Journalism in the age of stupid

Back in September 2015, when my stack of rejections numbered in the 700-800 range, I was perusing the discussions on Reddit/Unemployed and came across a “journalist” who posted that he was looking to interview people who were unemployed and had encountered bad experiences with online job application systems (ATSs). I responded to him and he "interviewed" me for about 45 minutes. He said he was writing the article for "New Scientist," and I proceeded to give him a scathing critique of ATSs. This guy was young (of course) and came across as a bit naïve; for example, when I said that companies routinely post fake jobs, he was shocked by this point -- "Why would companies do that?" (Um, to boost their stock price, to fool rival companies into believing they're growing, to get tax credits, to harvest/sell your data...) I pointed out that the FTC was investigating how ATSs are being used to discriminate against people, and I told him to check out the comments on the Over 50 and Out of Work Facebook page (which, at the time, was still fairly active) as evidence that the job market is still very bad for the "older" demographic. I pretty much poured my heart out to him, telling him every little detail from my 700+ job rejections to my plans to leave America to teach ESL. The call concluded and I asked him to please be sure to send me a link to his article when it gets published. After the call, I sent him a huge follow-up email with tons of links to illustrate the points I brought up (most of which can be found across this blog). I sent him screenshots of ATSs asking me "Are you currently employed?" to show how they are used to weed out the unemployed. I sent him a link to a YouTube video showing how companies post jobs that nobody is qualified for so they can get a cheaper H1B applicant. I sent him a link to the Indeed forum’s "The Curse of Taleo" thread. I also recommended he speak to the owner of the Ask the Headhunter blog.

Over the next few weeks I waited for him to send me the link to the article. He didn't. I had to look for it myself...and here it is, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830452-700-why-pleasing-ai-headhunters-could-help-you-land-your-perfect-job/. It requires a login to read, so I created one and have provided screenshots below:

Good grief! Here I am thinking he’s going to write an expose on the failures of ATSs, but, instead, we get a big piece of crap advertorial for StinkedIn glorifying the greatness of ATSs (and reports that it’s actually gonna get worse before it gets better courtesy of yet another fantastic crap app courtesy of StinkedIn...oh, goody). 

Of course, he never once told me his article was about how great ATSs are. Needless to say, I felt pretty stupid and duped, plus, I had to apologize to Nick @ ATH for sending this clown his way, as he wasted Nick's time as well. “BTW, I was indeed interviewed for that New Scientist article. The writer made it seem I resent automated recruiting because it costs me business. In fact, what I told him was that those stupid recruiting methods cost employers their best candidates. New Scientist won’t let me register to view the article, and the author has ignored my request for help getting in to read it. I gave him quite a bit of my time.” Apparently, getting quotations correct isn’t this “journalist’s” strength. (And, in case you’re wondering where my part appears in this article, I’m mentioned in the gray “afterthought” box at the bottom. Sheesh, he couldn’t even get the number of rejections correct, turning 700 into “several hundred.”)

  

Needless to say, I’ll never take the title “journalist” in this age seriously ever again (no doubt, StinkedIn compensated him nicely for it). And, considering that this drivel was published on a site called "New Scientist," I doubt I'll ever take the title "scientist" seriously, either.