Job search: a few pointers to potential employers

I received this e-mail earlier today:

It seems that ZEOXMark LLC has a website. These folks also have the unfortunate distinction of being sniffed out as a scam. Click here for the report of this scam and user comments on the scam.

As a service to job seekers and legitimate employers, here are some things to review before e-mailing potential new hires:

1) Send the e-mail from your company's website, not a third-party server:

2) If the e-mail's composer does not speak English as a first language and speaks with a heavy accent, review that composer's e-mail for grammar, syntax, etc. The e-mail is an extension of your company's image. The more egregious the errors, the more the e-mail reeks of "scam".

From the main page, there is no request for a Social Security Number and/or bank account number. Good for you for having a little restraint.

As unemployment continues to be high, these sorts of train wrecks will continue. While finding, arresting and prosecuting scam artists of this sort is pretty unlikely, if we assume e-mails like this are scams before we provide private information, we can cut down the number of hits and dry up the supply of suckers.

Five days ago.

Thirty three days ago, I was fired from one of my two full-time jobs. It was the better paying job, monetary-wise and health care benefits-wise; however, the 2 1/2 hour round trip commute and time away from my life partner were pretty big drawbacks to that job. So, for the past thirty three days, I have been one of the nearly 12 percent of Californians actively seeking a job.

The percentage above is taken from a sample. The government explains it more clearly that I can. I am not sure how exactly one tracks the "underemployed". In all honesty, my math mind falls apart at the merest mention of statistics that are any more complicated than Earned Run Averages. And the financial industry and insurance worlds of numbers? Duh . . derrr . .

So this post isn't about numbers. Liberals like me turn to folks like Nate Silver to make sense of the data. Conservatives have their own statisticians, too, though I'm out of my depth going there in this post.

It's not even about the search for a new full time job with benefits. With a four-year college degree and over 10 years (I'm not saying how far over) of work experience, the working world is like an English Garden where I just need to root around for that one "flower" that connects to me and vice-versa. My resume is posted on all the big job search sites, I apply for at least one job a day (if I was Spanish language fluent, I could double or triple that rate. Sadly, I could not ask for higher pay for that added skill. Another post for a blogger with a better perspective, perhaps?).

I have had only one legitimate job interview to date. The job opening for which I was interviewed was brought to me through a friend. I also have another possible opportunity through a friend of a friend, though the contact is affiliated with a temp agency. Still, it's pointless to dismiss anything out of hand before the agency/employer has the chance to pitch the job to me and field my questions about the job.

This long and winding post is, instead, about the other two times in the last thirty three days on which I strapped on a tie, polished my shoes and strutted out the door with resume, smartphone and business portfolio in hand.

It's disgraceful to employers who post job opportunities to call these other two events "interviews". I'll describe the scenario and just how the experience makes someone with my business acumen feel afterward. I also write this as a cautionary tale to those who are called by these types of employers so that you are made aware of the difference between a standard job interview and the slickness I encountered.

Here's how to know you are walking into what is, essentially, a sales pitch.

1) When you walk into the office/suite, the music is played loud enough to qualify the space as a coffeehouse or a nightclub. Seriously, outside of retail outlets, who plays music through a stereo with speakers any more? Retailers only play music in their retail space for one reason - to slow and confuse customers so they may buy more of whatever the retailer is selling.

2) You have an appointment time, yet at least two other people are in the reception area completing applications and you are not sitting in an office rented by a temp agency.

3) You are introduced to more than two people working at the company, not counting the interviewer. This happened only at one of my two experiences and, for the most part, the "employees" confessed to having worked for the company for "only a short time". At the same time, steps 1 and 2 above continued for still more applicants.

4) The "interview" consists of 5 questions or less. When I interviewed people to bring into a Customer Service department or assisted a manager with hiring, I asked 10 questions minimum. I watched body language and eye movement, delay time between question and answer and whether the answer is spoken like intellectual conversation instead of community theatre rehearsal.

5) Your interviewer is watching anything but your body language, eye movement and or response time and tone to the questions asked. To be generous, perhaps the interview is just anxious to get to their "second interview" with "those select few" that the employer "feels are a best fit".

