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U.S.Laws May Make Online Job Hunting Harder
j00bar writes "CNN/Fortune is reporting that applying for a job online is going to get harder. 'New federal guidelines meant to standardize how employers track data on the diversity of their job-applicant pool are taking effect starting today for jobs at federal contractors -- and similar rules will kick in later this year at U.S. companies with more than 50 employees. And resumes and search approaches that worked perfectly well before may no longer do the trick.'"
Sigs cause cancer.
So in order to get a more diverse and random selection of applicants, we're going to shrink the qualified applicant pool by making it more difficult to apply for a job? Can someone explain to me how this is supposed to increase diversity? I would think that if you want a more diverse selection, you would want to increase the qualified applicant pool so you have more people to choose from.
Instead of online job applications remaining relatively unbiased by age, race, culture, or even gender in some cases, now US guidelines are going to require that you specify if your are a minority, culture preference, a woman, your age, and other statistics that will force employers not to hire the best candidates, but to fulfill diversity quotas.
Good one.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Searching and applying for jobs online is already difficult enough. With applicant pools numbering in the thousands for many jobs, it's already a royal pain in the ass to get in for an interview. Aside from that, even if you do get an interview it might be one of those "well, we know we won't hire this one but we need to interview X number of people" and you end up being asked such illustrious questions as "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?" (yes, an actual interview question for a part-time job at $8.50/hr).
Keep your resume up-to-the-minute current. "The rules allow companies to pick a random pool of applicants by searching the job boards for 'most recent' qualified applicants," Crispin notes. "In those cases, no one will even look at a resume that is more than two or three weeks old." Yikes.
Oh whatever, if the company is looking for someone with experience that most don't have they are going to look closely at the resumes. If anyone can do the job in the applicant pool they aren't going to care one way or the other.
For the jobs that I have interviewed for through monster.com and careerbuilder.com applications, I have received a few offers -- none of which bettered my current job security and benefits (the pay was better).
We don't need laws to make it more difficult to find work -- we need laws that make the jobs we have better than they already are.
an applicant must "express interest" in the job
Surely you wouldnt work in a place you have no interest in!
Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
This is a big deal and the only reference is this story. I could find nothing else. The story doesn't answer the diversity subject. BS I say.
At first, then it is rolling out to all eomplyers with over 50 employees.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It seems they are going to regulate this country to the point where it's impossible to find a job. When's the last time any of the people making all these stupid laws actually tried to get a job? In the olden days you could walk into a place with a help wanted sign and get a job that day and just work - maybe for just that day or maybe for twenty years. Now it's so expensive for companies to hire people and such a risk for them to give someone a try that they often don't fill vacancies for great periods of time and only then when they find an applicant that has exactly the needed skills and referenced. No more picking someone with some skills and the ability to learn and just training them. God no - they could turn out to be a moron or lazy and you can't fire them because it's such a nightmare to do so. The number of unemployed in this country is pretty huge and the time a lot of people can go unemployed can be many months and it all comes down to all the red-tape involved.
It's great to protect people from shitty employers but not a good idea to create so much red tape that you're keeping a significant number of your citizens from finding work. All this red tape is a good part of the reason temps and illegals are so popular as employees.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
What would happen, if I just tell them that my grand-grand-grand father came from Africa so deep down I feel like I am part of a minority?
Actually I never check the "White" or "Caucasian" box on the race section on the forms, because putting myself in a race category just reinforces the fact that there are race categories and people are somehow treated differently because of it. Actually the word "Caucasian" comes directly from studies of eugenics at the turn of the century and I consider using it just as offensive as someone using the "n"-word, because it implies endorsing the values and attitudes of the time.
My God folks, the article offers no clue whatsoever about where this supposed set of rules is coming from. No Legislative reference, no Government department - Nothing.
Then it spins into a collection of rather bizarre "tips" for job applicants, most of which don't really seem to have anything to do with the alleged changes in government hiring practices, or even reality.
Even for slashdot this is pretty weak.
Three Squirrels
Congress passes these ever more bigoted laws (in the name of diversity of course, gotta love NewSpeak) so they can feel good about having 'done something' about a problem that increasingly is made worse by more laws because it has been mostly solved. We long since passed the point where the negative impact of more laws were outweighed by the positive benefits. Thirty-forty years ago, yea, there were some serious problems still lingering in society. We talked a good "everybody is equal" but practice didn't match theory very well.
But these days we have, if anything, overshot equality and went to tribalism amok. These days it seems the only ones who quotes King's "I have a Dream" speech's line about judging everyone on their ideas instead of their skin is Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich because the entire 'Civil Rights' establishment has invested all their political capital on maintaining quotas and pretending to be victims while having all the trappings (limo, jets, mistresses, etc) of the wealthy. Listen up folks, when (in theory if not in practice) the left, the right and just about everyone in between are in agreement on an issue it really isn't much of an issue anymore. The only reason it is still an issue is because too many people have made an industry out of "Oprah Nation" style victimhood as career.
Democrat delenda est
Hurrah - someone with research skills!
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The actual rule:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/fedreg/final/20050201
Obligation To Solicit Race and Gender Data for Agency Enforcement Purposes
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060207-612
Do you know what the OFCCP is? It is the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and that little taste of bureaucratic alphabet soup is a part of the Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration. The OFCCP's job is to ensure "that employers doing business with the Federal government comply with the laws and regulations requiring nondiscrimination." In essence, that makes the OFCCP one of the many departments that exist within the government to monitor activities and make sure things are done properly and fairly. A noble goal, to be sure, but the OFCCP has distinguished itself with a new rule going into effect this week regarding the tracking of those who apply for jobs on the Internet, and it may have repercussions for anyone using electronic means to search for a new career.
Three Squirrels