Re-education camps for 21st century America

It’s been quite a few years since the Great Recession supposedly ended, and various "workshops" “for discouraged workers continue to appear on my radar. I came across several this week, one in Stinkassachusetts (Operation Able) and the other in RI (Tech Force RI). They both triggered a flood of warm ‘n’ fuzzy memories of my investigation into similar "back to work" programs a few years back.

One was called Platform to Employment. I remember scrutinizing their website trying to understand exactly how they help someone like myself (BS degree, decades of experience) find a job in my field.

Platform to Employment empowers individuals, fosters self-sufficiency and focuses on performance improvements with measurable outcomes. We help participants discover their true potential while providing employers flexible and highly trained workers who can think critically, act independently and work in teams!

What a bunch of gibberish. And, oh, those poor employers who, until now, just couldn’t find workers capable of thinking critically, acting independently, and working in teams! (Quite frankly, I’ve concluded no employer wants a worker who does any of those things, as that would make them a threat to the corporate hierarchy.)

My curiosity still piqued, I decided to send them the following message via their Facebook page:

You state on your website, "Upon completion, P2E helps participants find open positions at local companies and offers an eight-week, paid work experience." It is my observation that there simply are no opportunities for a senior-level graphic designer in the state of Rhode Island (or Massachusetts, for that matter). I realized not long after becoming unemployed in 2013 that I had to leave this area if I wanted to work again, but every out-of-state application I've submitted has been ignored.

I'm just curious as to how you would be able to "help find open positions at local companies" when, based on my own experience, there simply are no open positions in my field in the New England area...?

Here’s their response:

Sorry to learn about your employment challenges. The foundation of P2E is a 5 week program which helps people focus and improve their job search. While many look to re-enter prior occupation that is not always possible. For others it may be a matter of identifying and leveraging transferable skills to enter new employment.

In other words, they don’t help you find a job in your field. Instead, they assist you with dumbing down your resume, lowering your expectations and thoroughly breaking your spirit to prepare you in your transition to an exciting new career in one of the only two worlds left for unemployables, (1) minimum wage retail, or (2) customer service with a 1992 salary (~$12/hr).

I see some striking parallels to the re-education camps of post-war Vietnam, where members of the non-peasant class were rounded up and placed in these camps to “learn about the ways of the new government." Just replace “new government” with “new economy” and forced labor with networking techniques, i.e., make a pest of yourself to anyone who still has a job.  

I came to the same conclusion with another group, Job Club RI. I sent an email to the guy in charge and we spoke on the phone; he exhibited little sympathy for my situation and couldn't offer much advice other than to sternly lecture me about my 1,000+ rejections that “when you get a rejection forget it and move on” (yeah, really helpful, dude). He also did not share the details of what sort of magic wand this workshop will give me to wave at companies and compel them to view my online application.

Here are a few entries in the list of topics the workshop covers, along with my respective commentary:

• Resume Development

My resume doesn’t need any further “development,” as I’ve already consulted with and paid two top consultants for this, resulting in a resume that routinely scores over 90% in the keyword game according to Jobscan.

• Elevator Speech

You can’t give an elevator speed through Taleo, BrassRing, Jobvite, etc.

• Interview Questions

What good does this do when you can’t get an interview (because the company doesn’t look at your application – which is, of course, because the job they’re advertising isn’t a real job to begin with)?

• Best Job Search Websites

There’s no such thing as a “best job search website,” as the majority of jobs advertised on them are completely fake. The only way to get a job in America today is through good old fashioned cronyism, i.e. “know the right person.”

• Networking Skills

One harsh lesson I’ve learned is that if you don’t already have a “strong network” when you become unemployed, you’re screwed. So, any advice on “networking skills” for the unemployed is pretty much useless.

• LinkedIn Review

Anyone who still thinks StinkedIn can help get you a job is truly out of touch.