6) The second "interview" includes you and at least two other applicants.

7) The second "interview" includes a PowerPoint presentation, something that approximates an orientation movie or both.

8) In the presentation mentioned in items 6 and 7, the interviewer (oh, let's call him/her what they are -- salesperson) tells you all you could ever want to know about how the company makes its profit and how you drive how much you earn. While this sounds like the employer is telling you that you have applied for a sales position with commission, you are told when you are called for the "interview" that they are looking not for sales people, but people who are "customer service oriented".

9) You are told that upward mobility in the company is encouraged in the company. Also, part of that upward mobility depends on how many other people you can manage to "work under you". Managers at these companies receive a percentage of each employees' earnings for each widget made. Both of my experiences had to do with personal finances; however, the exact description of the service offered is not important to the post. However, if you have been in the work force even a few years, the challenge to see this arrangement for what it really is only mildly engages you.

Now, here is what I have not read much about: how the people "invited" to these "job interviews" feel after the above experience. The last one I went to was this past Thursday. I went to the "interview" only because my life partner got the call from the employer and he could not recall what type of position the employer wanted to fill. As it turns out, I had visited this employer almost two years ago and was treated to steps one through nine. As the first visit to that employer was "after business hours", the vibe was more nightclub than coffeehouse. I only needed to get within 20 feet of the front door before I heard the boisterous conversation through the drywall and realized what, for the second time, I was about to endure. I did something this past Thursday I have never done to any job interview before.

I turned around 180 degrees and quickly walked back to my car.

I then turned to a tried-and-true way of dealing with the feeling of being a commodity and not a person of worth: a weekday afternoon matinee at a neighborhood movie house. I stuffed the burn and disgust with a large popcorn and complicated, fantasy plotline. It took a few hours to stop feeling like an interchangeable cog in a massive machine.

It took me five days to write about it without all of the emotions I was feeling ending in a keyboard thrown through a screen or a pad of paper scribbled and torn to shreds.

Please don't let this sort of experience make you feel like you are nothing more than dollar signs to a faceless corporation. I went through it and came out the other side of that far wiser and just a bit more calloused.

Yet not defeated.

I feel sorry for Sen. Jim Bunning

One Senator holding up continued funding of Unemployment benefits and causing a couple of thousand of Government employees to have to take furlough (no pay) days this week is frustrating, maddening and, in light of how our country has been for the past 18 months is just plain unconscionable.

Lots of bloggers, pundits, etc., are batting about guesses as to why Senator Bunning did what he did and had the bill he held up pass the Senate with 78 votes earlier this evening.

I just feel sorry for him.

He is retiring from the Senate at the end of this year. In my own limited experience, the outbursts, etc., have the feel of a teen with a bad case of senioritis or a long-term employee finding out he is being laid off at the end of the month with a shoddy (or no) severance package. Perhaps the man is suffering with his own physical health issues or is trying to manage with a major healthcare issue of someone he loves. I've had tastes of one and a sometimes-way-too-big helping of the other as of late, and that can really take a bite out of one's backside and wear one's nerves to their bitter end.

My hope is that the Senator can take the remainder of his term in the Senate enjoying all that comes with representing the state of Kentucky (a very pretty state which happens to be home to a dear friend of mine) and perhaps gathering his thoughts on a life full of success in professional baseball and public service.

Any more displays from him like the country witnessed these past few days will just serve to cause more talk about his last years and less appreciation for the decades that have led to this point.

Out of the closet

Like many others, I cannot help but watch TV news/opinion, read news websites and blogs and listen to the radio during breaks from the work day to find out if there is anything new to report from Haiti.

Much like I did with Hurricane Katrina and 9/11/01.

I've come awfully close to tears, then realize that all the cried tears in the world do nothing to help those who inch closer and closer to desperation and chaos.

Acting and speaking contrarily is not rescuing anyone from the ruins, it does not give someone who needs it a few sips of water, a swath of sterile bandage and a five-day supply of antibiotics.

Neither is giving those who are behaving so poorly an even brighter spotlight by grumbling over those words going to inflate a hospital or innovate, then construct, new means of ingress into Haiti.

