Flawed Methodology

So, I promised all's y'all more survey madness. I think I'll expand on that a little though.

These days, when companies are swamped with applicants, including massively overqualified applicants even for under or unpaid entry level work, they've been hard at work devising ways to make things difficult for would-be employees. One of those ways is making them take a personality test before even looking at their material. Now, I could go through personality tests and say "see, dumb." They are at least far more well organized than market research surveys and redundant questions actually aren't redundant since people may change their answer depending on the wording.

I will say this about the process though- it's retarded. C'mon employers, if you want to know so bad, I'll tell you. I'm an INTJ- Introspective, Intuitive, Thinking Judging. That and INFJ are your classic nerd types. Don't make me go through this whole rigamarole repeatedly. Besides, how is this a useful criteria. As an example, I applied for a lowly mailroom supervisor job. Man's gotta eat and right now, publishing is not putting food on my table. I have two years experience running a mailroom, a job I did well from a temp to hire situation after a long string of people the company hated. It's safe to say I'm as qualified as any applicant and more than most. Ah, but then comes the INTJ personality type. If you were an employer, this is what you'd see "So, he has experience, he's smart and highly educated. Clearly he's too good for this job. He won't be happy, so he'll leave. Let's not bother." On the other hand, if you were a sheep they'd say "how can we put a person like this in charge of anything?" Basically, the personality test is a catch-22 especially for something low level and generic like administrative/clerical work, and I've taken several nearly identical personality surveys for such positions. It's a waste of time, and if employers don't know it, they should.

While I'm on the subject of strange things employers sometimes do, here's a few things to look out for if you, like me, are in the market for something better (or something at all).

1. "Direct Marketing" is a codeword for sales. Marketing sounds less pushy and conniving than sales, but the work is essentially identical. Some employers will call it that in their listing, or say "sales/marketing" but many will also list a marketing assistant position which is a bait and switch for "direct marketing." Be wary of marketing jobs without good descriptions of the work.

2. Withholding the salary. Almost all job listings these days withhold the salary information so they can low ball you later, which they absolutely do (see, for instance, they tendency to ask you to name your own salary. If it's too high, you're gone. If it's low, you can't effectively renegotiate later). But there's a particular kind of witholding which isn't crazy like a fox, but regular crazy. And that's when the HR department calls you up and says "your resume looks pretty good" you get excited and they follow it up with "and just to let you know, the salary is 28K a year." For those who don't know, in or near New York City, your rent on a small apartment is going to be between 1,200-3,500 dollars A MONTH depending on where you are. So 28K a year is essentially below the poverty line. This is a crazy thing to do because HR has already screened the applicants. All you're doing is scaring off half the people you've already selected. And if you, as an applicant say yes? All it means is that you're one of thirty people whose information makes it to the hiring manager. Out of the 1,000 people who applied.

3. Watching the same position be listed again and again and again and again. Either every time they post it they end up not hiring anyone, or they have insane staff turnover. Either way, be wary since it means they probably have insane expectations that severely limit who they're willing to hire, or which cause most people to leave in a heartbeat.

4. Unpaid internships are the norm these days and have been for a long while. It's pretty disgusting, actually, especially with employers demanding five years previous experience in the precise job they're hiring for, thus forcing twenty-somethings to work for years at a time for no money at all. But now I'm starting to see internship positions listed that require 2+ years experience. Look, if you're going to make interns do the work of assistants, assistants the jobs of supervisors, supervisors the jobs of managers, managers the jobs of directors and so on in order to save money, you could at least make some attempt to hide this fact.

5. A note not about questionable listings, but for your own reference next time you walk into a company lobby. Look for the TV. There's virtually always an HDTV in offices that aren't being run out of an apartment. What's playing on it? If it's not on, you know that not many people come into the office. If it's playing ESPN, it's a pretty laid back office, probably small, and probably with a lot of time for many of its employees spent "in the field" (for instance: "direct marketing" firms). If they're playing CNN, then they're a "serious" business. If they're playing business news, they're *extremely* serious. There are many articles reminding you to be pleasant to the receptionist (assuming there is one) but I've yet to see anyone else pick up on the need to discern the mood of the office, or how the TV is a useful tool in doing so.

Well, join me next time for "Another Friday Song" OR "It's Only a Questionnaire."