Again, I concluded that this yet another “embrace your shiny new future as a member of America’s low wage peasant class and you’d better be grateful for such an opportunity” camp.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh, maybe we could all use a little spirit-breaking re-educating…

BlackBerry: It's full of pits

Last week, I received a rejection email from BlackBerry. At first, I couldn’t recall having applied there, but, after digging through my email folders, I eventually discovered that the rejection was for a job for which I applied way back in 2015.

The tardiness of this email combined with its piss-poor composition compelled me to have a little fun at their expense...

_______

BlackBerry Corporation

ATTN: CEO / Executive Team

6700 Koll Center Parkway, #200

Pleasanton, CA  94566

Ladies/Gentlemen:

I am writing in regards to the rejection email I received on May 11, 2017 to an application I submitted in July 2015 (see attached printout).

The grammatical errors in this email are not only shameful but, quite frankly, disturbing. These include the following:

“Thank you for your recent application in regards to the Creative Services Designer position.”

I find your definition of “recent” to be bizarre. I applied for this position in July 2015. I do not consider two years ago as "recent."

“Your application has been reviewed by our Recruitment team, and although your talent is valued...”

Any high school graduate should know that the comma clearly belongs after “and,” as in,

“…although your talent is valued…”

This is a strange choice of words, especially considering that you saw nothing of “value” in my professional background.

“…it has been decided not to proceed with your application.”

The second half of this phrase is missing the subject of the infinitive + verb “to proceed.” The correct wording would be,

“We hope that you will remain interested in working at BlackBerry and consider other suitable opportunities that arise in the future.”

It is quite presumptuous of you to assume I would still be interested in your corporation after two years.

I have concluded that, based on the terrible composition of this email combined with the fact that nobody from your organization even reviewed my application (my portfolio did not receive a single visitor from any BlackBerry IP address), BlackBerry only seeks to hire the most uneducated and inept of applicants. This could possibly explain why BlackBerry has been rendered irrelevant and obsolete in the tech world.

________

I included a printout of the offending rejection email, onto which I scribbled a note saying that I do NOT want to receive any correspondence or apology from their recruitment team as this letter is NOT addressed to their recruitment team. If BlackBerry's Executive Team doesn't think it's their job to care about what's going on in their company, then their problems go even further than what I've heard in tech news. It will be interesting to see whether they'll honor my request to NOT just drop my letter into an interoffice envelope addressed to "Recruiting." 

IBM: This dinosaur truly deserves to go extinct

In October 2016 I applied for job #65867BR (senior designer) with this dinosaur company who probably should have gone extinct a long time ago. On November 9, I had a telephone "interview" with one of their internal recruiters who sounded half asleep during the call. In addition to having fully met all the standard design skills/experience requirements listed in the ad, I felt I was a perfect candidate due to two additional aspects of this job. Number one, it was remote, to which I am no stranger (and I am fully equipped to do so). Number two, the job required traveling 75% of the time; this seemed like a pretty astonishingly high number but I'm single with no kids (and, at age 49, that will never change) so I can easily perform that aspect of the job with no issues. I attempted to sell both of these points to her, but in her semi-catatonic state she didn't react or seem impressed. She also couldn't answer a single question I had about the finer details of the job, such as what versions (PC or Mac) of the required software is the team using. At the end of the brief call she said she'd pass along my information to the hiring manager and that I should hear something in about a month. Of course, I sent her the standard groveling "thank you" email, to which she did not reply.

The next few weeks went by with no further communication from her. In December I saw the job reappear on the job boards, this time with a different job number (#72177BR), so I logged in to my IBM profile which revealed that my application was “no longer under consideration.” 

I remember the day when recruiters and HR departments would give you feedback from the hiring manager and tell you why you weren't chosen for the job. This actually helps both the applicant as well as the hiring company. For example, I recall one HR rep telling me the team decided to go with another applicant because I came across as being "too serious" during the interview; so, okay, now I know that company only wants plastic people who smile all the time, and that's definitely not me, I'll avoid applying at that company again in the future and they won't have to worry about wasting their time with this non-plastic "too serious" applicant ever again. See? Both sides benefit from the feedback process.

