Recently I’ve been receiving texts from my daughter asking me random questions like: “What is my [her] mission statement?” and “What are my [her] career high lights?” I have to confess that even at my age, I’m not really able to respond to either of these questions for myself, let alone answer them for a teenage girl who is desperate for employment in this shite economy.
Now I know we’re in a never ending recession, but surely unskilled jobs need not be so bloody complicated to apply for?
Who; I would love to know, is the twerp who coined the phrase “mission statement” in relation to a job? Seriously! Why would an unskilled worker need to go into that sort of detail to empty bins or clean toilets? For that matter why would anyone have a mission statement? It’s one of those phrases that only ever get mentioned on CVs, and is a complete load of b***ocks.
When I first left school, back in the mid 80s (not many jobs about then either), the best way to get an unskilled job was to just go into your local workplaces, factories and shops; asking the question: “Do you have any vacancies?” There was no need to register your details with an employment agency, or online with some sort of directory that forever emails you spammy job vacancies that aren’t even related to the work you are looking for. All you had to do was ask the receptionist or floor manager if they currently had any vacancies; and if they did: Shock Horror; they might even give you an interview on the spot, or maybe later in the day! Yes that’s right. If you suited the role, they might actually let you start your new job without the need for vetting by an employment agency, thus saving themselves hundreds, or even thousands of pounds a year.
There was no need to interview 742 applicants for a £7 an hour job serving burgers or pushing a broom round a warehouse (as there isn’t a need to today), because if you fitted the bill, you got the job – very simple really.
I fought for a long time to find a job before I started working online. It get's very frustrating when you must have at least ten years of previous experience to get a job clearing tables in a diner.
ReplyDeleteI wish it was still as easy as in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteVery well writen.
I didn't realize it's become this complicated. How awful. How grateful I am to be old. I took my 19 year old grandaughter months to land a burger flipping job to augment college. My 16 year old grandson failed totally last summer and will commence this summer's search in January!
ReplyDeleteHaving spent the last two months trying to recruit to a new team, I absolutely know how flawed our approaches to recruitment are. And I'm dispirited by how little an application form actually tells anyone, even after all the effort that goes into completing them.
ReplyDeleteI hope your daughter gets a job that she enjoys, and that is worthy of her, very soon.
When you apply to our company for a low-level job, one of the questions on the application asks, "If you were a food, what food would you be and why?"
ReplyDeleteI have all kinds of not very nice answers for that one, considering where most food ends up...
My mission statement for potential employers: i want to drink black pints and down good Irish whiskey, i intend to smoke high end grass along with the occasional opiate in pill form to take the edge off the hard and gilded existence, i intend to shag as much as possible, i intend to work but not for you, i intend to admire sunsets and sunrises and smoke the odd cigarette, did i mention i intend to shag alot? good, that about covers it...
ReplyDeleteThe scurge of jargonese strikes again. My mission statement is to earn the most money by giving up the least amount of my valuable time to unejoyable pursuits. As a consequence I've not had a job interview for years.
ReplyDelete"Mission Statement"
ReplyDeletePathetic, meaningless question that will always produce a lie or exageration as an answer - so what is the point asking?
The twerp was probably from across the pond (no disrespect intended to our USA brethren) but they are more into that kind of thing than we are...I think? ;)