Today I got my come-uppance. Again. Things are very slow, and I have been putting in applications to various and sundry places based on what the job description is and whether I feel it is something I am capable of doing. So far, I have been getting rejections.
As I told Mike this afternoon, I have never gotten a job, that I can recall, without either knowing the people doing the hiring, or being the last person on the list that they could possibly tap. My very first (real) job, as a carry-out and stockboy at Emery's Sparkle Market, I got because Paul Emery knew my folks, and Esther Emich (who basically ran the office) knew me from Sunday School. I was hired by Bert Joyce because he knew me from the time I was a little kid. I was hired by Myers (Patch Rubber) because Uncle Bill ran Patch Rubber and Dad ran the Cement House. I was hired by Akron U (GTA) because Ed Lasher knew me from one of his classes and recommended that I apply for the position in his Educational Resources Center. I was hired by Gary Lubliner at the Norton Radio Shack as a part time salesman because he knew that I knew more about the Color Computer than anybody else in the area at that time -- Radio Shack had refused to hire me earlier because I failed their psychological profile in the application process. I was hired by H&R Block as a part-time tax preparer because the course instructor got to know me, and my cousin Dan was running their computer system. I was hired at REAS because Megan Hall Harbath and Chuck Cather knew me and the sort of work I did; Jim Beatty flat out told me during the interview that he wouldn't even have considered my resume without their recommendation.
I was hired by Midview Local Schools because they were desperate and needed a science teacher with less than a month to go to the beginning of school. Same situation with North Union Local Schools. I was hired by Indian and Northern Affairs because it was only a week until school started and all three of the other applicants had turned the job down after seeing where it was located (and even Violet cried all the way back to Edmonton from Green Lake because Beauval was so far away from civilization). During my second year there, Cliff Samoleski told me that they had broken down and hired me because they had no other options.
I interviewed with quite a few brokers, but only Dave Kaufman would take a chance on me; he knew my background. It took years of trying before Dale Sungy showed up to offer me a chance to complete my experience requirement for state certification, but he was also in need of help and did not have the time to waste on a trainee who had not yet gotten the necessary education and some of the required experience. Besides, for both of them, it was a low risk thing; if I didn't produce, I wouldn't get paid. I am not sure why AMCO hired me, but the risk was low; again, I was paid as a contractor on a per review basis. I was recommended for the MAD appraisal board by Dale, and Joe Harrison remembered me from our days together in ROTC (his first words to me when I answered his phone call -- "Are you the Jim Hrubik who was in the Counterguerrilla Unit at Akron U?")
Every place I have left, I left with people telling me that I had done a good job, and/or writing letters of recommendation and reference. I have lots of those in my files. I have never been let go from a job because of my performance. Today one of those little suspicions jumped out and got my attention.
I filled out an on-line application for part-time work at Lowes. You don't even get a chance to interview if you fail to meet the minimum requirements they check in the on-line questionnaire, not even if you do it inside a Lowes store. So... gotta be honest, right?
Q. (Y/N) Have you ever stolen or shoplifted anything?
A. (Y). When I was about 10 or 11 years old (about 50 years ago!), we used to lift small items from the Ben Franklin store down at Wooster Hawkins. Years later, I looked up the last Ben Franklin in the area to offer to make that right (and the manager thought it was funny that I would do so).
Q. (Multiple Choice) In the last three years, have you violated safety regulations while doing your job?
A. (D - 5 or more times). Actually, I can't count the number of times I walked onto new home construction sites without a hard hat or steel toed boots. I don't always put jackstands under my car when I have to change a tire or the oil, and I rarely wear safety goggles while sawing or drilling.
Q. (Y/N) Do you have a criminal record?
A. (Y). Ah, that surprised you? Remember Matt's science project in 2000? The geese he hatched and raised? I was charged with illegal possession of a wild animal. I plead "No Contest". In front of the game warden, the judge told me I should have performed a public service and killed the geese. He had no choice but to find me guilty. A misdemeanor. I have a criminal record.
