No unemployed need apply.

[ohiosmith]

Still waiting for a response to the 300 resumés you sent out last month? Bad news: Some companies are ignoring all unemployed applicants.

In a current job posting on The People Place, a job recruiting website for the telecommunications, aerospace/defense and engineering industries, an anonymous electronics company in Angleton, Texas, advertises for a "Quality Engineer." Qualifications for the job are the usual: computer skills, oral and written communication skills, light to moderate lifting. But red print at the bottom of the ad says, "Client will not consider/review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason."

In a nearly identical job posting for the same position on the Benchmark Electronics website, the red print is missing. But a human resources representative for the company confirmed to HuffPost that the The People Place ad accurately reflects the company's recruitment policies.

"It's our preference that they currently be employed," he said. "We typically go after people that are happy where they are and then tell them about the opportunities here. We do get a lot of applications blindly from people who are currently unemployed -- with the economy being what it is, we've had a lot of people contact us that don't have the skill sets we want, so we try to minimize the amount of time we spent on that and try to rifle-shoot the folks we're interested in."

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/disturbing-job-ads-the-un_n_600665.html

[rbnyc]

1. I think it's always been easier to get a job if you're already employed...

...but it's an escalating issue. At the bottom line, there are too many people and too few resources. It's going to get uglier and uglier. I'm scared for my kid.

[Yavin4]

2. The Job Application Process Is Broken

Because of job placement boards like Monster, Dice, the Ladders, et al. and recruiters, HR depts. get overwhelmed with resumes, most of which are submitted by people who are not closely qualified for the job. In a lot of cases, applications are sent by multiple recruiters thereby expounding the problem.

This job application overload leads companies to take the safest route possible, poach from your competitors. Much easier to hire Applicant X who is doing job Y already at another company.

So, what should the unemployed do? Do job Y as a volunteer for a non-profit. If you are actually doing the work that companies need and you can demonstrate your abilities, then you are more likely to be hired.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

3. "So, what should the unemployed do? Do job Y as a volunteer for a non-profit."...

Problem is, volunteer work doesn't pay the bills.

[Yavin4]

4. Understood. But This Is The World We Live In

I was unemployed/underemployed for about 2 years until last year. While UE, I volunteered for a charitable organization that worked with kids. That organization has a non-profit license agreement with Microsoft. So, they had Sharepoint, but they weren't using it. A good Microsoft developer could have developed all kinds of applications and usage for that organization. It was a gold mine of opportunity, a chance to show prospective companies that you can do Job Y, as well as do some good.

There are literally thousands of applicants for jobs out here. You have to undertake unusual methods to get hired.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

5. Don't mistake me, I understand the dance for employment.......

and I appreciate the realities of the situation, but practices like these are untenable. Its no more realistic or sustainable for a person to have to ostensibly lose money by volunteering to eventually net a job than it is for companies robbing each other for talent. Eventually, someone will have to consider hiring the short- and even long-term unemployed. As soon as companies decide to bite the bullet and hire an unemployed person as opposed to robbing another firm, the better off we'll all be.

[jobycom]

6. Yeah, I think the whole employment structure is messed up.

The previous trend was to only hire employees who had specific experience at a rather specialized job skill. So a quality engineer could only be hired if he had worked quality engineering on a similar product in the past, at the same level of responsibility. That left only two types of applicants who could get the job--someone who currently had the same job elsewhere, or someone who had worked the job before and failed at it. Of course a third category would be someone who had lost the job because of layoffs, but in a good economy that's a smaller applicant pool.

The problem I think is the size of the employers, and this is a direct result of supply-sided economics. A large company is a big machine, and has lots of specialized parts, and when one of those parts breaks, they have to find the same part so everything will keep working smoothly. A small company can be more flexible, and can hire someone with a different skill set and teach them the job, and even alter the job description to take advantage of the new hire's unique skills. (An economy built on smaller businesses also is more dynamic, and less prone to recessions because one business failure doesn't affect as many people. Also, the greater number of employers means wage competition is better. That's not to say that large companies don't have some advantages, like market stability, greater resources for research and marketing to introduce new industries, etc...)

I got no employment advice out of that. Just an observation on why Democrats build better economies than Republicans. Maybe, if you have such a specialized job, keep reading your company's P&L and Balance Sheets and jump ship when you see an iceberg. And maybe, keep your resume diversified in case your whole industry goes down. Fifteen years ago I was in accounting while getting a Masters degree in history (it makes sense to me!), and what landed my job then was that I was good with computers. I got hired by a company needing a bookkeeper who could understand their network. It wouldn't have helped with a large company, but this one had five stores and was family owned, so they liked the idea of not having to call a repairman every time a computer hiccuped.

[Yavin4]

7. Strong Anti Trust Laws = More Employed People

Allowing huge corporations to merge has contributed mightily to the unemployment rolls.