Gear Grinding 7: Really? This crap again?

[ShirtlessBob]

Carry on.

[dxmnkd316]

Subscribed for my wayward son!

[goldy_331]

I laboriously typed a long gear grinder on my phone earlier today and when I submitted it I got "thread closed." That ground my gears.

[dxmnkd316]

You tried to post to Grindr?

[St. Clown]

No, he said he was putting up something long.

[RaceBoarder]

I hate the entire job interview process. As an applicant the pressure is on you to be 100% perfect in every little detail. Yet when the hiring party messes up, you can just be left hanging in the wind.

On July 21 I had an interview with a high-end outdoor retailer for a management position at their Downtown Chicago store. They took till early September to get back to me. I then went in for a 2nd interview on Sept. 13th. During that interview I was told I could expect to be contacted by an HR person from the store's corporate office for a phone interview. I was told to expect to be contacted within a week. I never heard anything from anyone so I called the guy I was interviewing with at the Chicago store on Sept. 21. That call just seemed to annoy the hell out of the guy and made me feel like I was nagging him. I still haven't heard anything as of today.

Both in-person interviews seemed to go great. It's when the corporate HR person got involved when things went South. Every other interview process I've been through, I've had a solid idea on where I stood. I've never had the process turn like this one did. I really wanted this job as it would have been a significant pay raise and would have allowed me to make some much wanted changes to my life. Not liking the feeling of doing everything right and then getting crapped on....

[Kepler]

I hate the entire job interview process. As an applicant the pressure is on you to be 100% perfect in every little detail. Yet when the hiring party messes up, you can just be left hanging in the wind.

This is an unavoidable consequence of which party has the greater power. Unless you can hit a curveball with 108 mph escape velocity, you, like me and everyone here, are a fungible on the market. The employer controls the paychecks and has all the power until they offer.

I've opened reqs for 1 slot and had 100 qualified applicants within days. When your in-box is that full of interchangeables you look for any reason to cut. I'm sure I have cut applicants because they made a typo or because their resume stuck to the next one in the stack and I missed it or because I had a bad lunch and was in an unreceptive mood.

Job hunting is the worst thing on the planet that doesn't directly physically harm you.

[FlagDUDE08]

This is an unavoidable consequence of which party has the greater power. Unless you can hit a curveball with 108 mph escape velocity, you, like me and everyone here, are a fungible on the market. The employer controls the paychecks and has all the power until they offer.

I've opened reqs for 1 slot and had 100 qualified applicants within days. When your in-box is that full of interchangeables you look for any reason to cut. I'm sure I have cut applicants because they made a typo or because their resume stuck to the next one in the stack and I missed it or because I had a bad lunch and was in an unreceptive mood.

Job hunting is the worst thing on the planet that doesn't directly physically harm you.

And then there's the case where the recruiter does the cutting for you, and usually ends up doing something illegal behind your back.

[dxmnkd316]

This is an unavoidable consequence of which party has the greater power. Unless you can hit a curveball with 108 mph escape velocity, you, like me and everyone here, are a fungible on the market. The employer controls the paychecks and has all the power until they offer.

I've opened reqs for 1 slot and had 100 qualified applicants within days. When your in-box is that full of interchangeables you look for any reason to cut. I'm sure I have cut applicants because they made a typo or because their resume stuck to the next one in the stack and I missed it or because I had a bad lunch and was in an unreceptive mood.

Job hunting is the worst thing on the planet that doesn't directly physically harm you.

Most of the internships at my company are at 400-1,000 applicants/position. Full-time positions are around 200-300.

I agree, it's still a bullsh~t system. It's why I had to work for another company for a number of years, get contracted out to my current company, then I got hired within six months of being contracted. Job searching and the tools they use now are such garbage. Especially given some of the interns that have made it through. Complete busts that should have easily been caught at the interview level. Others have less impressive resumes and have received reviews from me like, "If you don't make sure this person has an offer letter in their hand when they turn in the badge at the end of the summer, you will be making a massive mistake."

The GPA requirements alone for some of these positions has become absurd. I have always hated GPA as the primary measure of the person. I get you have to cut, but it's a terrible way to make the first cut.

[Twitch Boy]

The GPA requirements alone for some of these positions has become absurd. I have always hated GPA as the primary measure of the person. I get you have to cut, but it's a terrible way to make the first cut.

