneers of the front desk secretaries and the fact that she worked for a telecommunications company. She prattled on for a long while about the job, repeatedly asking me to make sure I was down with a lot of the job's unique qualities, including:

1) Being glued to a computer screen all day.
2) Doing "analytical" things. (More on this later.)
3) Working in a very quiet environment where noise was far from standard.
4) Working in a productive and efficient manner. (Who isn't down with that? Yes, hi, I'd like to apply for a job where you'll let me slack off and read NASCAR forums from 10:00 to 12:00 and 2:00 to 4:00...)
5) Working in an environment where my keystrokes would be logged as a check on my efficiency, and my productivity would be calculated, ranked against the other employees, and posted in the office for all to see?

It's not that I really had a problem with any of those, even the ridiculously-1984-like fifth point, but the more I heard about the position, the more I realized that a staffing agency was being utilized to find applicants because there was little chance that the company could easily attract any candidates to consider the position on its own. In an economy where getting a job is a little less of a pain, it is the norm, perhaps to management's chagrin, that employees spend some of their time slacking off in various ways. I mean, think about your own experiences, and those of people you know. Is anyone perpetually going full-throttle? Hence, to require that from someone that's being paid not much above minimum wage, well, that's a little inconsiderate at best, and highly draconian and exploitative at worst. Again, no wonder that a staffing agency would be the see-no-evil intermediary in the process.

Employer Fail #28/Agency Fail #6: Putting a 1984-veneer on a low-paying, low-ranking position. On the agency's side, unquestioningly processing the request to find candidates for such a position, while hiding the undesirable aspects and letting candidates discover them for themselves at the on-site interview.

In any case, I repeatedly assured the first interviewer that none of these seemed like a problem for me, and that I understood the need for such measures. (Understand, yes. Agree with? Not in the least.) She then informed me that she wasn't really asking me questions because it wasn't her job--my evaluation would be done by the next two interviewers, both of whom were more closely attuned to the position than an HR rep would be. Soon after, she left, and I was left to stew in the interview room for about fifteen minutes until someone came to take her place.

That someone was the floor manager of the department I would presumably be working in, an aging woman that was humorless, but not out of ruthlessness. At "interview prep," I was hammered with a barrage of questions that the staffing agency claimed past candidates had attested would be asked at the on-site interview. Of these, one, maybe two, were ever asked during my time with the interviewer troika. Good job using my time wisely on that one, eh?

Agency Fail #7: If you're going to waste my time on "interview prep" I don't need, at least try to make sure that I'm actually going to be preparing by answering questions that are going to be asked of me.

The whole questioning-me thing didn't last very long anyway, and soon it was my turn to ask questions that the HR rep told me to save because the other two interviewers would be better able to answer them. One of my early questions concerned training and how it would proceed. The important nugget of information here was that the floor manager had, at some point earlier in her lifetime, actually written the entire training course. Okay, I thought, so maybe she does know her stuff, so she can answer some concrete questions. (Once again, paraphrased from memory:)

"So, I've been told by everyone, the people at the staffing agency, and your own representatives, that the job is very analytical. From what I've heard, however, in terms of order processing, it is more like determining the order, finding out how to label, code, and process it, and then doing so accurately. Is this the right assessment of the analytical components of this position? Does the analysis come in when trying to determine how to label/code/process a given order?"
"Yes... erm... no... well... you see, the job is very analytical. Yes, very analytical. And it's analytical in that, well, there are a lot of analytical components that require thinking, such as, you know, how to process the orders and then at first you have just simple orders, but later on as you get more experience and we trust you more, you have to handle the more complex orders, and sometimes there are side projects that we work on, but those also have tight deadlines, so the entire office has to help out if we're to meet the deadline."

Whoa, slow down there, Miss Teen South Carolina. (At least she didn't mention "the Iraq.") So, let me get this straight. The job is analytical because it's analytical, because you said so. Got it. Brilliant! Ignoring the segue into side projects, I figured I'd ask something that might get at the heart of what I was going for.

"So, okay, could you tell me exactly what separates a simple order from a complex one? I see you making this distinction, but how exactly are they different? Is it just in the amount of coding and processing that has to be done, or what?"
"Well, you see, there are simple order and complex orders. And you don't need to worry about the complex ones now, because you'll only be doing them down the line, and then you'll have a manager or someone overseeing you to help you get started on them. And complex orders, you know, they can be either something bigger or a special demand, no, wait, actually, special demands are side projects, like we had one from a chain of pharmacies a while back last winter... "

Against others' better judgment (but not mine!) I decided to press on one more time:

"Yes, I understand, but say I'm processing a complex order. Where exactly is the complexity? Is it simply that I have to do more, or is there a concrete analytical component that isn't there with the simple orders?"
"Yes, it's very analytical. All of it is very analytical. An analytical position. And there are complex orders, and simple orders, and side projects." (Seriously, enough with the side projects.)

I gave up, for the time being. Maybe I could get answers from the final interviewer that I couldn't get from this manager, despite her claims about designing the training course.

Employer Fail #29: Not only did you hire Miss Teen South Carolina and age her using Satanic magicks about forty years, but now you're letting her loose and allowing her to interview people? Shame on you.

After sitting alone for less time, maybe around five minutes, the last of the troika appeared. She was the vice president for something or other, but she looked like the VP-for-killing-people-with-her-glare. Tall, sharply dressed, hardened facial expression, humorless because her heart had been shot one too many times by Sub-Zero's down+forward->punch special, you get the idea. My interview with her lasted about five minutes, which was pretty much expected because she probably had some poor souls to turn to stone with her glare, or something equally as important to the company's shareholders.

