U.S.Laws May Make Online Job Hunting Harder 433
j00bar writes "CNN/Fortune is reporting that applying for a job online is going to get harder. 'New federal guidelines meant to standardize how employers track data on the diversity of their job-applicant pool are taking effect starting today for jobs at federal contractors -- and similar rules will kick in later this year at U.S. companies with more than 50 employees. And resumes and search approaches that worked perfectly well before may no longer do the trick.'"
I wonder... (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder, though, if this isn't going to be a good thing for job applicants. Qualified applicants, anyway.
Isn't it hard enough already? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's great to protect people from shitty employers but not a good idea to create so much red tape that you're keeping a significant number of your citizens from finding work. All this red tape is a good part of the reason temps and illegals are so popular as employees.
Rule vs Law (Score:1, Interesting)
Here is a question (Score:5, Interesting)
What would happen, if I just tell them that my grand-grand-grand father came from Africa so deep down I feel like I am part of a minority?
Actually I never check the "White" or "Caucasian" box on the race section on the forms, because putting myself in a race category just reinforces the fact that there are race categories and people are somehow treated differently because of it. Actually the word "Caucasian" comes directly from studies of eugenics at the turn of the century and I consider using it just as offensive as someone using the "n"-word, because it implies endorsing the values and attitudes of the time.
Re:Oh like it's not hard enough already!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Teach HR to write real Tech Job listings (Score:3, Interesting)
Also having to have exact skills to the job listing would increase the ammount of people lieing on their resumes which means that employers no long could trust that the resume was valid.
Support our Troops
Impeach our President
What this will really do... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why? Because candidates are not going to reword their resume for every employer--that's tremendously expensive for the employee. Also, many qualified applicants probably won't have the skills to "search engine optimize" their resume to get noticed. And companies won't want to fall afoul of the law, so they're unlikely to relax rules and "read between the lines."
This will probably create a huge market opportunity for companies who will handle the minor changes from job to job--they will search the big job boards (like Monster), find jobs matching your profile, and send you a list. You tick off the ones you're interested in, and they will make the minor changes to your resume to make sure you line up properly.
Law of unintended consequences again (Score:5, Interesting)
But these days we have, if anything, overshot equality and went to tribalism amok. These days it seems the only ones who quotes King's "I have a Dream" speech's line about judging everyone on their ideas instead of their skin is Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich because the entire 'Civil Rights' establishment has invested all their political capital on maintaining quotas and pretending to be victims while having all the trappings (limo, jets, mistresses, etc) of the wealthy. Listen up folks, when (in theory if not in practice) the left, the right and just about everyone in between are in agreement on an issue it really isn't much of an issue anymore. The only reason it is still an issue is because too many people have made an industry out of "Oprah Nation" style victimhood as career.
Whatever happened to The Most Qualified Apllicant? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, but you do not have a RIGHT to a job. And especially to any PARTICULAR job. You only have the right to compete for the position. But what's REALLY boggling my mind is this is coming out of an administration that is supposedly so far in bed with business interests, that the resultant child is several weeks overdue. . . .
Re:Might be difficult.... (Score:3, Interesting)
For even more fun, require all of the above in the same job posting! It's no wonder that applicants get creative with their resumes. Human Resource Managers don't want to hear "But the language hasn't existed that long!"
Thanks to that, I think many companies don't take my resume seriously. (I don't lie. I try not to stretch the truth either.) They immediately take whatever is said, assume that it's exaggerated, then knock it back several notches. The only time you can get anywhere is when they have those "proficiency tests" (so bloody easy to pass) at which point they start taking you seriously.
Don't even get me started on interviewers who ask you to quote the documentation. ("What method do you call to set the text of a label?" WTF kind of question is that? Go read the documentation if you don't know! That's what it's for!)
Required vs. Nice to have (Score:3, Interesting)
For the applicant we are saying "let us know if you have these things, but still apply if you don't."
The idea is that the more accurately the applicants understands the requirements, the more effective they can be at communicating their suitability.
I recommend this approach to everyone. Oh, and don't let human resources write, or even stongly edit, your ads for you. I'm not saying they're morons, you understand (heaven's no), but they'll put in crap like "We are looking for a self-motivated team player with excellent communication skills seeking a challenging position in a dynamic, cutting-edge company". Ack.
Hrmmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Might be difficult.... (Score:4, Interesting)
"5 years of..." is the mantra of the human resources department. 5 years makes you experienced, 10 years qualifies you to lead a group, 15 years qualifies you to lead the department. I recall passing up one ad that required 15 years of Windows NT/2000 administration experience in 2001. I remember wondering if maybe NT was really that old and I'd missed something.
If we're lucky, this will push employers to scale down their listed requirements to something realistic. Like others here, I've never landed a job where I met anywhere near the listed requirements.
Re:Might be difficult.... (Score:2, Interesting)
They have benefits? So does most other companies. That doesn't mean they're good benefits. (I'd better have no deductables on full optical, dental, and medical)
On top of that, Portland, OR? That's not exactly a small town with cheap costs of living. And they want you to be BOTH a System Admin AND a Developer?
I know accountants who make more than that at an entry level position. The sad thing (since I spent last summer job hunting an a lot of it online) is that people really undervalue programmers and particularly web programmers.