I went through some old Keweenawans (Houghton area yearbooks) from the 60s one time. The executive boards of the fraternities/service organizations depicted nice clean-cut looking young go-getters and proudly boasted their 2.15 GPAs.

When I was in I knew a CS major who intentionally broke up a 4.0 his senior year because he felt it would make him look too robotic in the eyes of interviewers.

[Spartanforlife4]

I think the longest I've had a company take to get back to me was four months, and it was an email to tell me they weren't even filling the position.

[RaceBoarder]

Call me an entitled Millennial, but yea, eff this system.

The nerves alone from wondering if I blew my chance at contact with the Corporate HR person have taken at least a few minutes off the back end of my life. I'm having flashbacks to 2003-04 cell service in the U.P. where your phone would sit on your end table silently as you watched a movie. Then in an instant it'd blow up with 3 missed calls and a voicemail all from the last 90 minutes.

It's hard to second guess the feeling that I torpedoed my chances by following up on this

Sidebar: How important are Linked-in accounts now? As someone who's never used it, I'm wondering if it's suicide to continue this way. I'm just wary of using social media to get a job. I get that my Facebook and name are probably googled by a potential employer, but wondering if not having Linked-in will prevent me from getting to that step. It's hard cause I'm in a lovely in-between area of retail: looking for management positions in a specialized corner of the retail world.

[dxmnkd316]

I only had one company ever get back to me. One. That was Pfizer telling me I was overqualified for the position and thanking me for applying. Not a single company e-mailed me back or called me. Probably hundreds of applications.

My previous company was the one that hired me out of college. I never applied with them, they called me because they saw my resume on the school's job posting system.

[dxmnkd316]

I'm having flashbacks to 2003-04 cell service in the U.P. where your phone would sit on your end table silently as you watched a movie. Then in an instant it'd blow up with 3 missed calls and a voicemail all from the last 90 minutes.

Jeebus...

[St. Clown]

I only had one company ever get back to me. One. That was Pfizer telling me I was overqualified for the position and thanking me for applying. Not a single company e-mailed me back or called me. Probably hundreds of applications.

My previous company was the one that hired me out of college. I never applied with them, they called me because they saw my resume on the school's job posting system.

I've only ever had one company get back to me with a negative response, it was for a job with an insurance company's operation's division in St. Paul. The rest just stop responding when they're not interested. If anything, a lack of response after an interview speaks more of the company than anything else. You know the people there wouldn't have valued you in the least.

[dxmnkd316]

I've only ever had one company get back to me with a negative response, it was for a job with an insurance company's operation's division in St. Paul. The rest just stop responding when they're not interested. If anything, a lack of response after an interview speaks more of the company than anything else. You know the people there wouldn't have valued you in the least.

See, I never even got an acknowledgment from a person. I received all the canned "Your resume has been uploaded to our service" and "You have applied for this job" confirmation e-mails, but nothing more than that.

Now that I think about it, I did have one company give me three interviews. Never heard back after the second interview for one job and the first interview (which came after the other two) for a second job.

[joecct]

RING!
Me: "Hello?"
Them: "Hello. I'm from ______ and this call is recorded."
Me: "I do not want this call to be recorded."

Ok, if I do not give my consent, they have to turn off the recorder, right? Are there penalties if they don't?

[Handyman]

RING!
Me: "Hello?"
Them: "Hello. I'm from ______ and this call is recorded."
Me: "I do not want this call to be recorded."

Ok, if I do not give my consent, they have to turn off the recorder, right? Are there penalties if they don't?

Depends on the state...

[unofan]

RING!
Me: "Hello?"
Them: "Hello. I'm from ______ and this call is recorded."
Me: "I do not want this call to be recorded."

Ok, if I do not give my consent, they have to turn off the recorder, right? Are there penalties if they don't?

Depends. Some states they don't even have to tell you they are recording, because it's legal as long as the recording party is part of the conversation or is doing so with the consent of one party of the conversation.

My guess would be, even in states that require both parties consent, they're still ok because they told you and you have knowledge of the recording at that point. Your recourse would be to hang up. I can't guarantee that, though, since I don't know all states' wiretapping laws.

[St. Clown]

Cause. People using "cause" in place of "because" because they're too lazy to type out the full word. They're two different words and they have two different meanings. Friggin' internet.