Opportunist

Monday morning - the usual drill. Read the newspaper: Hmmn it says 308,000 new jobs were added to the US economy in March. Great! Where are they? Check the phone maybe the ringer is broken. Nope, it's working ok. Hmmn - wonder where those jobs are....Hope it isn't just a convenient statistic floated by the current administration to divert attention from the 9/11 commission inquiries.
Then, I check the Obituaries to see if anyone I know has died. (one needs to be creative in discovering new job openings). Despite the optimism of pundits about the improving job scene, the big problem is the trillions of other unemployed folks out there. The objective is to get a jump on the competition.
There was another Systems Analyst ad on careerbuilder.com for an investment company that has been "in the news" lately. Thinking that some jobseekers might be reluctant to join an organization whose PR people are probably on the verge of self immolation, I decided to apply.
Crap. This company uses the PeopleSoft e-recruitment module. In typical PSoft fashion, this module takes about 1/2hour to enter all the dumb pieces of information that are required. Most web sites allow you to do this in 2-3 minutes.
There are 8 steps, most of which are agonizing and klunkily designed. You can upload your MS word resume, but then you have to spend 20 minutes correcting all the parsing errors. There is no option for a self promoting cover letter. It is totally designed to screen people out. I guess the process of elimination yields the best candidate. After I completed the process, there is a small part of me who will be insulted if I am selected for follow-up (could I really be as boring as the job description?)
On the other hand, the 8 step process will certainly weed-out any competitors who do not have a half an hour to waste correcting informations that they submitted on their resume, or who cannot figure out how to pick their college major and degree from the silliest lookup list I have ever encountered. Paradoxically, you cannnot apply for a job unless you can figure out how the HR group classified it. (Hint: if you think Sr. Systems Analyst is an Information Technology job, hah! you lose!) The job title listed on Careerbuilder is not listed on the company's job search list. This should make a few more of the faint-hearted give up. I found a similar title, however and got my resume into the system, where the incredibly sophisticated software will slice and dice.

Hey, that's what we love about PeopleSoft, it creates jobs - in this case, for somebody in Human Resources to update lookup tables. Hmmn. Come to think of it, maybe those people would be more effective looking at resumes, and cover letters.

It's quiet around here. What happened to Spring?