UGH Applying for Work Online

By April Monty

Wow, okay are there any companies left out here in the real world, that use actual paper applications? You walk in to a potential employer, a kid that is young enough to" be your kid", points you to a kiosk, with a desktop pc in it, or they *smile* and say "we only take applications online, sorry". Shaking my head in disbelief, I end up recreating that same scene over and over again, until I finally get it, okay, nobody uses paper anymore.

Now, as if this society hasn't become unattached and unfriendly enough, most major companies now have group interviews, wherein ten or more potential employees all gather at once, and are randomly selected for interview, like lambs to the slaughter. I recently took a chance on an opportunity with an insurance firm, it actually looked really promising, when I arrived, I was the only woman candidate and it was again a large group interview. I held my breath as we sat in these giant chairs and discussed the details of the work involved, I said to myself I can do this, no problem. The gentleman speaking to us finally reaches the end of his tale of how he got started,and shows us a graph of job requirements, Customer Service experience (I've got that!, check) pleasant phone voice and phone sales (I've got that! check), A willingness to learn a new career and grow with a stable company (I've got that!, check) and Six Hundred and seventy-five dollars to obtain your license from the state of Florida (the buzzer sounds, I didn't get that!). What's started out sounding like a superior opportunity, wound up being a nightmare.

I read a statistic this morning that says that even though companies are not using paper applications anymore, that in percentages only about 55 percent actually ever get to whom they need to.

What's a job hunter to do?