A woman in Scappoose, OR is/was being considered for a new job. Which is/was good, since she's a jobless single mother.
Well, she needed a reference from her former employer, Wells Fargo. Unfortunately, they have a policy that they charge $20 for employment verification. And her potential new employer asked her to pay it.
Instead of doing so, she ran straight to the local news station, who for some completely unknown reason actually consider her story news... and they put out this heartfelt story about her plight.
The part that killed me the most? That the angle of this story was not about how big business sometimes sucks, and sometimes makes the job search process annoying (a la the $20 fee).
The angle (get ready for this) was about how this poor woman will never work again because she "can't afford" the $20. And the news story was appealing to the viewers to "raise the money" for her.
This is not a joke.
I had (until yesterday) a candidate in the final stages for a reasonably lucrative engineering position. He's very technically capable, and my client was most enthused about meeting with him to discuss the possibility of his joining their firm.
He's been unemployed for more than a year. Which isn't uncommon today.
But in his case? Turns out, it may well be due (at least in part) to his anger, and his difficulty managing it when he most needs to manage it. During the interview process.
This very capable candidate will not be getting the job. He bombed the interview.I don't have full detail from the hiring managers yet, but I already know what they're going to say.
Because this same guy has shown me strong evidence in the past week or so that:
- He's incredibly pissed off that he has no job;
- He blames the world, and definitely the companies that won't hire him; and
- He is completely uninterested in any feedback that may help him succeed in the next round of interviews.
Seriously. I think this can be done. How? It's simple, really, but probably also harder than it sounds because old habits die hard.
The secret to cutting at least six weeks out of your job search is to bypass the outdated, overly optimistic, passive, time-wasting stuff that everyone used to do on the front end of our searches.
Certainly, you didn't do them because you were clueless; you did them because in years past, they often worked. These methods may have even worked the very last time you were laid off, fired or simply found yourself seeking another position.
I'll bet your old (or current) search formula looked something like this:
Day 1: Old Job Ends
Day 2: Eat, drink or smoke yourself silly, convince yourself you didn't need that crummy old job anyways, make voodoo doll of former boss.
Day 3: Post resume on Monster.com and every other job board you can think of. Call a bunch of recruiters, even the ones you think suck at recruiting.
Day 4: Apply for nearly every job on Monster.com that is in your immediate geography, regardless of your fit or interest level in said job.
Day 5: Spam every company you can think of with your resume, using a cut and paste form letter.
Day 6: Wait for results.
Days 7-40: Repeat days 3-6 at least 10 times.
The problem with this approach is that, today? Almost no one lands a job after six weeks using it. So don't even waste valuable time testing my theory.
Be proactive instead.