I tried asking about analytical things, and was told simply, "The job is analytical and places a high emphasis on efficiency and accuracy. Do you think you can handle that?" I asked about the distinction between complex and simple orders and received "There are varying difficulties of orders, and you are qualified to tackle more complex orders as you receive more responsibility in your position" as a reply. After my questions, it was her turn, for a brief period. She really only asked one question, and that's all she needed to. It functioned as the death knell, but it was basically unavoidable, and as destructive as it generally is.

"I see you graduated with distinction with degrees in economics and history. Can you explain to me what's drawing you to this position?"

I wanted to stand up, flip the table out of the way, and shout, "Listen, you gorgon in a pantsuit. You know as well as I do what's drawing me to this position. The fact that it's a job when there are no jobs. The fact that it pays something, even though it doesn't pay nearly enough for the kind of stuff you subject your employees to. The fact that it will give me something to do, something to pride myself on, something to put on my resume so it doesn't look like I spent the last few months doing some combination of marinating in a coffin or playing Mortal Kombat. The fact that I know I'm smart, competent, and earnest enough to give you more in this position than another candidate, which you yourself should be able to tell because presumably your petrifying eyes still enable you to read a resume, and that what you want is someone that does the job well in all senses of that word. That's what's drawing me to this position." (This actually mirrors the thoughts running through my mind whenever I'm asked that question, give or take gorgons and pantsuits. This is because I rarely get interviews with things that I'd actually be excited about doing.)

But, I didn't say that. Instead I gave a much less interesting response about how I was drawn to a position where I could use the problem-solving skills I garnered from a liberal arts education in a setting critical to helping an organization achieve success. Or something like that, all that hackneyed garbage starts to blend in my head after a few minutes anyway. Of course, she of the Medusa eyes saw right through that instantly. She didn't say anything, or really make any gesture expressing her skepticism or disapproval, but I still knew. And I think she knew I knew, if only because of her serpentine perception. Where's a reflective shield and sword when you need it?

Employer Fail #30: You hired both mutated Miss Teen South Carolina and the Gorgon Queen to work overlapping shifts at your company.

In retrospect, one thing is rather humorous. At interview prep, I was told to bring a notebook to take notes, (I was advised to scribble fake things down if I didn't need real notes) because doing so was reported to be a dealbreaker by prior applicants. I was skeptical, but did so anyway. Apparently, having a notebook and taking notes was supposed to signal interest in the position to the interviewers. I also tried to signal my interest in other ways, such as trying to discern what exactly was so analytical about the position, to no avail. The notebook was not a dealbreaker, however. What was a dealbreaker, on the other hand, was one of the cruelest ironies that continues to persist in the job market today: losing favor with employers because you're overqualified. Yes, it makes sense, but only in a narrow sense. Yes, you might be afraid that someone that's overqualified might take company time and money during training, put in a few weeks, get bored, and leave. Yes, you may worry that if hired, they're going to be a prima donna and cause office trouble. Yes, you can even worry that they're so overqualified they'll be promoted so promptly they'll end up replacing you, the hiring manager (more on this in the future). But isn't that what an interview is supposed to be for? Can't you attempt to screen for people's prima donna tendencies? Can't you attempt to screen for someone's trustworthiness if they give you an assurance that they won't jump at the next big ship that passes by? Is it really worth it to take someone that, by all indicators, might actually be worse at the job, because you, in your laziness or trepidation, decide that screening is too hard and the risk of replacement is too great? Yes, apparently it is worth it. This is the dealbreaker, not whether or not I brought a notebook.

Employer Fail #31: Yes, sometimes employers do give those they deem overqualified a chance. But not quite often enough. I promise that I won't jump ship quickly. I promise that I won't act out. Nothing in my record, in my history, shows that I'm anything but diligent and efficient. And yet, you have problems. Shame on you.

Of course, this couldn't end with just one more instance of fail. The HR rep met me after the pantsuit gorgon left to take me back downstairs to the exit. We engaged in small talk and she notified me that they would "take care of everything" in terms of notifying me and the staffing agency. During "interview prep" I was told to call the staffing agency myself, and when I brought this up to the HR rep, she told me that it wasn't their place to make me do that, and that they would do everything. All I had to do was sit tight and wait in case they called me. They didn't.

Employer Fail #32/Agency Fail #8: I am not supposed to be some pariah or go-between for whatever corporate relationship issues you haven't yet managed to work out. Figure out who calls whom yourselves.

This interview generally confirmed my suspicions that staffing agency-provided positions weren't quite tailored for me. But, like I said earlier, eventually I'm going to have to cave and throw myself into that unpleasant maelstrom again, especially as other cups begin to runneth dry.

Labor Day Ironies

Yes, Labor Day is technically for big-L labor, unions, trade organizations, and the like. But, if we think about little-L labor, then today becomes a little more ironic.

The unemployment rate for the US is at 9.7% right now, marking its highest point in a quarter of a century. For some perspective, it's roughly at the level that it was during the nation's second-worst economic crisis (the Panic of 1837), although statistics from that period aren't exactly what one would describe as reliable, so this whole sentence may as well be moot.

Jobs are still being lost on a month-to-month basis. Although the rate of losses has slowed relatively to earlier in the year, the situation is a little like telling a trauma patient the good news that he's losing blood a little less quickly now that most of it has drained out of his body.

