Life is a Job
I heard Barbara Ehrenreich on the cambridge forum on Sunday. She was talking about her new book Bait and Switch. I have not read her new book yet, but it sounds like her experience trying to get a job doing PR.
A couple of things she said struck me as odd. She said that the internet is a black hole when it comes to searching for a job. You never get any feedback. I do not see how different it is from the days of mailing paper resumes. I rarely got any feedback about sending a resume in the mail. I only heard back from companies if they had some kind of legal action against them.
She reacted very strongly to how much looking for a job is about personality. She was offended that people hat to hire people that they like. She said that she found looking for a job was 90% about personality and 10% about qualifications. My experence it more that getting a job is 55% personalty and 45% qualification. I think this is because so many jobs are about team work. If no one wanted to work with me, I would not be able to do my job. I think many people will hire someone slighly less qualifed if they will be able to work with the person.
One job coach told her not to have any experence on her resume older that 10 years. She sees this as a form of age discrimination. I wonder if is different than that. I wonder if people are only interested what you have done lately. In the high tech world it is seen as the world changes so quickly. What you did 10 years ago does not mean anything compaired with what you did last year.
I should read her book to see what it says. I have the feeling that I will not agree with all of it.
A couple of things she said struck me as odd. She said that the internet is a black hole when it comes to searching for a job. You never get any feedback. I do not see how different it is from the days of mailing paper resumes. I rarely got any feedback about sending a resume in the mail. I only heard back from companies if they had some kind of legal action against them.
She reacted very strongly to how much looking for a job is about personality. She was offended that people hat to hire people that they like. She said that she found looking for a job was 90% about personality and 10% about qualifications. My experence it more that getting a job is 55% personalty and 45% qualification. I think this is because so many jobs are about team work. If no one wanted to work with me, I would not be able to do my job. I think many people will hire someone slighly less qualifed if they will be able to work with the person.
One job coach told her not to have any experence on her resume older that 10 years. She sees this as a form of age discrimination. I wonder if is different than that. I wonder if people are only interested what you have done lately. In the high tech world it is seen as the world changes so quickly. What you did 10 years ago does not mean anything compaired with what you did last year.
I should read her book to see what it says. I have the feeling that I will not agree with all of it.
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