I will say that after hearing and seeing the babble about the pact, I came as close as I dared to dumping Christianity as my religion of choice. Then, I considered the source and, with each passing day, he has less and less time on this world and has to reconcile himself with his maker sooner rather than later. He and his lot will take care of themselves and are nothing more than a gnat flying in our collective face on a lazy, roasting and damp summer afternoon on the East Coast.

How to be of help from where we are? HuffPo has a link to causecast.org where one can purchase supplies then have them shipped to where they are needed, just as soon as it can be sent.

What are the next steps?

• The Grameen foundation (see the badge on the left) has had a presence in Haiti for some time. How better to help someone by investing in their time and talent and giving them a basic education on personal economics, growing their small business and saving for their children's future.
• Make a note on your calendar to make a second donation to the charity of your choice two weeks from now and, if you are blessed with steady employment, see if your charity will accept a rolling donation, which draws a steady donation from you at regular intervals. Gifts are great, but reliable sources of income are invaluable to non-profit/charitable organizations.
• Clean out your closet.

Huh?

When supplies were pouring into NYC, Washington DC and, later in the previous decade, New Orleans, there were only so many ways to get to the cities and far too many trucks, boats, etc. that could drive/dock and unload. Supplies have had to have been turned away because there was no way to get those supplies to those who needed them.

By cleaning out your closets, you will discover what you need and what you can forego. Once your pile of "what you can forego" is completed upon your closet cleaning, donate what you can do without to those in your neighborhood who would appreciate having those things.

By donating to local charities, the local charities need to rely less on larger non-profit organization and government funding. The funding they receive can then be redirected to provide further aid to the people of Haiti.

It is not important that your box of hand-me-downs gets shipped across the country and through half of the Carribean. You stand a much better chance of having those gifts used where you are then where you want it to be used.

You get a more spacious closet. Someone else gets something so much more.

Afghanistan: If I can gather this much in 30 minutes. . .

 . . . then, well, I can just imagine how much our country's government must know about Afghanistan and they've had a lot of years and a whole building full of people dedicated to these sorts of things.  Unlike yours truly, who is still rooting around for more Metallica karaoke.

I'll start with an e-mail I got from a friend of mine directing me to Brave New Foundation's rethinkafghanistan.com website featuring a series of interviews (yay! all captioned!!) with professors from outside Afghanistan and representatives from the country itself talking about the futility of continuing our military engagement in Afghanistan.  

Now, I'm more of a lover than a fighter and, having lived for 3 years as a child outside of the U.S., I know first hand what is like to be a guest in someone's country and what sort of role an outsider should play in the host country's affairs.  Though this was 30 years ago, it seems most practical to engage in partnership to resolve problems rather than steamroll through someone else's countryside.

I noticed, though, a lack of military professionals in Part One of the videos (I will get to part two sometime soon).  So, using the search engine of this blog's kind host, I did a couple of simple searches.  Here was what I found:

• A bullet-point "how to conduct yourself as a foreigner wanting to do business" in Afghanistan.  It doesn't cover all aspects of life and culture there, but it's a good, quick primer.
  
• An article from the Montreal Gazette featuring insight from Brigadier-General Denis Thompson, former commander of Canadian and NATO forces in Kandahar.  The gist? The troops should be training local law enforcement to root out and arrest insurgents, thus letting troops exit the country.
  
• Another article featuring comments from General McKiernan, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, talking about the need for 17,000 additional troops.  This fits in with what the President is expected to announce on Friday regarding our future plans in Afghanistan.
  

Hmm.  Come to think of it, while I now have a thumbnail sketch of Afghan culture and two points of view on the military presence there, I only feel marginally smarter about any of this.

A couple of cliches come to mind as ways of coming to some sort of conclusion over our future plans there:

• Those who fail to read/study history are doomed to repeat it.  Perhaps an overview of previous foreign intervention into Afghanistan/Pakistan and/or that region of Asia would shed more light.
  
• Follow the money.  Who stands to benefit profit-wise from continuing the same course of action in Afghanistan?  Or, who stands to be sunk into unending debt?
  

Good thing others are working hard on this.  It's just about my bedtime here, anyway.

