'The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered'
 

Disturbing Job Ads: 'The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered'

First Posted: 06- 4-10 11:52 AM | Updated: 06- 4-10 03:50 PM

Unemployment Rate, Business News
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."

There are about 5.5 people looking for work for every job available, according to the latest data from the Labor Department.

Sony Ericsson, a global phone manufacturer that recently announced that it would be bringing 180 new jobs to the Buckhead, Ga. area, also recently posted an ad for a marketing position on The People Place. The add specified: "NO UNEMPLOYED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONSIDERED AT ALL." When asked about the ad, a spokeswoman said, "This was a mistake, and once it was noticed it was removed."

Ads asking the unemployed not to apply are easy to find. A Craigslist ad for assistant restaurant managers in Edgewater, N.J. specifies, "Must be currently employed." Another job posting for a tax manager at an unnamed "top 25 CPA firm" in New York City contains the same line in all caps.

A company's choice to ignore unemployed applicants and recycle the current workforce ignores the effect of the recession on millions of highly-qualified workers and could prolong the unemployment crisis, said Judy Conti, federal advocacy coordinator for the National Employment Law Project.

"In the current economy, where millions of people have lost their jobs through absolutely no fault of their own, I find it beyond unconscionable that any employer would not consider unemployed workers for current job openings," she said. "Not only are these employers short-sighted in their search for the best qualified workers, but they are clearly not good corporate citizens of the communities in which they work. Increasingly, politicians and policy makers are trying to blame the unemployed for their condition, and to see this shameful propaganda trickle down to hiring decisions is truly sad and despicable."

There is no law prohibiting discrimination against the unemployed, though advocates said the practice could be illegal if it had a "disparate impact" on minority groups.

Congressman John Dingell (D-Mich.), whose home state of Michigan has a 14 percent unemployment rate, was particularly disappointed to hear about the ads.

"While I appreciate that many employers are facing unprecedented competition for job openings, to close the door on such a large population of potential employees is shortsighted," he said. "Being unemployed is not a choice many workers choose to make. I would hope that companies that are discriminating against the unemployed will take into consideration that this choice is only further contributing to long-term unemployment in our country."

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you've got to be freaking kidding me.

So they'll be dicks and potentially lose one of their most qualified applicants because of this rule?

That's the dumbest thing I've heard all day.

Makes sense. There is probably a reason they are not employed.

Are you SERIOUS??!!

I know tons of people who cant find a decent job because their company went under. Through no fault of their own they were left jobless and you really want to say something like that Rider?

Not to mention, with enough work experience you cant even get a job in fast food or a crappy admin job etc because you have "too much" experience.

Rider's on a [t]roll.

I can only speak intelligently about the industry I work in, Engineering which this article covers. Not many companies(outside of banking) with highly educated people have shut their doors. There have however been many companies to downsize. Most if not all companies base their layoffs on performance. While they may not admit it, they do, so most engineers that are out of work are out of work because they were in the bottom performing 20%.

Thats a tough call. I can see their reasoning since many of the unemployed may not be good at what they do, or may be looking for jobs their either over or underqualified for and may not want to sift through so many applicants to find that good worker like rae mentioned.

Yeah that makes sense.

:rolleyes:

Why place ads at all, then?

If you're only going to consider candidates who you seek out yourself, then don't waste our time by placing an ad for the rest of us to respond to.

I've seen any number of high performers out of the job because their companies couldn't afford to pay them dude. It's not all performance based.
Keep in mind that a lot of companies not only let people go, the companies themselves folded as well. How's that performance based?

It just makes it that much more important to have a great resume, and even more importantly, a kick ass cover letter that sells you before they even open your resume. If you look on paper like all the other applicants, you get tossed out with all of them too.

Or because the project they were working on was terminated, and their skills were not necessarily transferable to another project?

In the case where a company shuts it's doors, yeah it's a bad situation. But usually through networking if they are good at what they do, they will get picked up somewhere without having to scan a million job postings. Again if you are good in the engineering industry, you have friends somewhere.

As far as blue collar or retail jobs it's entirely different. But this article was not directed at that sector.

Rare instance. Engineering companies align processes and procedures. That's half the battle. A EE(Electrical Engineer) is a EE. Sure experience helps but if a EE is on a project that gets canceled, there is a very high likelihood that he will get picked up on another program within the company as long as he is a proven performer.

The job situation in my profession is prety good. I have actualy turned down other job offers because they werent 100% of what I wanted, but fortunatley I am in a position where I can do that.

For the new grads its tough though esp in the ER, many want people with expierence so they wont even look at new grads. Then they look for side gigs and its the same story. We have 2 new PA's in the ER and they heard about my side job and are constantly asking me to get them in. One I would consider in a few years as shes progressing niceley but the other is def a work in progress.

I'm not even looking for work and I average 2-3 calls a week plus another 4-5 emails from companies looking. If you are experienced it isn't that hard. New grads, yeah it's very had because you don't have a proven track record.

I have been looking for a better job while employed for almost 6 years know. Banking is not very open to hiring either way. They assume you are willing to make drastic cuts to move from one desk to another or want you to steal clients from your existing bank.

Banking is probably the hardest hit sector of the economy so yeah the job market would be teh suck for bankers.

I wish a company could post an honest ad for a position without everyone getting pussyhurt over it. Would you rather they waste your time?

Having had to go through the resumes of people who were barely qualified for "general labour" but who were applying for highly technical positions, I can understand why they would put that rider in. Smart people, who actually have the required skill-set, would likely still apply.