A more relevant statistic for the sake of discerning the situation on the ground is the "actual unemployment rate," which is, if you think about it, a ridiculous moniker. What's the good of having a statistic if it's not the "actual" statistic? Wouldn't it make sense to have the "actual unemployment rate" be termed the "unemployment rate," and have the current "unemployment rate" be referred to "unemployment, adjusted to make it look better." It seems we need four categories: lies; damn lies; statistics; statistics plus the influence of politicians and the English language. Wharrgarbl. (Read here for the specifics, if you're interested. The general gist is that the official unemployment rate only counts you as unemployed if you're seeking a job and don't have one. The "actual" rate goes beyond that by also counting as "unemployed" those who are working less than they'd like by being able to take fewer or shorter shifts, those who work on an as-needed basis that haven't been called in recently, and those who have decided that finding a job is a pretty ridiculous endeavor and have given up for the time being altogether.)

(Whoa-ho, tangent time--I suppose one could theoretically consider those that are working fewer hours than they would like not particularly unemployed. By doing this, though, one would discount the possibility that a given person is taking on a job that has little to do with their career for the sake of making some money to get by, all the while stonewalling their ability to seek out and obtain the kind of employment they would like, probably on a full-time basis. While this may not constitute a particularly large proportion of such workers, those whose stories mirror this example are essentially "discouraged" workers in a different sense. Furthermore, discounting these groups would have the effect of essentially throwing out anyone that has a job on paper but is only able to earn a pittance as a result of say, working per-diem and not getting called in but once in the past week. I guess maybe we should change the wording to "unemployment/underemployment rate" or something of the sort to be be perfectly accurate. Oh wait, I meant "actual rate of unemployment/underemployment. My bad.)

In any case, this more-accurate assessment about Americans and work puts the percentage of people not working or working less than they would like at 16.8%. That's pretty close to one in six. A lot of media outlets are throwing the words "jobless recovery" around, which amounts to more self-obfuscation. What kind of recovery is it for someone that can't find a job? It's effectively like telling someone with broken wheels on their car about the wonderful recent advances in tire technology.

Labor Day is generally labor-less, being a federal holiday and all. But to an extent greater than the past two decades and then some, the weeks around Labor Day are also quite lacking in labor.

Further reading that will be depressing and educational at the same time (the best kind, if you ask me.)

Mini-Fail #2: The You're-So-Wrong-I-Want-to-Strangle-You

The following occurred while I was sitting in the staffing agency's reception area, waiting for my "interview prep" to begin.

At the reception desk there were three receptionists. Two, a woman and man, were clearly senior secretaries and joked around with each other in between paging their colleagues and conveying assorted bits of information. A third was clearly a junior secretary, being sent to fetch coffee and having to inquire again and again about what she should be doing, and beyond that, how to do anything that was assigned to her.

At one point, the male secretary left, and the front desk got a call from a reporter who wanted some quotes for a story concerning college graduates and the job market. The junior secretary fielded the call, and then instantly panicked: "It's a reporter of some sort, and he wants to speak to someone that knows about recent college graduates... what do I do?!" Her partner was busy doing whatever it is that secretaries do, mumbled something akin to, "Give it to Casey... wait, she's busy, I don't know..." This led to the poor reporter being put on hold for a while as the two talked it over. Then, the senior secretary got a gleam in her eye and went, "Hey, listen. You've been here long enough. I think you're ready. You can give him the interview yourself!" The other reacted nervously, mulled it over for a bit, perhaps stalling in the hopes that someone more qualified would announce themselves present and available to take the call, but then caved and picked up the phone. After engaging in a brief yet awkward discussion about whether now was a good time for an interview, they began. (The following is a combination of what I overheard, paraphrased due to memory, with the reporter's lines fabricated by me from context.)

"What would you like to know?"
"Your agency does see a lot of recent college graduates as candidates, yes?"
"Absolutely. A large proportion of our applicants have recently graduated from college."
"And would you say that they are having a tough time in the job market? How would you say the economy is affecting them?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say it's been very tough on them at all. Lots are coming in every day."
"Would it be possible for you to pull someone's file and maybe tell me their story, or at least provide a contact number so I can talk to them myself."
(Insert a brief interlude where the reporter was put on hold and privacy issues were debated. Eventually it was determined that it would not be a breach of privacy to put the reporter in contact with the client, but the person in charge of that information was unavailable, so it would have to be done later.)
"Actually, we can't get that to you right now. If you'd like, you can call back later. But, wait, I'm a recent college graduate, can I talk about myself?"
"Sure, I guess."
"So, I graduated from Tufts University last year, and now I have this job, and it's pretty great. So no, I wouldn't say the job market has been causing problems for recent grads at all!"

Let's play "Name the Things in this Conversation that Make Me Want to Die!"

1) So, if more recent grads are coming to a staffing agency, that's somehow a sign of a bearable job market? Bearable for a staffing agency, maybe, but not for the grads themselves.
2) You went to a good school, and it took you about 11 months after graduation to find a job, and that's a sign of a good job market for recent grads? I mean, sure, maybe a bad job market has unemployed people being poisoned and their organs harvested for the greater good in your world, but what about in the real one?
3) Your job consists of fetching coffee, not knowing how to do anything, and waffling on whether or not you should talk to reporters. How is that a good job, and how did you come to the conclusion that getting this job after 11 months is better than mediocre in terms of career possibilities?
4) Not that the secretaries or the reporter could have known this, but I was sitting right there. I would have gladly volunteered to tell the reporter what I thought of the whole situation, and he could've turned it into some neo-Dickensian piece that would've been buried on the sixteenth page, amidst some "coverage" yanked directly from Brett Favre's Twitter. But at least I would have felt better about myself.