I sent a brief and to-the-point email to the twat, saying, “It would have been nice to have received some sort of communication in follow-up to our phone call as to why I was deemed ‘unqualified’ for this role. I don't think I'll bother looking for employment with IBM again.” I received no reply. So, I sent off a letter to the CEO accusing them of age discrimination, which resulted in my getting a cold and, quite frankly, poorly written email from their "Lead for Talent Acquisition in North America." 

Your note to Ginni was forwarded to my attention in that I am the leader for Talent Acquisition for NA. I am sorry to hear about your experience as you should have received a communication to indicate our decision. I have addressed this matter with the individual as necessary. Please know that IBM makes hiring decisions without regard to age, sex, minority status or other inappropriate factors. I know this is not the response you are looking for, however, the fact of the matter is that IBM jobs are quite competitive -- many have large numbers of qualified candidates applying. As a result, many qualified candidates are turned away. I invite you to continue to apply for positions that match your qualifications and wish you the best in that endeavor.

What a piss-poor excuse for an apology. I particularly love how her excuse for my disqualification was to whine about how each job they advertise receives "large numbers of qualified candidates applying. As a result, many qualified candidates are turned away..." Well, gee, if that job for which I applied received sooooooooooo many applicants, why the need to re-advertise the same damned job month after month (this job was still being advertised in January 2017)? And, just what criteria are they using to disqualify so many candidates? Why was I even "qualified" for the telephone screening to begin with? Good grief.

[I'd like to point out that I did not write to IBM’s talent(less) acquisition department, I wrote to the CEO. How very sad that this CEO doesn’t think it’s her job to care about what’s going on in her own company. A sign of the times, I suppose.] 

I shared this experience in the comments section of this article on Wolfstreet.com about IBM in January 2017. Some of the replies I received were quite insightful…

This is straight out of the “How to game H-1B” playbook. You have a position or positions to fill but you are adamant about not hiring any over-priced Americans. What do you do? 1. Advertise the position(s) in the local paper of record. Describe the requirements in such arcane and wholly unrealistic terms in which no human being could possibly meet the criteria. 2. Maybe interview a few patsys just to keep up appearances. 3. After a couple of months with the advertised position still unfilled, you have a legitimate “resource problem”. Dagnabit! there are just no qualified Americans to fill the position. You are now free to look abroad. 4. Miracle of miracles, you have an application from an H-1B candidate which matches the job requirements to a T. Not only will the candidate work for 1/2 or 1/3 of an American, they are indentured to your company and cannot leave. 5. Profit! The reality of course is that the actual process occurs in reverse. You have a skills need so you contact WiPro or Infosys and identify a candidate. You go through the motions of attempting to hire locally, only to hire the H-1B as initially intended. 

But no, the system isn’t broken.

Here's confirmation of the fake jobs phenomenon:

I had an older friend from my last true employer who worked in the HR field of a large transnational. As he got older, he claims he was basically “put out to pasture” until he retired in 2014. He let it slip once that a number of job postings they advertise for don’t actually exist and essentially used to send a message to white collar employees that they are replaceable. The postings were sent internally and to recruitment websites simultaneously, which was actually against established company policy as postings are to go internal first.

Finally, there was this comment that should make us all grin like Cheshire cats:

Those HR ladies are on their way to getting outsourced as well, from what I’ve read. Many companies already do their HR in India. Now they’ll get to feel some of the pain they help cause.

Since then, I’ve come across numerous reports about massive layoffs at Big Blue BS, and today I see this gem: IBM to remote workers: Head back to the office or leave. Recall that this job was remote. If this job was real, then I can only imagine how pissed off the person they hired is right now after being promised a remote job…

Talent Response is looking for an elite YOUNG designer

Aw, isn't that sweet of them, being so honest in their job description?

UPDATE: Looks like someone informed them that this is illegal as the offensive term has since been replaced with "junior designer."

