Posted on 04/21/2014 11:49:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
You can find tons of advice about how to get a job interview and how to snag a job. Most of it comes from the “Do whatever you have to do to get hired!” school of thought. The job market isn’t a job-seeker’s paradise, but it isn’t bad considering what it was like just a year or two ago. If you’re willing to step outside the velvet ropes and try something new in your job search, you can get the interview, and get the job.
When you’ve been through a job-search drought for months and haven’t had much or any interview activity, your standards can start to drop. If the drought lasts long enough, your standards may plummet. You’ll delude yourself then that any job at all is better than another month of unemployment. That’s when a job-seeker can tumble headfirst into the Vortex.
The Vortex is the place a job-seeker goes when somebody (anybody!) is interested in hiring him or her. You can lose your bearings in the Vortex. You can ignore critical signs the universe is sending you. Most of us have been there at one time or another.
I almost took a job working for a horrible woman years ago. She used most of our interview time to insult me, but she kept calling me back. At the time I thought it was strange. Now I see that the woman’s “You’re an idiot, but let’s talk again” approach made perfect sense for her, because it was very important for her to hire someone she could berate and belittle. She was testing me. After a telephone conversation where she said “Are you ready to forget everything you know and learn how to do business MY way?” I gave Miss Hateful the slip,
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When I was in college I took a summer factory job. The foreman asked me: “Do you think you could take me (e.g. in a fight)? I said ‘Yes’. He said, “I’m a big guy”. I said, ‘Yes, power thrills but speed kills’ (the Muhammad Ali line). I got the job. Weird experience.
Turned another one down because the hallways and common areas of their office were lined with cardboard boxes and shipping crates. Could barely turn around in there. Looked like the stockroom at Pier 1 Imports.
Came to know the owner’s wife ran some sort of an interior decorating business, and he allowed her to keep her backstock there. Had fears that if she came in and whined “Oh, Honey...” I’d be pressed into Saturday service spreading stucco on a wall somewhere.
My last employer would say stupid crap like this. After 18+ years in the business, including a couple under my own flag, I had trouble not laughing in his face. Even worse, he was a sociopath/narcissist. He could not feel an iota for anyone else, and everything was about him and him alone. He also had this insane need to control everything and everybody. I left his nutty playground of a company as soon as I caught on to what he was all about.
A prospective employer (not so much an interview, as I knew he was hiring and showed interest in the work for a few weeks) elaborated on how his ex-wife was being stalked to the point of wiretapping etc, so - knowing the conversation would be overheard by the stalker - made arrangements to have the stalker killed if anything bad happened to the ex-wife. I decided to stay away from that situation.
Got an offer once from a startup company. Going back the next day with my then-current employer’s counter-offer, the offices were completely vacant with no sign of prior occupancy or contact info.
Interviewed at a well known & respectable company. Hiring manager tossed in a personality test. I later discovered he was an adherent of “Knowledgism”, a group that thinks Scientology had deviated from the true path under CIA subversion.
That is awesome!
(Even more so if it's true....)
Have a Q: if you get laid off and you had health and other insurance, do the unemployment groups tell you that only jobs that offer insurance are acceptable for continuing the claims?
What are the rules these days? Same amount of pay? Same amount of fringes? I collected a layoff UI claim decades ago and don’t know what the current standards are, thanks in advance.
First day on the job, I was reviewing the quarterly unemployment insurance reports. When I saw annual turnover well over 100%, and my mind said, "been there, done that, life's too short to deal with this crap", and I walked out the door.
Now, I'm just trying to hang in there for a couple of more years, when I can start drawing SS, and not have to work in a $hitty job. It'll be nice to have that flexibility, to be able to be like Johnny Paycheck when dealing with a jerkwad for a boss.
I interviewed for a Senior PM position at a world renowned company. I targeted the company, learned everything about them I could, even taking a tour. I saw that everyone had their Strength Finders profiles on their cubes. On my resume I put both my Strength Finders and Meyers Brigg profile.
As luck would have it, I got an interview. On day one, I met with 8 people from 4 different departments. The interview lasted 6 hours. The hiring manager wasn’t there. As I was departing, the hiring manager came out and told me to come back tomorrow to meet with him and the director(s).
So, I went back the next day. That day I met with the hiring manager and 7, yes count them, 7 directors. The interview lasted another 6 hours. As I was leaving, I asked the hiring manager what the next steps were. I was told, the two teams will get together, compare notes and based on some formulas they developed they would let me know.
Sure enough, one month later I got the call. They wanted me to lead a major project valued at 20 million dollars. They already put the team together and wanted me to come in, meet everyone and do the paperwork.
I go in, sit down with the team, introduce myself and chat amicably until the project sponsor and senior management arrive. During that time, HR shows up and I get my package. All this time when I wanted to discuss compensation, I was told they pay great and the bennies will be the best in the business.
I open the package, look at my salary, close the envelope, hand it back to HR and thank them for wasting 3 days of my time to pay me what I made as a junior engineer 20 years ago. On the way out, the hiring manager chases me down and asks what’s wrong. I tell him for a world renowned company your hiring process is the worst I ever seen.
I still get Christmas cards from the hiring manager asking when I want to come on board.
JIT is pretty silly. Machinery breaks down and has to be repaired/ People get drunk and don’t show up for work/ delivery trucks have flat tires/ etc. Delays are an unavoidable part of life. You are always going to need a cushion of inventory to insulate the downstream steps of the assembly process from the problems that inevitably occur.
The few times that has happened, I simply say, "I'm a team player, but I don't work 60 hours a week for 40 hours of pay." I get up, thank them for their time, and leave, knowing I'm not a good fit for this company.
Some employers want to get the compensation question out of the way because they don’t want to waste your time or theirs if expectations are way outside what they are willing to pay.
Many use those personality psych tests in an effort to avoid hiring thieves.
In my opinion the only thieves are the psychologists who sold them the test.
Job would be for 500...Oracle states 525. Production process wastes an average of 20. No attrition done for the last 5 jobs...No time for cycle counts and adjustments...everyone layed off...pulling jobs has priority...BINGO! PANIC when Production line shuts down.
I dunno. When I got to the purely hypothetical question “How would you deal with a pile of human bodies using only a forklift?” I sort of figured the job was not for me.
Should have stated 525 of a certain component needed. Give me a verbal.
What to make an interviewer tear their hair out - ask
Have at any time in the last two years, have to ever failed to make payroll on time?
Does this position have an incumbent?
If yes, what happened to him/her.
If no - how will you define success in this position? Ask for specifics, written is best.
The answers will be telling.
My answer would be ‘were these bodies Managers here?
If the production floor had good drains, I’d use the lift to smash out all the fluids first, and flattening the footprint of said managers. Once I had them in a nice flat ‘tile’, I’d fasten sheet metal to the lift forks, then scrape them around like Risotto until I had them in a nifty pile. Then I would bend sheet metal into a U shape and transport them to the compactor.
Maybe I need a vacation.
You’re one of the funniest here on FR so you would be an asset since you need a sense of humour to get through life.
Yeh - I think it was one of those questions where they weren’t so much interested in the answer as how much I started hyperventilating at the concept. Which, now that I think about it, was pretty cool.
LOL...Never really saw our managers...the production floor wasn’t carpeted..
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