As it is, instead I just silently stewed. It's one thing if you're satisfied with the way things are going for you. But don't presume to speak on behalf of everyone else, including those worse off than yourself. It doesn't make sense to sugarcoat an issue that should be highlighted, that should be illuminated so people can get angry about it. Because if people don't get angry, then there's no one to oppose those that don't care. And if no one cares, that apathy is how human beings start to slide down the salience slope to "irrelevant husks." Worst of all, don't draw incorrect conclusions from the facts to justify your irreverence, as that makes simple obliviousness just all the more wrong in the end.

Employer Fail #26, and something I find myself wondering more and more with every passing day: How do people like that have a job while I don't?

Employer Fail #4.0: The Agency

When I launched into this in-hindsight-rather-futile job-hunting endeavor, I knew that if so required, there were steps I could take to aid me in my quest to secure gainful employment, albeit at the cost of diminishing the quality of said employment. Or so I thought. One of these potential steps was a staffing agency: I had read a lot about them in news articles and forum postings for frustrated job seekers, and many seemed to describe them as decent ports in a storm, especially for recent graduates. I had, unwittingly, already sent resumes to staffing agencies before, but had only gotten one reply: a woman named Leslie who wrote back one sentence, "Are you aware this job is located here do you want to apply?" Yeah, just like that. I replied politely that yes, I was aware of how geography worked, and that I would still like to be considered, and predictably heard nothing back from Leslie or anyone else.

I realize now that the reason for this cold shoulder on the part of organizations whose job it is to place me somewhere was because, for a time, I was still applying for jobs in one place while being in another, and as a result they didn't see fit to waste time with me because their organizational M.O. is to process everyone as quickly as possible. So, when I saw two listings side-by-side from one staffing agency one fine day, I sent in my resume and an email inquiring about both positions. The response was, by some standards, lightning fast: I received a phone call from the person I emailed about 3-4 hours later. Said representative sounded very excited to be talking to me (although, granted, it is her job to basically be a salesman of jobs...) and started imploring me to come in to talk to her about this position they had opening up that she averred was perfect for me, as long as I was interested in something "analytical." At no point in that conversation, or in any later meeting with her, did she ever bring up the fact that I had actually expressed interest in two separate listings, or that I existed as anything but a warm body to send on to the staffing agency's client in an attempt to fill a void. Thanks for caring, or not.

Agency Fail #1: Ignoring my expressed wishes to forge ahead with what is your most lucrative or pressing opportunity.

We arranged a time for me to come into the staffing agency's office to hear more about the position, but the confirmation email that ensued actually had links to some "evaluations" that they wanted me to complete before the pseudo-interview. Figuring that I might as well get on with it, I embarked on a journey into the absurd.

These evaluations were, at their core, web-based Java simulations of a computer desktop. Why whoever programmed these things felt it was necessary to simulate an entire Windows machine as opposed to, say, the program in question, I'll never know. Furthermore, despite being ostensibly written in the same way, three of the four were not compatible with OS X. I started out doing the only one that was, something called "General Office Skills" or something of that sort. The test was about forty questions, and would have been rather simple, if it had been programmed by anyone other than a blind rhino. (No offense to rhino programming skills, but they just have big feet and it makes it hard to type out nuanced code, you know?) At first, the test was rather simple--spelling, grammar, math with percentages, identification of common Saturday morning cartoon characters, the regular sort of stuff you need in any sort of job other than "Cave Guardian." There was, however, one annoying catch: if you accidentally or deliberately pulled the cursor out of the test window, which was itself lodged within a browser window, the applet flipped out and declared, "Are you sure you want to go ahead?" while giving you the choices of "Yes" and "Try Again." Hitting "yes" wasn't an option if I hadn't really selected a choice already, but hitting "try again," if I had already selected a choice, voided it and made me reselect it again. Not only did this amount to a gigantic waste of time, but I also vaguely suspect that the test decided to mark me wrong a few times just because I had the audacity to attempt to check my email while doing their inane test.

(If your line of thinking is that the applet got angry at me when I tried to mouse away because its designer wanted to curtail cheating in the form of looking up how to spell "conscience" online, they did a very poor job, as opening up new tabs prevented the angry message box from appearing. Alternately, they really should have considered things like dictionaries, style guides, and calculators if they really wanted to prevent someone from gaining an unfair advantage in determining what punctuation mark goes after "Dear Sir.")

Towards the test's conclusion, the questions suddenly went from banal to arcane. After a few filing order questions, I started being bombarded with, "According to filing protocol #7E, which comes first, AB0447.1F or DRAGONZZTOP447.1F." Does anyone actually use filing protocol #7E? Does it exist? I doubt it. I think those questions existed to screw with me. After completing it, I was chagrined to find out that while my score was still in the top decile or so, I was marked wrong for more questions than there were arcane filing quandaries. I guess I really was docked for having my mouse wander a little too far. At this point, I realized that if my score had suffered as a result of that, how badly would someone with a slow computer/slow internet connection/poor computer skills end up doing according to the official tally? In the end, this test really ends up judging something other than your "general office skills," and that something has little to do with being an effective employee.

Agency Fail #2: Your tests are awfully-programmed and thus fail at testing what they're supposed to.

