Hi all,
Im ready to have a fit.
Been more out of work than in work for the last two and a half years. Not fun, bad for the wallet.
So this has made me an expert at reading job ads for the Virginia Beach VA area.
This is where the rant starts.
My best subject is fixing electronics. The more dangerous the better it fits my skill set. Transmitters, power systems, electronic weapons, that kind of stuff. High voltage, high current, high power. I can repair most anything if it's mostly analog in nature. Not very good with computer coding.
Some time back I kept seeing ads for fixing video and pinball games. Appeared that their main business was carnival midway rides and arcade items was a second line. Answered it a bunch of times over many weeks and heard exactly nothing back. The job address was near here in Virginia Beach Virginia. Drove over to it and had a look. Nasty surprise, nothing there. Looked up the company. They still had a web site but the Google search turned up some other unhappy information. Seems they got sued to extinction when one of their rides killed a kid in Ohio a couple of years before.
What I want to know is who is / was paying for this ad to be run again and again. The Indeed's and other on line job sites are in it for them selves and do nothing for free.
Similar thing recently. A New Jersey company was looking for an SME to fix two way radios. Called the number in NJ and got the phone company announcement “This number is not in service”. What the fritz? Went to the airport business park near here to see the site. The GPS took me to a used car make ready place. Yet the ad keeps running and running. Wonder who is paying for those as well.
My last gripe is with real companies (that actually exist) running the same ad literally for years. Why can't they fill the job and keep it filled?
A trend in my industry and perhaps in others, is what I call the Indian (as in the sub continent) contract job hunt companies. For a price paid by the company they will find bodies to fill the empty slots and collect part of the earnings as a fee.
The usual pattern is an out of state number on the caller ID, followed by a heavy accent speaking English that is hard to understand. Even less so via a phone circuit. Then I get pitched a position with this 'major' company. Been going on for two years now.
I interviewed with them twice.
The first one was in person. Got to realize they are not all that creative in terms of thinking. Imagine managers that get all their answers out of a pre-approved three ring binder of procedures and policies. No latitude for being human or rationality. It's their way or no way. I can't / won't work like that. The real world intrudes on life and industry alike. Not all the answers are in the book.
The second interview lasted one question.
Since my time in Iraq as a contractor, I have no use for political correctness and idiot virtue signaling. Get a tight smile when people talk about hostile work environments. Try lethal ones. It sets your head on straight very quickly.
The first question was if I had the current vaccination. Told them no way I was going to submit my self to that. In the short run it was a terrible situation, in the long run it was the right decision. Considering the number of awful side effects that are showing up in the news each week.
The calls for this position kept coming.
Today (Thursday 9-15) I get two calls inside of 20 minutes from different agencies. One in New York and one from Georgia. For the same position.
Was getting fatigued telling the rep's that I would not work for this major since their heads seem to be buried far up their collective buns.
These calls were numbers five and six this week for the same position. It's getting old.
Guess what Im suggesting is this. Watch for patterns. Read the ads. Very often it's all cut and paste. If HR people had any other useful talent they would be doing something else. HR's job is to protect their own butts and not ours.
In the mean time I play the game, since it's the only one available to me.
Keep it sane Jack Crow