Since that time he has received not one but two more emails advising him that the very same position was open if he might be interested. One of those emails came from the very same company of the food chain shot caller who spoke to him earlier.
The aforementioned emails were ignored.
He has also been advised by a friend of his wife that there was to be an open house May 2 at the same company the shot caller was interviewing for. A similar CSR position at Big but Friendly Regional Bank. He also received yet another email from an employment aggregator site heads-upping him to said open house.
So he went online to fill out the application like a good little hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker. Thinking to himself "Self, you're going to get the same response as before. But maybe, just maybe, since you will actually be interviewing with an employee of Big but Friendly Regional Bank you can at least get your resume forwarded to the right people for the right position."
And thus he did press send. . .
This week on Tales of the New Depression:
Our hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker gets up early. Peruses the news. Blogs a bit.Then showers shaves and suits up for the Open House at Big but Friendly Regional Bank. But before the suit can settle on his middle aged frame his cellular phone rings.
"Hi, hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker, this is Tanya from Big but Friendly Regional Bank. I received your resume online and wanted to invite you to the Open House we are having today."
"Why thank you, Tanya," says our ever polite and genteel hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker. "I was, in fact, suiting up for just that mission."
"That's great, hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker. We look forward to meeting with you. But I was just reviewing your resume. You do understand this is an entry level position?"
"I do. But I am hoping to meet with a hiring manager and possibly get my resume pushed a little further up the food chain."
"That's an excellent idea and exactly what I was going to suggest to you. Because I'm not sure, frankly, that this position would be challenging enough for you."
"Then that is how I shall proceed. Thank you very much for the call and have a good day, Tanya."
"And you also, Mr. hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker. And good luck!"
Thus did our hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker finish suiting up. Then he took his faithful Fido out for one quick trip in the yard before locking up the house and setting off in the hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker mobile for the local headquarters of Big but Friendly Regional Bank.
At Headquarters he is ushered into a small nondescript office by the polite pensioner supplementing his retirement as a rent a cop.
He is greeted by the pleasant woman charged that day with running interfernece. Keep the riff-raff out (this is, afterall, in the heart of a rather rough city) and the good candidates in. Both Gate Keeper and Keymaster, if you will.
He hands her his resume.
She looks at it.
She looks at him. In his very nice wool suit.
She looks at the resume.
And looks at him.
"Mr. hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker you do understand this is an entry level positon?'
"Why yes, indeed I do." he responds. "And although I may appear overqualified for this particular position I am hoping that you can get this to the right people and I might meet with a hiring or call center manager to convince them that I am the person they need to do the back room work. What would you suggest?
"I think you should proceed through our process and get to meet with a hiring manager to see if there might be something more in line with your experience available."
So the Keymaster leads our hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker to a medium size nondescript conference room to fill out the form and wait his turn there among at least eight other people ahead of him. All of the much better looking sex. All considerably younger. The majority minorities.
But none suited up as well as he.
After five minutes or so he has begun to settle in for a long wait when the door opens. A middle aged human resources type woman walks in and calls
"hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker?"
He is taken off guard for a moment. He's not next in line.
"YO!" he responds. Or something similar but more professional and genteel.
"Follow me please."
And so he does.
"Excuse me,' he starts, "I think those other folks were ahead of me. I wouldn't want to jump the line."
"Oh, we'd never do anything like that, " human resources woman grins. "now, you do realize that this is an entry level position. On the phones all day every day."
"Well, truth be told, I am hoping to obtain a position here at Big but Friendly Regional Bank in your telecom and/or IT department. I am the guy who makes these phones and queues work so the CSRs can answer them. I write the reports and monitor the phone calls so the managers can make managing decisions. I was hoping you might be able to get this resume into the proper hands."
"Why yes, I would be happy to do that. I don't know if there is anything available but I will see this gets into the proper hands."
"About this position. Do you think it would be suitable for someone of my, um. . .
"Experience?"
"Position in life. . ."
Both are chuckling now at the unspoken four letter word. Age. The recent haircut definitely lets the well and hard earned whites and grays shine through.
"I think not. It would not be challenging enough for you. But I will forward this onward upward and forward! and you should be hearing from me by the end of the week. And even if nothing is available right now please keep in touch with me about this. Here is my contact information."
Shaking hands he departs, stage door right.
Back at the hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker mobile he climbs in, lights a cigarette and re-holsters his J-frame (for while he is not so naive and genteel as to drive into the rather dangerous city unarmed he also realizes it will not do to appear suited up for an interview with his friendly Roscoe bulging on his hip. Nooo.) and thinks to himself
"Self, three you're overqualifieds from three different people at the same company for the same job in the same day. That has to be some kind of a record."
As he revs the hapless stumbling bumbling intrepid job seeker mobile engine and drives off toward the nearest celebratory grilled ham and cheese hoagie.
Meanwhile, back home the headline reads:
Jobs report may help show if recovery is just a mirage
with the depressing story
just like he's been saying all along.
7 comments:
Sheesh.
The absurdity of all this is not lost on me.
I'm the guy who used to mnage this stuff. I'm the guy who, on three seperate occassions discovered and stoped the social engineers who were running up tens of thousands of phone calls (and some of those guys were very good) on our dime. One of those a scant three months befre 9/11 were calls to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Ivory Coast. Which did not click with me until months after 9/11.
I'm the guy managers and VPs came to for advice and answers. The guy regional and national sales managers and VPs wanted to talk to NOT because I was the decision maker but because I had considerable influence with the decision makers.
And here I am trying to get my foot in the door by interviewing for a position everyone knows I am vastly overqualified for and being told so before I even sit down.
But at least this time maybe the resume will get to the right people.
What you're doing is a smart move.
Don't these IDIOTS realize that the challenge is actually to know you can pay the bills and take a free breath, and that THAT challenge would, with your experience result in a performance which would continually exceed any entry level job seeker's?
Don't they realize that if you are pitching out of the bullpen, THEIR BULLPEN, that when the need arises for your core competencies, they would just pick up the phone and you are there in relief and it is far easier to replace someone AT THE ENTRY LEVEL?
THIS PLACE IS AN ASYLUM
EPA
Right on. The challenge that MR has met already was caring for his family and making ends meet while be unemployed and without going on the dole.
I bet those other candidates never met or overcome such a challenge.
would you let us know if you got the position or an higher position-
Praying for you and yours!
Carol-CS
Absolutely, cs, when I get re-employed everyone is going to know it, just from my doing the Snopy dance
WC -- I was on the unemployment dole for a bit (as you know) but that ran out nearly a year ago now. To say the last 11-12 months have been a severe challenge is understating the case.
Epa, you're correct but it seems alot of places are thinking that way.
Pasto -- hopefully it works out. I figured I've been crashing house parties wedding parties beer parties garden parties the occassional funeral party for so many years now why not crash an employment open house?
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