After finishing that test and taking a break for dinner, I got an email from the woman I had spoken to informing me that as I was using OS X, I couldn't do the other tests. I already knew this, and assured her that I would simply reboot into XP to complete them. She told me, "Oh, you're so efficient! You're fast becoming my favorite applicant!" I bet you say that to all of the people that apply, and you know what, I'm right. Of course, the Windows-only tests were even bigger trainwrecks than the other ones.

There were three tests, one each for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Fun fact: None of these programs were particularly required for the job I was applying for, which was an order/install-processing-and-coordination position for a telecommunications company. Yes, the skills from Excel probably carry over, but what does PowerPoint have to do with a data-monkey position?

In any case, I began with the MS Word test. Over its course, it ran me through pretty much every capability, from "Save As..." to Mail Merge to making me type an entire paragraph because it wouldn't let me copy-paste. However, with this test, it was again the programming, and not the content that was the problem. You see, all of these tests functioned like this: the applet gave you a command. You were then supposed to do what it said. If you did it right, it would, without any confirmation, just take you to the next command to be performed. If you did anything wrong, such as selecting the wrong menu, or, heaven forbid, moving your mouse outside of the applet window, the angry "Yes/Try Again" dialogue came up. Of course, wrong in this case was highly subjective. One of the first questions was "Open a blank document." Okay, I go to hit control+N. What's that? You hit control? WRONG. "Yes" or "Try Again," son? Okay, let's see. What about File -> New. What's that? You clicked File? WRONG AGAIN. "Yes" or "Try Again," loser? Well, there's only one thing left. I'm just going to hit the little blank document icon on the toolbar and hope that works. Don't hit me, okay? *click* Good. On to question #2: save the file. Okay, let's see, control+S... WRONG. YOU NEVER LEARN. "Yes" or "Try Again," chump? Generally, you get the idea.

Essentially, I was punished for trying to do things quickly, or generally in any way other than what was envisioned by the test's designers. At one point, it yelled at me for trying to do the margins via Page Setup; it wanted me to manually drag the little pentagons. For the aforementioned paragraph, it wanted me to "reproduce" it in another document, but wouldn't let me highlight it or generally press any key other than the ones required to retype said paragraph. Good use of my time, guys.

The Excel test was much of the same, albeit less annoying because there's fewer "basic user" things that can be done in Excel. The PowerPoint test, however, was by far the most maddening, because as you probably know, Microsoft has loaded PowerPoint with about 15 different menus/palettes/toolbars/Satanic glyphs to accomplish everything. For some reason, the test expected me to use the default toolbars when following some of the steps, but not all of them. During the PowerPoint test was also the only time when I was completely stumped by something, and hit "yes" in response to the by-now-ubiquitous prompt even though I knew it was wrong. The thing in question? Changing the color of the bullet points on a slide without changing anything else on the slide. Yeah, that's definitely relevant to any future employment that I plan to seek.

The idiotic thing about these tests was that, theoretically, you did not receive the angry prompt unless you did something wrong, in which case you knew you did something right when you moved on to the next command. Yet, somehow, when I received my scores, they were far from perfect. I mean, sure, I was still in the top decile or two, and way above the median score, but how exactly do you end up marking something wrong if it was eventually done correctly, even according to your own program? Is there a time limit? Is there an amount of wrong clicks allowed before the question no longer counts? If it's the latter, then I'm glad the test designers saw fit to penalize people for trying to use keyboard shortcuts, or do things like attempt to copy-paste blocks of text. Veritably, they were doing their jobs as defenders of the paragon of workplace inefficiency.

Agency Fail #2: Yeah, I'm just reemphasizing it. Your tests are awful. Stop using them to evaluate candidates, because they don't do it very well.

Luckily for me, I don't think anyone really paid attention to my test scores. If they did, they did it without my knowing, and without mentioning my performance at any point.

The next day, I headed out to the staffing agency's offices for some sort of interview. Unfortunately, I got out of the subway station at the wrong exit, making me walk an additional three or so blocks in the rain. When I got to the building, I was overwhelmed by its gaudiness: a gigantic corporate building with gold floors, gold chandeliers, gold ceilings, velvet ropes and railings, security guards, doormen, the like. I knew I had to get to the ninth floor and ducked into the first elevator well. The security guard standing there was caught up in a conversation with someone else and didn't notice me until I had just about entered the elevator. He made me come out and instructed me to go sign in at a reception desk so far away it wasn't even quite visible from the elevator lobby I was currently in. After doing that (and having my name get spelled wrong on my name tag...) I went into the proper elevator lobby and rode it to the top.

Agency Fail #3: See Employer Fail #4.

Once in the staffing agency's office, I was given a gigantic form that asked pretty much everything about me, except maybe my favorite anime character. The office was devoid of other candidates except for one young man who sat by me and filled out the same gargantuan form, sweating up a storm and looking like the Ringwraiths were on him from all sides.

After answering everything about my past employment history, among other things, such as whether I would rather be stranded on a desert island or on a boat out at sea (the answer is frisbee, you secret communist!), I handed in the form and waited a little. The woman that I had spoken to on the phone appeared. She was, unexpectedly, probably older than forty, which was incredibly surprising given that she spoke with a level of perkiness and excitement more befitting a teenager. I followed her into her office, where she told me about the position and the company. This generally took just a few minutes, but I was amazed that she managed to fit the word "analytical" in there about 15 times in the process. After talking about the position, she had me fill out some forms, which I tried to do quickly, but was beset at once by her colleagues, who gave me their own spin on the company and the position. I'm not really sure why they bothered. It's not like I was going to suddenly get up and leave--if I bothered to come in, why would I decide not apply on a whim? After all this, they told me they would schedule an interview with the company in the next few days and would call me to notify me of its date and time.