Lowes ; "SORRY, BUT YOU DO NOT MEET OUR MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS'.
Well, I will keep applying and sending out my resume. Someday, somebody who knows me will have a need for my skills and the rest won't matter.
After a Decade
6 years ago
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOn Feb 7, 2008, at Thursday, February 7, 2008 - 7:13 PM, Maria wrote:
ReplyDeleteMaria has left a new comment on your post "Persona non Grata":
From the professional human resource perspective:
- Human Resources doesn't want to know if you shoplifted when you were a minor. Anything before age 18 is not to be mentioned and is in fact something they go to great lengths to avoid asking about...unless you're applying for the military, law enforcement, FBI or CIA. Even then they can't look into sealed court records or expunged criminal records.
- Human Resources doesn't care about your misdemeanors - as in "I criminally kept a Canadian goose locked up in my back yard." They only care about whether or not you're a thief, liar, murderer, or rapist or variations on those themes.
- Why on earth would you list all your safety violations AT HOME? They are talking about safety violations AT WORK.
There are some classes on interview techniques and job searching that are real helpful and free. They are definitely worth it.
You are very qualified for a lot of different work. However, based on your statements of self-representation on this blog, I wouldn't hire you either. Your answers to the Lowes questionaire made me wonder if you were trying to sabotage yourself.
Try getting Jim, Mike and HP to look at your resumes/applications and give you feedback. Ask if HP can give you a mock interview.
I know you can get a job. You just have to be able to sell yourself. Remember that the world doesn't hate you. It just doesn't care about you.
Posted by Maria to The Sayings of Grandpa Jim at 7:13 PM
You raise some interesting points. The questions were stupid from the standpoint that you don't hunt houseflies with a shotgun.
ReplyDeleteThe operative word in the question about shoplifting was "ever".
A criminal record is a criminal record, even if the law and the conviction are idiotic and repressive. There was no qualification of what kind of criminal record. Many HR questionaires limit the query to felonies. This one did not.
Charter One (REAS) had no problem hiring me, even with the "criminal record", since the hiring was based on knowing me and my work, and not on a pre-interview screening questionnaire.
My job is residential appraising. I am called upon to visit new home constructions. Regardless, the level of honesty should not be adjustable depending on the type of work you do.
Based on the way those questions were framed, I would have been a liar to have answered in any other way. It irks me to no end that appraisal fraud is driven by people who "lie just a little" -- by not telling all the truth about things, or not mentioning items if they know it could red-flag a report. I have been told on numerous occasions not to mention certain flaws that would have an impact on value, but to comply would be to violate USPAP and commit fraud, and having refused to do so, I have either not been paid for my work or refused further work by that client.
(The Fed's 12-18-07 proposed changes to regulation Z would finally make it a violation to fail to pay an appraiser just because the appraised value wasn't high enough, or to fail to retain him for future work for the same reason. Don't hold your breath waiting on that to go into effect; the bankers are fighting it.)
This was a professional human resources questionnaire. From my past experience with these, certain formulas are applied by the psychologists who put them together; they are more concerned with potential mental problems -- is this guy going to go postal on us? -- than with personal integrity. My gut feeling is that had I also told them that I was a habitual crack user (one of the questions) and had been fired from a job for cause (another of the questions), I would have fit a profile that that would have at least qualified me for an interview. By being honest, I made them afraid that I was a square peg for their round hole.
If honest answers are not acceptable for a business, they should either change their way of screening people or face the fact that they are setting up such a high fence that ultimately the only people they will end up hiring are the ones they can trust the least, since those will be the people who will "lie just a little" to get the job.
Frankly, it makes me look with suspicion on anybody who is hired by these places. If those employees can get through that questionnaire and be hired, you might want to keep your wallet chained and padlocked to your body if you are around them. Either that, or we should all be sitting at their feet taking lessons in righteousness.