Unemployed Need Not Apply

[LadyKay]

If life isn't hard enough for people who are unemployed and looking for work. Hundreds of job listings posted on Monster.com and on other job sites state that people who are unemployed would be less attractive applicants. And some are telling the long term unemployed to not even bother with applying. Just one more thing in this world that dose not make sense to me.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/job-listings-unemployed-not-apply-133143362.html

[Slogo]

This is bullshit

[StormKnight (1)]

I have to concur, Slogo. This is absolutely asinine.

[taysteewonderbunny]

It IS asinine, but goes to show the kind of prejudices that help keep those who have endured economic hardships in economic hardship.

I remember being in the catch 22 of needing a job to get money to have a place to live and needing a place to live in order to get a job. I ended up buying a beeper (it was 1996) so that I would have a phone number, leaving a message making it sound like a home voicemail, and entering my address as a combination of the numbers on my license plate and the name of the street I parked it on when I ran out of gas.

They only way out of it is to lie. Employers don't like gaps in employment for many reasons, many based upon false assumptions: you are not willing to work; you didn't do anything to prove your exceptional value to the company when they were doing lay-offs; you were fired; you are lazy or too eagerly discouraged to have really put in the effort to find work. These assumptions aren't fair and aren't inclusive of the many reasons why people would even voluntarily leave the workforce, such as to provide care to children or ill or aging relatives, or one's own physical disability.

The onus is on you, the job-seeker, to positively reframe your out-of-work time as something constructive and proof of desirable qualities you possess.

It sickens me, because the approach is not only irrespective of human frailty, but requires deceit, but I am learning of its, unfortunate, necessity, and how to cope appropriately. As a chronically underemployed member of the workforce, my sincere condolences to anyone in this situation.

[darknight1]

This entire article I admit hit home in a personal way. Out of all the places I went to in search of a job, Michigan was the hardest. Wonderbunny, I too count myself as a chronically underemployed member of the workforce. And with the added effect of having lived in Michigan when massive numbers of people were laid off from their jobs or simply cut as the main industry they were attached to, the auto industry, was hammered away...it made holding onto a permanent job there very difficult. Granted, I thought I had a way out when I went into Job Corps but even directly before and after that...the simple fact is that when you have no money and your own relatives cannot afford to help you out during the toughest of times, and having it compounded by rotating between shelters...it's difficult. I remember wanting to punch through wall after wall when I'd go to apply for a job opening, only to see it in the employer's eyes - they'd see my recent work history, and I could just see the assumptions at work there. He didn't prove himself to be a hard enough worker, he was lazy...it just went on and on. And seeing those thoughts in someone else's eyes, even seeing that they will not hire you no matter what you do to prove yourself...it left me feeling this cold rage on many occasions. I know exactly how you felt with your own difficulty in looking for work while homeless. I know for a fact that being homeless compounds everything else. Nearly 7 months after I left Job Corps, I'd found myself cut yet again due to low labor demand. That time, I finally landed on the streets for several months. Not having access to the basic things you need (shower, washer and dryer, even simple hygenic things such as a toothbrush) and finding nowhere to help with those exact things in Grand Rapids just added to it. Sitting here now and seeing that article just sums up everything. You guys are right when you say that it's asinine and not right for employers to tell applicants to not apply if they've been unemployed for even a short period of time, or have some layoffs on their employment record. There's a part of me that believes in workers' rights and economic rights. This part strongly believes that discrimination based off of one's job history, or lack therof, should be outlawed. But I doubt it will happen. There's times I think to myself that yeah, even though I'm going to college to earn a degree, at least doing some form of work (even if it is work study) and participating in campus clubs, I may not even get hired, because again with employers, what truly counts as work experience? That's the tough question in our world - what counts to them?