Call me they did, scheduling the interview for the week after. However, they also wanted me to come in the day before for an "interview prep," whatever that meant. So come in I did. This time, maybe because I came in in the afternoon, the place was a bit more busy. Haunted-by-Ringwraiths guy wasn't there anymore, but was replaced by a more eclectic sort. There were two women who didn't really speak English, and a ghetto guy that at least put on a polo shirt, but couldn't be bothered to wear anything but jeans. When they asked him if he had taken their tests, I pitied him, at least until he started giving a clearly fabricated excuse about how he meant to but couldn't get around to it. At this point I started getting a sneaking suspicion that the staffing agency really had no reason to be dealing with me. They existed to get people jobs, sure, but why would anyone that needed something other than a warm body ask them for help with hirng? The "interview prep" confirmed this.

I sat in a room opposite another staffing agency employee. She told me that over the course of working with the organization I would be applying at, other applicants had reported back what she hoped was a comprehensive list of interview questions that I might be asked. She wanted to go through them with me, and so she did. I answered all of them in that rote, interview-question-and-answer-time way, and she kept saying, "Excellent, just like that." Uh, okay, creepy much? At one point, though, I got kind of tired of the whole ordeal, and when she asked me, "So, ideally, where do you want to work?" I told her the truth. Her expression turned sour, and she began correcting me. "No, you see, you can't say that because..." It's not like I didn't know, I was partly making a joke and partly informing her that this wasn't exactly my dream job. When, at her request that I "try again" I gave a much more acceptable, blasé answer, she seemed pleased once more.

I walked out of there knowing that I had just spent an hour of my life receiving "interview coaching" that I didn't want or need. Maybe other staffing agency clients really benefit from this sort of thing, the attention and effort spent in making them into better candidates. But I was already applying for a job beneath my qualifications, and now they felt that they needed to make sure that I could be a good little boy and give rehearsed answers? I understand I represent a sort of investment to them, but I'd like to reserve the right to choose responses to interview questions for myself.

Agency Fail #4: Read my resume/cover letter enough to determine whether I actually need interview prep for the position I'm interviewing for. Chances are, I have cognitive function enough to recognize what constitutes an acceptable answer to an interview question, but pride enough to not perjure myself so I can lick someone's boots. Acknowledge that and act accordingly.

At that point, I figured I didn't have much to gain from a staffing agency. Sure, I'm probably going to go back to one soon enough in spite of this fact, just because my cup doesn't exactly runneth over with employment opportunities, but honestly, their way of doing things just doesn't seem to be right for me.

I don't need someone coaching me on how to get a job I'm overqualified for. What I need is someone that realizes my qualifications and skills and gets me an in at a place that can utilize what I bring to the proverbial table. I don't need someone that casts a wide net on their client's behalf, reels in what comes, and throws me in along with the other catches of the day. I don't need the equivalent of an in-person Monster.com. I need something more time-efficient and less self-concerned.

At the initial interview and the "interview prep" meeting, everyone expressed concern that I would not like the job and correspondingly bail out after a few weeks. The thought was foreign to me; I honestly wouldn't consider doing such a thing, contracted to work or not. Apparently, though, it's a big problem for them. If opportunities that people want to flee are the ones they provide, and candidates that make a habit of fleeing are the ones that they process, then it's not the right place for me, and I can't help but feeling like I shouldn't be treated like someone who would.

Not that it matters though--I didn't get that job anyway. The story of that ignoble interview will be forthcoming soon.

Chapter 3: The Fraud

At one point, I received a reply to my perpetual frenzy of sending out resumes/cover letters/applications/sacrificial goats. It was, at the time, at the other corner of the country (I would later relocate to that region, coincidentally), and as a result, the reply had this gist:

1) Said organization, purportedly a consulting firm, would like to interview me.
2) However, they have a company policy of not conducting phone interviews.
3) Thus, they would like me to fly out for an interview.
4) But, as they are not going to reimburse me for the travel costs to said interview, they advise me to schedule a number of interviews in the region at the same time so as to get better mileage out of my expenses.

I found that last point particularly ridiculous. Sure, guys, let me just call up all of the organizations in the area and make them give me interviews so I can get my money's worth. That's how interviews work after all, right?

One thing worth mentioning from the beginning is the poor quality of this organization's website. For one, it is incredibly fancy, with a glossy splash page, fancy Flash effects,and a horrendous techno track that makes me jump for the mute button to my computer each time I visit it. Seriously, how does techno go together with consulting? What's more confusing is that nowhere on the website does it talk about specifics. It talks about marketing, and clients in varied sectors, and expanding worldwide by 2010, but it never says exactly what the organization does or how it addresses its challenges. The careers section boasts about "performance-based" processes, "in-office" and "practical" training (what kind of training is impractical? A liberal arts education? Self-zing. Sigh), and a "development program," but doesn't define these things except in vague terms (never feel like your career is stagnating!). In fact, the only specific piece of information on the website has to do with the organization's community service, where it talks about the firm's president participating in some sort of marathon to benefit children, and encourages employees to get involved. This probably should have been a warning sign, but hope's eternal springs kind of get on my glasses and make them wet and blurry. You know how it is.

