#Rant: Job Applications

[notsocheezy]

Brain Curd #417

Brain Curds are barely-edited fiction, poetry, or just about anything else - drafted in a day or less. Anybody hiring?

Quick rant time: I hate this.

By ‘this’, of course, I could mean many things. For example, everything. But let’s back up a moment and talk about some things I do like.

I enjoy computers because there is always a provably right way to accomplish a task. There are specific commands that the computer allows me to use, and with those, I am able to build new ones. If it doesn’t work, there is a reason, no matter how hard it is to find.

I enjoy writing because there is no provably wrong way to communicate. All I need for a reading of fiction to be valid - including fiction I’ve written myself - is to present the barest of evidence for my interpretation. And if I don’t care what other people think of it, I don’t even need that. Esteemed authors have written entire books, packed with dialogue, that don’t even have quotation marks. And some nonzero quantity of people ate that shit up.

My problem with job applications - applications in general, really - has always been that they feature neither of these two qualities and offer less feedback than any compiler or internet heckler. I read a job description, see that I fit the qualifications, apply, and then nothing happens. I do not find out why I didn’t get the job.

But that’s just the base case. Most jobs, I don’t qualify at all. After all, an entry level job should require ten years of enterprise-level experience, shouldn’t it? But as I have been told, I am supposed to apply to these anyway. And the logic is sound, because I have gotten just as many interviews with this tactic as I did with the previous (zero).

The benefit of this approach is that, in an ideal world where you submit your resume and move on, you can at least get numbers on your side. You won’t know what you’re applying for, but you’re applying to a heck of a lot so you might finally catch something. It’s like fishing with a net instead of a line, except the dolphins you’re drowning are just your own will to live.

Unfortunately, you can’t do that, because every company wants you to fill out their application that’s different from everyone else’s. Resume? Never heard of her. List every job you’ve ever had and why you stopped working there - make sure your citations are in Chicago format. Record a video of yourself explaining why you love our company you’ve never heard of. What is the difference between a duck?

And even if you go to all that trouble, they still never tell you why you didn’t get the job, or sometimes even send an email saying you didn’t get the job. No interview, no phone call, no telegraph, no pony express, and no late night ‘u up?’ text. Why’s that? Because nobody is hiring and they fired the person who ran the Indeed page.

This is a problem for everyone, I understand, but when you tear your hair out after two applications in a day like I do, it really starts to cut into your un-gnawed pencil budget for the week. No wonder I prefer doing something that actually feels productive, Mom. Now let me get back to customizing my Fedora install and writing poetry no one reads.

Penned 2025.05.27

Please reblog, like, and follow if you enjoyed, and leave a reply even if you didn’t! See you again soon!

[daftpatience]

one thing I have learned about being poor is that you cannot for a moment stop thinking about it

[rottingcherrywood]

I’m having a bad day everybody tell me

1. What flavor of jelly bean you’d be

2. The last song you listened to

And/or 3. Your favorite flower

For me it’s 1. Blue raspberry or whatever that dark blue one is 2. Bad Girl by bbno$ and a bunch of other people I think, and 3. Lavender or tulips

[nemaria]

hot take: if an office/remote job requires mostly email communication, the interview questions should be written. There should also be a sample email that you have to write a response to, and something that tests your ability to draft an initial email about something related to whatever the job is about.

if you really need telephone skills as well, then there should be a mock call that is similar to the calls you'd have to make on the job, e.g. you are given a document to read beforehand and have to answer some questions about the content of the document on the call. No more of this "tell me about a time when you...." bullshit, just assessing things that are Directly Related To The Job, Please For The Love of God

[poyopaan]

i did some applications today and gotta say? kill me

[bun-parade]

It's wild to me how ridiculously expensive it is to live in the US on your own. You have to have a roommate or a live-in partner to split bills (both of which I've tried and it always ends terribly). The only way you can live on your own and not live paycheck to paycheck is if you have a high paying job. And those don't hire often, and when they do, they're super picky.

Not to mention even getting a job that isn't retail-based is its own form of Hell. Between recruiters/companies ghosting job applicants, AI resume picking bots trained to toss out "ethnic" sounding names and cherry picking keywords, & redundant application processes (you apply on LinkedIn, only to be redirected to another website to submit your resume, only to find out that you still have to manually input your entire resume), what are we supposed to do? How is anyone supposed to survive like this?

[garlique]

me when i actually think i have a shot at a job that would work well for me 😭 i hate job hunting so much my dumb ass gets so invested into every single job and it never works out and logically i know i only have a 1/100 chance of getting this particular one but i know that's still better odds than most jobs and it already feels like things are aligning for it a little bit?? and i don't want to get my hopes up again and them get crushed because it feels like every time it happens it's like. genuinely devastating for me but i also really want to manifest this shit i feel like i'm being stretched by my arms between two giant rocks lol

[brokendreamscreation]

//bruhs i just spent almost 2 HOURS filling out a job application. For PET$MART.

[sophinspace]

So the formal job offer never arrived last week despite the promise that it would be with me on Thurs or Fri. So my first thought was for my current employers, who’ve been (very generously) waiting to do the paperwork that moves me from one or three months’ notice, in the hope that I can start my new job sooner. So now I’ve told them I’ll give three months notice. Which is no bad thing really, as it takes me to practically the end of my current contract, and starting a new job in Jan is no bad thing in my industry.

But now I’m going to spend the entire weekend - possibly longer if this keeps dragging on - WONDERING IF I REALLY HAVE A JOB AT THE END OF MY CONTRACT OR NOT.

[marauding-almond]

Ok hi how the fuck do you even do a cv like I’m so lost help please

[ninjapancake314]

🦓

[arcane-vagabond]

Not Chloe trying to be nice and offering to go to my event today so I can relax from traveling and actually sit down and get shit ready for the next two weeks that I won’t be in the office because of college fairs, and then my boss being a micromanager and demanding to know what all I have to do that’s preventing me from going to the event.

(This got longer than I intended so here’s a cut)

Like…again. I will be out of office for essentially two weeks for three different college fairs that are back to back to back. I won’t even be home in between two of them, so I have to pack for two weeks. I have to make sure I have EVERYTHING together before I head out on Tuesday to the first event, and I have today and Monday to do it because Friday our department is hosting an event that I have to attend.

I have to go through our inventory for giveaway prizes, stuff to give away at my tables, make sure I have all these handouts from the different schools and departments, catch up on my expense reports, put student information into our system, catch up on emails, create an entire new presentation that’s 10 minutes long from information that takes 30-45 minutes to even relay in the first place, clean my office, meet with students in between all of this, work on this program that they assigned me that I shouldn’t even be doing in the first place because I’m hardly ever in the office, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But yeah. I’m clearly not going today because I’m lazy and a bad employee. Not like your other representatives who you’ve actually allowed weeks to not be on the road so they have time to do a fraction of all of what I’m doing.

Anyway.

[sergeantnarwhalwrites]

I think I'd rather snap my own neck than apply to another job.

[badkarma1998]

Idk who needs to hear this, but if you're trying to call any kind of buisness or office, dialing the number nonstop 50 times without stopping or leaving a voicemail is not going to make whatever other task or customer they're taking care of dissapear so they can answer your call

[numetalkids]

*inhales*.....................DEEP SIGH

[leemarkies]

i may have despised my last clerkship but man .. i got soooo much experience from it. tell me why i'm the only one in my entire class who has answered discovery requests. not once but DOZENS of times. i've filed petitions and drafted numerous motions and WON CASES but god forbid my gpa isn't perfect