Work is work - or why job application forms and CVs are bullsh!t

[KennyR]

This crap really p1sses me off. Why is it every job application form wants to know absolutely everything about me? Work (and unemployment) history, hobbies, age, marital status, interests... what the hell have these got to do with my competence? I'm applying to work for someone, not trying to be a sperm donor, for god's sake. As I see it, the employer doesn't need to know about me, and doesn't really have the right to know about me either. I just wish they'd butt out and just fuxxing take my qualifications of evidence of my competence and dedication - I only spent most of my life getting them! :-x

I'm a boring guy who's unlikely ever to be very friendly and even less likely to socialise, but I can do the work and will do it, and better than most people ever could. So why the hell do they want all this trivial and superficial rubbish most people lie through their teeth about anyway?

Work is work. People do it for money. The sooner these companies learn that and stop blowing this bullsh!t avalanche all over us and giving jobs to better liars rather than better workers, the better for everyone.

Grrrr! :pissed:

[KennyR]

It's quite understandable that an employer wants to know about whom they are going to be employing - you could be a psychopath, or a thief.

Then I would have a criminal record and would be forced to tell them this by law. The rest I don't need to tell them. All they need to know is that I can do the job. To be perfectly honest I could enjoy paint drying as a hobby - it has absolutely nothing to do with them and no bearing on my ability to work.

It's not optional, by the way. Miss it out and I might as well not apply for jobs at all.

[KennyR]

The job is a lab technician. It's a skilled job but hardly needs a lot of people skills - being told what to do is most of it. Knowing my way around chemistry and being able to solve problems for people is also important. No problems there. I don't see why they want to know my life story.

I once went for a telemarketing job, for example, that day I was tired, I was nervous, I couldn't think of what to say - even though I was ment to be talking about myself - and it was obvious that I couldn't do the job (however if I had of been feeling better, they would have seen a very different me)

If they ask me a question about the job, I'll be able to answer it. I'd be able to tell them why conjugated polymers conduct electricity in great detail, or how reversed phase HPLC works.

If they ask me things like "If you were a biscuit, what kind would you be?" or any of that meaningless psychobabble, then I'll be screwed, because I'm a practical thinker and don't have room in my head for that kind of arty farty mince. Personal questions will be deflected too, because as far as I'm concerned, I cooperate better with people if I have the advantage that they don't know what kind of a person I am. I like to be left alone personally.

[KennyR]

@the_editor

Nah, self-employment is not an option. I'd need millions to start up a business in what I'm trained for - equipment, labs, chemicals, accreditation, insurance... And then there's the point that I'm just a graduate and haven't made any decisions more important than passing an exam.

Self-employed people usually work very hard and get little back. I'd like to work in the reverse of that situation.

[KennyR]

@All

I can't do it. All this stuff is pretentious above belief. It's like accepting the person who has the biggest feather in their hat. I'm just not into that kind of thing, and I'm sure thousands of able people are just the same. Employers are missing out on a lot.

I don't believe for a second that CVs ever properly reflect the person they're written for. There's more chance that Hollwood action films show real life, or that catwalk fashions will actually be worn by real people. It's all p1ss and wind, and I just can't stand that. It's a game I'm not willing to play, and if that means I can't get a job - tough luck.

[KennyR]

Then employers have a load of pretentious asses instead of competent people. Their loss.

[KennyR]

I don't claim unemployment money.

(At least, I don't now.)

[KennyR]

A generous student loan.

[KennyR]

Speel, I haven't been asked to go to an interview yet! Not a single one in six months!

[KennyR]

I can't speak Dutch :-P

Besides, if moving 100 miles down south to get a job in England isn't possible for me, moving to Europe would be even harder.

[KennyR]

Plumbing? Whatever, I'd still get the position snatched away by buzzword fiends who say they're dynamic and flexible and whatever else crap they spout on these forms. Not to mention the brazen liars who say their hobbies include parachuting, windsurfing and potholing just to look interesting.

[KennyR]

Ah, at least Cecilia understands what integrity is, out of the lot of you. Pride in one's own values, and complete refusal to compromise them. Some of you should learn how to be more faithful to your own beliefs and not make system whores of yourselves.

[KennyR]

tpg wrote:
Uh-huh... I shouldn't have taken that job. I should have starved instead.

Doing work isn't the part I detest. We all have to do stuff we don't want, that's how civilisation works. But this layer of pretentiousness they have over the whole jobs industry really stifles it and makes entry really hard for the right kind of people, the kind of people I'd want working for me if I was an employer. Instead we just get people well trained in the art of glamorising every little mundane and banal thing in their lives and turning it into positive - but very false - things to say.

People in some situations just don't have the choice, much as I sympathise with you.

They do have a choice in some situations: to be more honest and to put a cap on the industry bullsh!t fountain from concerted effort. But like that's ever going to happen... :-(

[KennyR]

Why does everyone think I'm young? For someone trying to get their first job, I'm horribly old (26 is old for someone who's never had a job, trust me). And that counts against me a lot, I'm certain.

[KennyR]

the_leander wrote:
(BTW cleaning is perhaps the most soul destroying job one can embark in, you do a great job, only for the people you clean for ruin it day after day after day. But I'm proud I stuck at it for 18 months until I got my nightshift factory job, shame that didn't last heh).

I wonder if that's as soul destroying as filling out form after form of meaningless fluff and getting no interviews, no interest, and only the ocassional "Sorry but we regret to inform..." letter while your health and looks are disappearing fast from having nothing to do all day, and you're heading fast towards the point where your qualifications will mean nothing and soon you'll have to pay back £5000 at £180 a month. That's really quite frustrating, to put it mildly.