In any case, as I knew I'd be relocating to the area in about a month, I replied notifying them of this and asking whether they would still be conducting interviews at that point. I expected them to tell me to go drown myself for having the audacity to suggest pretty much anything at all, but they surprisingly replied that they would be holding interviews up through around the time that I was scheduled to arrive at their location. Pretty convenient, I thought.

Upon moving, one of the first things I did was send them another email, essentially going, "Hey guys, I'm here now, how about that interview?" A few days later, I received a reply informing me that before I could come in to the office for an interview, they needed to do a standard phone interview with me. At this point, I was rather confused. Just a month ago, I was told that they had a company policy of not conducting phone interviews. Was there a massive takeover that rewrote the company's operational code? Did the CEO undergo some kind of Freaky Friday-esque mystical transformation, rendering him comically unable to keep directives consistent with his predecessor? Or was this just a case of massive fail?

Employer Fail #19: If company policy is one thing, then it's that thing. You don't get to change it just like that. Or, well, you do, but it registers you as a big blip on the fail radar.

The message told me that for this phone interview, all I had to do was call their office at any point during business hours. So I did. I called once, at about 1:00 on a Tuesday, and was answered only by their overly-lengthy voicemail recording. The same thing happened at 2:00, and 3:00, and well, you get the idea. I called about every hour of business hours for four days, leaving at least one identical message per day. No call back. No email response. Maybe they really did have a company policy of not doing phone interviews, and some crazed maniac had broken into their office computer system just to send me a misleading email. Or, again, maybe they just failed. A lot.

Employer Fail #20: If you tell me to call during business hours, that generally necessitates that someone be there to pick up the phone during business hours. Or call me back during business hours. Or listen to the voicemail and email me back during business hours. Or actually show some signs of life over the course of a week.

Finally, on the fifth day of calling, on about the third phone call that day, someone picked up. After explaining who I was, the voice on the other line seemed to recognize me just fine, but nary was an apology issued for being inexplicably absent for the past week, nor was there a mention of my multiple voicemails or my few emails expressing my concern for their well-being. How was I to know that they weren't being held hostage by the crazed email-doppelganger, who wanted to mislead their applicants, taping the employees' eyes wide open to make them watch all the maniacal happenings? I figured it couldn't hurt to ask, though I realized that any reply I received might have been composed by the criminal mastermind himself. He's a cunning adversary, I'll give him that.

On a less fantastical note, however, the secretary to whom I was talking to, who incidentally happened to be the same one that had emailed me the few times I had had contact with the organization, asked me whether now would be a good time for the phone interview, or whether we should schedule it for another day. My thoughts were, more or less, "For the love of God, now! If we reschedule, the heat death of the universe will probably happen at about the same time that you decide, in your infinite grace, to pick up the phone again!" So, I agreed to do the phone interview right then and there.

Of course, what made this laughable was that the phone interview wasn't really an interview. I was asked my current address, whether it was true that I just recently graduated from college (no, I lied on my resume because I actually got stuck in a time-warp and that's generally awkward to explain to employers), and quizzically, my current living situation. I didn't really see the point of the last question, but maybe they have a company policy of not hiring polygamists. In which case, reasonably, I probably could've expected them to give away my position to the cast of "Big Love" in a month. My answers to those three questions apparently had me pass the phone interview, and I was told that information about my in-person interview would be emailed to me shortly. Naturally, it ended up taking another day.

Employer Fail #21: Making me attempt to reach you over and over for the least consequential phone interview in history. Seriously, why didn't you just ask me whether Coke was better than Pepsi, or my opinion on the new Who Wants to be a Millionaire format?

Their office, as it turned out, was located pretty far on the outskirts of the current metro area. Having nothing to do other than participate in the Sisyphean task of continuing to send out resumes and whatnot, I decided to do a dry run over to their office. It took about an hour each way, but I'm glad I did it, if only because the directions they provided were really quite poor. At one point, they told me to go onto the train platform, when what they really meant was go past the train platform. As a result of trusting their directions over my gut, I spent about 15 minutes of my dry run walking the length of a wholly-deserted train platform and back. I only turned around because it didn't seem to be coming to an end anytime soon; I'm half-certain that had I kept going, I would've ended up in Narnia. Ah, employer fail #4, how ubiquitous you are for some strange reason.

There was one another incredibly annoying thing about their office location, which I'm noting just because it's a pet peeve of mine. Their office was located in a corporate park of sorts, and the sidewalk leading to its entrance sloped upward. However, as the parking lot (and presumably the buildings therein) were located on flat ground, the division between the sidewalk and the parking lot was a grassy embankment that naturally got smaller and smaller as you walked further uphill down the sidewalk towards the parking lot entrance. If I had ended up working at this place, every single day I would've had to walk for about two blocks longer than necessary (once block to get to the parking lot entrance, and the other looping back to the building entrance) than if they had just not included the grassy embankment at all, or at least put in some stone steps so I could circumvent the parking lot entrance altogether.

In any case, armed with the knowledge that Narnia was not on the list of landmarks indicating I was heading the right way to their office, I returned the next day for my interview. The first strange thing I noted was that the organization was not listed in the building's directory. I didn't think it was that weird that it wouldn't be engraved on the big stone slab outside, as that kind of recognition could reasonably be reserved for large firms, but isn't a little placard in the building's directory a given? I knew the suite number in spite of this oddity, so I went up to the second floor. The building was eerily deserted, which was rendered even more unfortunate by the labyrinthine hallways that didn't follow any logical design pattern. There were inexplicable walls in places where they didn't have to exist, making me take another path and take, say, three right turns to continue walking down the same way. Despite being a little concerned that the architectural craziness would make me late, I arrived with 10 minutes to spare.