Sounds pretty fvcked up imho not to consider anyone currently not working BUT PC did just bring up a good point about being swamped by applicants when most may not even be qualified.

This article was specifically about the aerospace/defense and engineering sector. I doubt they are getting swamped with resumes of unqualified people. I'm sure they get some but not many. Usually the qualifications are outlined in the job postings.

My company did layoffs last year in one department. I have two friends in that department who made considerably LESS $ than their teammates. They were the only two to keep their jobs. If person A will do all this work for $50k, but person B makes $75k doing the same job, then person A gets to keep their 50k while person B is sent home. It's not about performance...it's about money.

And it sucks that they are doing that, but it doesn't suck that they are honest about it in their posting.

AND...I tell my clients all the time to include an assessment on their job postings. If you require X experience, then make every applicant answer the question "Do you have X experience?"

Some will lie, but it will weed a lot of folks out. A little planning when you post the job goes a long way. ;)

It is performance though. You have person A who is performing the SAME as person B. Person B should be performing better than person A or you get the boot. If person A and Person B are performing the same quality of work you have a problem. Either person A is severely underpaid or person B is a slacker.

Yeah I could see that...

it's not a new thing. when I was unemployed I decided to go ahead and follow a different path that I really want to do anyway. driving over the road. yeah when I called to talk to them first thing they said was oops sorry you've been unemployed too long and we can't consider you for employment.
next time I get laid off I'm calling them the next day.

Doh...you're right...makes more sense now.

When I was the Eastern Canada service manager for a computer manufacturing company, I did everything from overseeing assembly and shipping, to evaluation of new products, to troubleshooting issues with compatibility (both in production and from end-users). I routinely turned over my assistants in about 2 years (then they went out and got jobs making $10K more than me after I had trained them). Half of the resumes that I received for the position might qualify as shipper.

Now imagine someone like me applying for a position in aerospace....

Personally I think ignoring the unemployed is BS. It's not really that hard to scan a resume in 30 seconds and determine if that person has the skill set you are looking for. Just don't depend on a recruiting firm to send you candidates - bad ones will send everyone and their mother to interview.

That said, I've interviewed some people for software positions who had all sorts of acronyms (e.g. SQL, HTML) on their resume and yet couldn't speak intelligently about any of them.

Agreed!!! I know someone milking the system right now.. And when they do work they can't keep the job they have very long.. I would especially avoid anyone with recurrent unemployment.

Sucks for the other folks though. I would hope that is the exception, not the rule..

When I had to vet resumes, I found that fully 75% of them were professionally prepared. That tells you nothing about the candidate, apart from the fact he doesn't trust his written skills. Essentially all of those got tossed, on spec.

No shit. If the people are happy where they are, then they aren't exactly going to be looking at job ads. That's what headhunters are for. Dumbasses.

I worknin engineering also, my co. Went from ~3800 people down to ~1500 people, guess they all sucked, lots engineers too.

My new grad engineer friend found work rather quickly, my senior engineerr friends can't. They are EEs

And every major eng firm in Houston Is down most over 50 %, must be a lot of sucky engineers out there.

Exactly, I think that's a valid reason to toss a resume. But unemployment isn't, IMO, it happens for many reasons, not just because the person sucks at their job.

Seriously...you are wrong. Companies specially do not do this in fear of being sued. Instead they lay off entire departments, some people of which, are highly qualified.

You can be replaced...trust me (with 3 or 4 Middle East Indians lol).

Yeah if you are on job search sites or using a head hunter. On your own? B.S.

I have my resume posted on online. You never know when you'll need to look OR if an unexpected better opportunity comes along.

Highly qualified but are making more money than an equally performing lower paid engineer. It's all about value. How much work can i get out an an individual for X dollars. Typically older engineers(non managers) are making a ton of money and have years of experience but are no more valuable than say an engineer with 5 years of experience making 20K less a year. In this economy you have to go with your best bang for the buck and highly qualified engineers may not get you that.

Huh, no comments....

just keep in mind that the older engineers can tell the young bucks why they shouldn't try that new fangled way of attaching the widget to the gadget. thereby saving you thousands of dollars in lost time when proto types go boom. our young guns smoke shit all the time here.

Sounds like a fun place to work.

it has it's moments that's for sure. LOL

Friend called from my old project, she just got her 2 wk notice

BP came thru and said lop off another 25% of the remaining crew. No engineers left except the lead, guess all 30 or so engineers that started must a all sucked.

It's hilarious watching someone push YOUR buttons online after watching you get off on it for years.

Again this article and discussion is on the aerospace defense and engineering sector. Petroleum has nothing to do with this discussion. Reading comprehension FTW.

it's not the first time nor the last........:tremble:


so which is it, engineering in general or aerospace def. and engineering?

Still BS
 

I feel that even for an engineering firm this is a retarded policy. What about very smart and technical college grads that are exiting the armed services?

Hell, I work in the Nuclear Power field and even they will take bums off the street. Two guys in my class were between jobs when they hired in and started the class with me.

Sounds like a hot load of BULL SHIT:bsflag:

:skep:

so does rider..........:lol

The real story is that HR is usually understaffed, and consists of young, inexperienced people who are too afraid to do their job (interview candidates). So they invent new ways to weed out people without bothering to talk to them. And it will get even worse with the new generation of HR workers, who grew up with instant messaging & txt, and think they can do their whole job in front of the computer.