CBT Architects: The stupid, it burns…

After seeing this company advertise the same graphic design manager job over and over these past ten months, I decided to take pen—er, keyboard in hand and send a little note to the email address given on their careers page. In my message, I referenced the numerous links to the previous job ads and then asked point blank just what kind of game they are playing here. I posed three scenarios, that either their hiring team is grossly incompetent, that they are disqualifying all applicants for superficial reasons like age (I saw very few people over the age of 35 in their Facebook photos), or that this job is simply FAKE.

Here’s the incredibly entertaining response I received (complete with typos and misuse of commas): 

First, thank you for your interest in CBT and for a different perspective in how our hiring process may be perceived by some applicants. CBT’s hiring philosophy is centralized around our commitment to diversity and to make long term hiring decisions. This sometimes translates into, a longer hiring process. We encountered several challenges with this position when we started recruiting. The first was, we were not looking for a graphic designer but we were looking for a graphic design manager. Someone with 2-5 years of experience managing projects and more importantly, a team. Someone who is sensitive to design but wants to be a manager. The second challenge was, many of the graphic candidates went off the market quickly and we needed to refresh the posting. Our graphic design manager position has closed. Indeed automatically sources jobs from other job boards that may still have this positon [sic] active but I do not utilize the job board. I have called and it will be taken off in their next update cycle.   The group has made several additions to the growing team and I just posted to add a mid-level designer to the group.

After reviewing your submitted application materials again, we have decided to not move forward for an interview for our new graphic design position. Best wishes for a successful job search. Thank you, again.

Let me now pick apart this ludicrous response.

First, thank you for your interest in CBT and for a different perspective in how our hiring process may be perceived by some applicants.

“Different perspective?” What the hell does perspective have to do with anything? Do you mean how it may be perceived by someone with a brain?

CBT’s hiring philosophy is centralized around our commitment to diversity and to make long term hiring decisions. This sometimes translates into, a longer hiring process.

This is just gibberish. And, no amount of gibberish can hide the fact that ten months to hire someone = absurd. 

We encountered several challenges with this position when we started recruiting. The first was, we were not looking for a graphic designer but we were looking for a graphic design manager. Someone with 2-5 years of experience managing projects and more importantly, a team. Someone who is sensitive to design but wants to be a manager.

So, let me see if I understand this. You put out a job advertisement where the qualifications include:

• Bachelor’s degree in graphic design 
• Proficiency in Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop 
• Working knowledge of MS Word and Powerpoint 
• 3D modeling/rendering, motion, interactive and web design skills a plus 
• Strong typography, layout and conceptual skills
• Strong portfolio of work including finished designs; concept drawings/process books a plus 

You wanna know who’s gonna have these qualifications? A graphic designer. And, in a logical world, one would certainly want a manager who is well-versed in what they are managing (alas, we no longer live in a logical world).

The second challenge was, many of the graphic candidates went off the market quickly and we needed to refresh the posting.

This doesn’t explain anything. Since the “graphic candidates” weren’t the right candidates in the first place, why did it matter if they went “off the market quickly?” The bigger question is, if you failed to garner the right applicants after that first ad ran back in August 2016, shouldn’t the next step have been to rewrite the ad, change the qualifications, etc.?

After all, the definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  

Our graphic design manager position has closed.

Well, *finally* after ten months, that I won’t see this dumb job show up in my daily alerts is good news indeed!

Indeed automatically sources jobs from other job boards that may still have this positon active but I do not utilize the job board.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Anyone can directly advertise a job on Indeed, which is clearly what they did on April 28.

The group has made several additions to the growing team and I just posted to add a mid-level designer to the group. After reviewing your submitted application materials again, we have decided to not move forward for an interview for our new graphic design position.

I’m not certain why this nasty little jab was necessary, as nowhere in my message did I state I wanted to be considered for any open positions with this company. In fact, I wouldn’t trust them to design a garbage dumpster for my condominium complex.

Best wishes for a successful job search. Thank you, again.

Screw you, too.

Just another example of how Boston continues to be a cesspool for anyone (a) over the age of 30, and (b) with a brain.