Employer Fail #22: How hard is it to get yourself listed in the building directory?

Once there, I introduced myself at the front desk and was given another generic form to fill out. After finishing it, I attempted to sit there and read, but the secretary insisted on having possibly the most pointless conversation of the year with me. And I paraphrase from memory:

"Oh, you're reading that book. I saw it in the bookstore and I heard it's pretty good!"
"Yeah, I'm learning a lot."
"One of my friends read it and she said she was going to loan it to me. I love things about Nazis and the occult."
"Uh... this doesn't have Nazis... or the occult. It's about the Congo."
"Oh! Well, it looked just like that one! The cover was the same! It had a skeleton on the cover."
"This is a portrait..."
"Oh, well, it was the same colors... But anyway, I hear that's a good book."

I was left wondering whether she meant my book or whatever novelized version of Wolfenstein her friend had referred to her. I guess this lends credence to the "never judge a book by its cover" adage, especially in the case that you can't recognize its cover.

Then, about ten minutes after my interview was supposed to commence, the interviewer appeared out of some kind of bare-bones office that looked like it was hollowed out of the wall. She took my application from the secretary and told me to follow her, pronouncing my name incorrectly in the process. I began to correct her when she cut me off mid-word, snapping, "Come with me, V." So much for feeling valued.

Employer Fail #23: Your organization's interviewers act like they kick puppies for fun.

In a different way, this interview was as much of a farce as the phone-interview-that-wasn't. I was asked a bunch of generic interview questions such as "Rate your communication skills on a scale from 1 to 10," and "How do you define success?" The interviewer was clearly not paying attention to my answers or how they reflected on my communication skills, as she was staring at a piece of notebook paper in her hands and occasionally scribbling in it, though not in tune with my answers. I was actually a little offended when I replied that the person I admired most was my grandfather, because he always did whatever was best for others regardless of the effort it required on his part, and she could only muster an oblivious "Uh-huh" as an acknowledgment of my existence.

Employer Fail #24: Why bother having an interview if you're not going to pay attention to my responses to your banal questions? Why not just cast bones and determine whom you're going to hire that way, if anything that's said is irrelevant to the task at hand?

Then, after she got bored, ran out of generic interview questions, or finished her makeshift Sudoku puzzle, (or all of the above) she gave me a small, well-rehearsed shpiel about the organization and what they did. This was shocking. Although advertising itself as a consulting firm (it even had "consulting" in the name!), the organization was nothing of the sort. Instead, it was a business-to-business sales contractor, i.e. an organization that companies pay to harass other companies about using their products. Yet, nowhere was this previously mentioned, and the aforementioned techno-horror website insisted that it was a consulting firm.

Employer Fail #25: Lying about what your organization actually does, if not explicitly, then by virtue of omission or misnomers.

I was told that I was the last candidate to be interviewed, that they would decide which candidates were to be called back in a few hours, and would let me know by 3:00 that afternoon. My interview was for 11:00 and started at 11:10; I walked out of the office at 11:25. On the way out, a uniformed man with a handcart rode the elevator down with me. He seemed perplexed by the presence of another person in the building, probably because Big Lou told him that for his sake, if anyone found out about their organ-harvesting operation, he'd never see his kids again. For his sake, then, I didn't ask about the contents of the crates on the handcart. He failed to hold a door for me, even though I had previously held another door for him. As expected, I didn't get a call back.

Expressing my disappointment to my mother the next day, she brought up something that has since started to make a lot of sense: everything about this organization sounds like some kind of shell company that only pretends to hire people to keep up appearances. As I ran back over the facts, everything started to fit into place. Sure, the following things are only circumstantial, but it really does make you wonder:

1) The impressively noncommittal and non-descriptive website.
2) I was always told to speak to one of two secretaries, alliteratively initialed JJ and AA. I only ever had email contact with JJ in my repeated forays into communicating with them--I'm not sure AA really exists. Not quite a smoking gun, but still strange.
3) No listing in the building's directory.
4) A tiny office that presumably couldn't fit all the employees they purportedly had, especially if they were "rapidly-expanding." I saw a front desk/reception area, the office/interview room, a small floor area, and a conference room that didn't even have walls around it, but was rather more like a large corner cubicle. Furthermore, the interview room I went into was empty, except for two chairs and a boomerang-shaped white table of surfboard dimensions.
5) Even though I was told that they were interviewing candidates the entire week and that I was the last candidate to be interviewed, I got to the office 10 minutes early and did not see anyone exit the office during my time there. At my other interviews, when multiple candidates are processed in a short period of time, they are crammed in like schedule sardines. This remains the only interview I have been to at which I did not see another candidate at any point.
6) Aside from the secretary and interviewer, the office had no other signs of human life, except that at one point a man in a suit came in, walked one way, then another way, and then exited the office. The secretary said nothing to him, so it's not really clear whether or not he was an employee or just the building tech guy of some sort.
7) At the interview, I was told that decisions would be made quickly, and a group would be hired due to a pressing need. Multiple days a week, I see the exact same listing I initially applied to on Monster. This has been the case every single week since I initially applied--and is probably the biggest indicator that something is dishonest, if not flat-out wrong.

Employer Fail #25: Being a shell company or a front to write off fabricated losses for tax purposes. And if you are going to be this, then at least don't bother to get people to apply to your organization for legitimacy's sake. You're just wasting their time, and yours along with it.