My assignment at Tax Place ended about a month ago. Since then, I've spent some quality time each day searching for employment. It's a very disheartening process. I haven't been finding many jobs for which I'm qualified, since even the administrative positions out there seem to require 5+ years of experience. Often, it is a bit muddling to simply read through the job descriptions. One position to which I recently submitted had 30 bulleted items under the "Preferred Qualifications" heading. How does one even begin to address each of those within a single-page cover letter?
When I do meet the listed requirements of a job and decide to apply, the process is often more involved than I expected. I thought I'd finished an online application for a local coffee chain after submitting my employment and education history and three references. But advancing to the next page uncovered a very extensive character evaluation. There were about six pages of statements with which I was supposed to strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree. You'd have to be completely daft to answer most of them incorrectly. I found it fairly easy to discern that agreeing with the statement, "I don't work too hard because it doesn't pay off anyway" would make you appear to be lazy and apathetic.
But a few statements were completely baffling. The one that bemused me most was, "It's maddening when the court lets guilty criminals go free." If I strongly disagree, it indicates that I'm lenient towards crime and, presumably, theft of company property. But if I strongly agree, the word "maddening" might make it look as if I have anger issues. So which is better? Anger issues or a tolerant view towards the imperfect court system?
A different company's online assessment gave me a math exam along with their personality test. I realised then just how long it's been since I had to apply any of the concepts I used in my high school math classes. I remember doing really well in calculus. So how can I not recall how to find the percent difference between two numbers? I eventually re-taught myself over the course of the 10 questions they asked that involved that formula, but it was yet another blow to my self-confidence. Then they threw in a word problem. "Raul has more seniority than Colbert, but less invested than Renoir. Colbert has least seniority, but more invested than Raul." It introduced several more parameters, then asked who should be interviewed first for something. It didn't matter, really, because the company never interviewed me.
But interpreting the exhaustive job descriptions and completing ridiculously intensive applications isn't the hardest part of the employment search. It's the waiting. Sometimes there isn't much and there's a swift and merciful rejection. But usually there's a prolonged period of wondering what the status of my application might be. I read the "How to Apply" information for one company where I sent my resume, looking for an estimation of when I might hear back. The material contained the question, "What do I do if I haven’t heard from anyone within a month after submitting my resume?" The very evasive answer was, "If you are interested in any other opportunities, please apply online." A month?! That's an awfully long time to wait for potentially no result.
Some companies try to be merciful by allowing applicants to monitor their status online. This is informative, and helps to eliminate the possibility of uncertain rejection. But it's also addictive. And it can still be frustrating when your status doesn't change. One of my applications has carried the same "Under review" status for a few weeks. Granted, I enjoy the glimmer of hope that remains every time I hit the refresh button and don't see a phrase of rejection. But now I'm just growing annoyed at how long the process is taking. I tried to advance my cause by retrieving the contact information for the position from the HR department. I called the contact to follow up, but it didn't do much good. She said that they were still reviewing applications and that I might receive notice in another two weeks.
So it'll be another two weeks of searching, applying, waiting and (up til the time of publication) being rejected. That's the process. It's frustrating. It's demoralising. And I'm trying again tomorrow.