I would value that job to start at least $45,000 salary. Heck, the Government pays $55,000 for Graduate student web developers (per 40 hours worked. They are not forced to work 40 hours but the pay is less, so it's technically houraly based). That was a job I was considering but realized I didn't want to go back to school to do it.
"Caucasian" (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, one of my German great-grandparents was a Jew, and one half of my Dad's Italian ancestry is Black African in origin.. Should I then claim Asian or Black?
Heck, my wife is a Black Angolan immigrant. Our son is technically "African-American" since his mother is African and his father American... but he's not really an "African-American" as that term is usually understood... so where does this madness stop?
No: It's dumping the self-taught from job market. (Score:3, Interesting)
Drop out of college in the '70s just short of a degree to pursue your consulting practice or carreer (when a 4-year degree was considered a handicap) and work yourself up into a 6-figure income and a position in the top of your field by hopping between consulting and salaried positions for 30 years as you became one of the people that invented the technologies the colleges are just now trying to figure out how to teach? You better have a rep good enough to support yourself as a consultant or in startups from now on. Because starting in a few months you won't be considered for a salaried position at ANY company of over 50 (unless your contacts there can hammer the HR department to put "or equivalent experience" after the masters degree requirement.)
The one good thing that MIGHT come out of this is that it will force HR departments of large companies to cut back on the practice of over-demanding.
This is university-educated drone's welfare and hi-tek job export program.
Re:Here is a question (Score:3, Interesting)
I have thought about this issue quite a bit. What started it was that when I was a freshman in college in the Computer Science program, my university had this Affirmative Action Scholarship program, that helped Black students from bad neighbourhoods of the city to get into college with a full ride, all-payed scholarship. I really liked the idea, and we had about 5 or such students in our CS freshman group of 30 or so people. But by the start of the 3rd year, none of those people were left in the program. They just couldn't make it because the level of their previous academic performance was well below what was necessary to pass even such classes as Freshman Enlish, Calculus or Intro To Comp Sci. They had all dropped out and none of them graduated. So the city and the college had bend over backward and spent tax money (it was a state school) but it was ultimately pointless because those students were not ready for it. Shouldn't that money have gone to anyone based on merit? For example write an essay, go for an interview and get a scholarship or something like that?
The point here is that having a race/gender quota system will not help heal the racial tension, will lead to even more discrimination (reverse discrimination is still discrimination), will teach certain groups of people to function as the "victims" and leech resourses of the state and others just because they are part of some ethnic/racial/gender/sexual orientation group. That will eventually lead to the lowering of the standards in education and business. Most often than not when the government is allowed to step in and regulate things it ends up creating a mess in the long run.
Now going back to the example with Affirmative Action Scholarships. I think by the time the students graduate high-school it is probably too late to give them 4 year scholarships. Help those people learn an applied skill so they can have jobs, don't expect them to finish a 4 year college when then can't even read well. Instead the money should be sent to the primary schools where the children are just starting to learn to count and read or write. If they get a good primary education they should have no problem competing with other students no matter what race or gender they are.
The same goes for businesses. Wanting to hire %30 Black employees, %50 women, will lead to hiring people who are not qualified. It is too bad, but hiring them won't fix the problem -- it will hurt in the long run. Sure if you take someone from McDonalds and make them the Product Manager, they'll get paid more but the company will run into the ground because they are not qualified. So the best way to deal with the race issues is to not reinforce the divide but instead encourage and value education, learning and foster discussion of these issues. Setting a quota system or just throwing a bunch of money at the problem will not make it go away.
Re:Here is a question (Score:1, Interesting)
And to the poster who pointed out the history of the phrase Caucasian Thank you very much I did some reading up on the subject. I am not happy with that one at all. Again thanks for pointing me in that direction.
Re:You got what you asked for.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hrmmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
During the boom he never had any trouble getting work. There was one interview where the guy left in the middle to question the guy that recommended him, but he still got the job.
Now it's a lot harder, he's 55, he doesn't have much experience with more modern languages, and he's obviously "disabled". The only work he's been able to get recently is by going back to teaching, which he did back in the 80's before the boom.
Re:Ok, I'm lost. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was lucky that a few years later, while I was bartending, A mexican man gave me a chance to program for a small company when I told him I had taught myself C++ years before. I became a software engineer and worked my way up. I am now a senior level engineer and make a nice middle class income. Suddenly though, I find myself attacked for being a "priveledged white man". WTF? Everything I earned I did through blood, sweat and tears in SPITE of the fact that I'm white, not because of it. I was poor and underpriveledged and didn't qualify for your scholarships or health care or anything else that the underpriveledged sometimes get because the color of my skin was wrong.
Somewhere along the line I must have misplaced my white priveledge coupon book because I missed out on all these favors I was supposed to receive. I'm not bitter or anything, just absolutely offended that people look at me as an excuse why they CAN'T be successfull because I'm white instead of seeing me as an example that anyone can make something of themselves regardless of origin.
Does anybody check for age diversity? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do employers demand you tell them your gender and race, but the employers are forbiden to even ask for your age?
In IT especially, age discrimination is far more prevelent than gender or race discrimination.