Mowed on the Edge of the Sword

Friend of mine was let go this week. Mowed down on edge of a sword with a hundred others or so. One of my coworkers got it a few weeks ago. Business Optimization, don’cha know. People have to be ‘exited’.

He’s bummed out, of course. Who wouldn’t be? at best, it’s a horrible inconvenience. At worst, and that can happen if you are over 50, it can be career death.

My company tends to jettison souls a month or two out from the end of the fiscal year. Sometimes they cull the herd in December too, just in time for Christmas. In my coworkers case, it was especially cruel, since she’s older and at the same time, we’re hiring a position in our group. Their explanation seemed like bullshit to me.

A lot of this sort of thing seems like bullshit to me.

For me? I think I’d push up my retirement. I plan on going part time at 64. January would be only a year early.

Right on queue I found a piece on Wilder’s site about this very thing.

By one study, at least 60% of jobs listed on job posting sites are as fake as the girl in Canada my friend kept talking about. One survey had 81% of recruiters admitting that they posted ghost jobs. They never existed, and never will exist. This is a little like thinking you have a blind date with a girl and then finding out it’s actually Michelle Obama.

Why on Earth would they do that? Not the whole “dating Michelle Obama” thing, but the fake jobs . .

I’ve found this to be true. My company does it, for sure.

Why in the world would they do such a thing?

Well, several reasons:

People in HR are evil like a cat and enjoy the thought of torturing their prey,
To fake that the company is growing,
Because it’s Tuesday and they’re bored,
To get resumes to compare against existing staff,
Looking for hot chicks to apply, and
Trolling for resumes to show that there’s a need for infinity H-1B visa holders to come on over from India with fake credentials and take the job at $7.35 an hour.

My company does the second one.

I had a neighbor friend go through this. She was telling me of an awful interview where she was demeaned during the technical interview. This woman is a CCNP (a valuable Cisco certification). I told her I’d have called them out. “What do you think a CCNP means? You know I was a network engineer for a large bank. This is basic shit a newbie knows.”

I remember telling her the first thing she needed to do was make sure it was a real position in the first place. You can sort of tell if you read the posting. Usually, it’ll be full of qualifications that one person probably wouldn’t have. Back in the dark days of the IT meltown, 2003, I found such a posting for a telecom job. They wanted Lucent certs, Nortel Certs, and Cisco. At the time, no way one person had two, let alone all three. Lucent and Nortel certs were specific to a company, meaning, you were a Lucent shop or a Nortel shop. Those certs cost thousands. You wouldn’t have both products, let alone a tech certified on both anywhere. Neither tech with those certs, at the time, would have any Cisco skills or certs more than likely.

To top it off, the system is rigged: often, when a job does appear, the hiring manager wrote the description for a specific person, i.e., a person who isn’t you, and although it has already been filled, the description has to be posted because “rules”. It’s a fair competition, exactly like the “who is the best boy” competition I entered and my mom was the judge.

I’ve had two jobs like this. I met the hiring manager with one of my friends in a bar, where the dude made his decision right there. The rest – the interview with HR, the advertising, all the interviews of others? all for EEOC compliance. There was no job, per se.

My new boss told me that they had to do all this BS before I’d get an official offer, but the job was mine.

But that leads up to the next part:

Since then, nearly every job that I’ve had has been as a result of someone knowing me, picking up the phone, and calling me because they wanted me in the role. I am very lucky to have gotten in that groove – the main way I’ve gotten jobs is due to a friend or other connection.

That’s how I got all my good jobs. Every one. The one I have now, and the one I had at Lucent were, in fact, referrals from the same guy. In my career, I had a crew that followed me to a few jobs. I got paid spiffs to hire them.

That’s a lot easier when you are established in your career. You tend to collect friends along the way. It’s also why it’s tough on the younger crowd. You need friends to start with.

Nearly every career site I’ve used has been worthless. Worse than worthless, since they tend to be inhabited by recruiters. Low end ones. One thing you need to keep in mind is that in a crappy economy, employers are loath to use recruiters. That’s been my experience. Depends on where on the food chain you find yourself. Head Hunters looking for D and E levels are different.

Which reminds me, I need to reach out to old friends/coworkers and get back in touch.

My buddy will be fine. He’s got a large group of friends that’ll be eager to help, if they can.