Here is what all the fuss is about: AIG

I almost got out of needing to write about the latest "we're all so ticked that the big fat cats at the ailing financial company got paid big time while us taxpayers got the shaft" story.

Then, as I was driving to pick up lunch, I was listening to Nancy Skinner.  (BTW, I REALLY miss Randi Rhodes on the radio.  Though, what I heard from Nancy Skinner today really helped me appreciate how much she has improved as a host in the past couple of months)

She played clips of testimony offered to (a subcommittee) earlier today by AIG CEO Ed Liddy.  The on-line audio/video isn't captioned, but this Op-Ed written by Mr. Liddy in yesterday's Washington Post is a pretty good encapsulation of what I heard on the radio.

Here's the most important part of what Mr. Liddy wrote on 3/17/09 (per the Washington Post) and what he said earlier today:

"Although (AIG has) wound down more than $1 trillion in the portfolio of the AIG Financial Products unit . . ., there remains substantial risk in that portfolio.

[snip]

To prevent undue risk exposure in the meantime, AIG has made a set of retention payments to employees based on a compensation system that prior management put in place (Mr. Liddy joined AIG in September 2008, well before the contracts were signed).  As has been reported, payments were made to employees in the Financial Products unit.  Make no mistake, had I been chief executive at the time, I would never have approved the retention contracts that were in place more than a year ago.  It was distasteful to have to make these payments. But (AIG) concluded that the risks to the company, and therefore the financial system and the economy, were unacceptably high."

The alternative would have been to tell these employees something like:

 "Look, we lost a heckuva lot of money last year and there's no way we can afford to pay out the retention bonuses now".   

At that point, the employees could have chosen to enforce the terms of the contract by retaining attorneys and suing AIG

  or 

they could have worked out an alternate agreement (i.e. pay the same bonus 6 months from now or pay half now and half six months from now or something else).

Somehow, the best thing to do was to write the checks then and there?  There was no one at AIG that could have offered some kind of incentive and/or a higher bonus for having to wait another 6 months or another year for that bonus??

Better questions:

What is going on at AIG that is worse than what is happening now which would lead AIG to think it better to pay the bonus now?  

What might the employees know and cannot say under a standard employee non-disclosure agreement that the retention bonus would help to keep silent?

Bag or loose-leaf?

Checking the e-mail and got an update from Pajamas TV.  America's favorite plumber-adjacent political pundit has filed a quick video from the site of a recent "Tea Party" in Washington D.C.  After watching the video clip, a number of questions came to mind:  How well attended was the "tea party"?  What was the protestors' agenda (or, how would they address the bank bailout/car manufacturer bailout/bad mortgage situation) ?

Best question: How closely does the spirit of this most recent "tea party" match the original Boston Tea Party in 1773?

In one sentence, the original Boston Tea Party sought to protest against the Colonies having to pay taxes on tea to Britain without receiving representation of its citizens in government.

Unfortunately, I could not find an unbiased report on the multiple Tea Parties which took place last weekend.  I did find a site which posted first-hand video from the same Washington D.C. tea party attended by A.F.P-A.  It speaks for itself.

This past weekend's "tea parties" tried to capture the spirit of the original protests.  CBS posted an opinion (yeah, I know . . cannot find hard news on any of this, so I'm stuck with opinion) piece on how last weekend's "parties" came about.

Outside of trying to capture the spirit of the original Tea Party, last weekend's gatherings veered very far off of the path of the original protests.

I can appreciate the feelings of homeowners who are now being asked, through an increase in our nation's deficit (money our country has to pay back at some point), to support efforts to stem further foreclosures.  My guess is that this feels a little like trying to help an obviously drunk driver immediately after the driver has caused an accident.

I just question whether the kinds of protests seen last weekend are going to provide an alternate resolution to the problem.  Left alone, as these protesters appear to advocate, more people would let their mortgages lapse, more foreclosures would happen, more involvement by law enforcement would be needed to enforce the evictions and banks/finance companies would take on a bigger burden of bad debt.

Who wins in that scenario?

Righteous Indignation: Sen. Bernie Sanders

I heard a small audio snippet overnight of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony to the Senate Banking Committee yesterday.  As these sorts of things go, the questioning and testimony is dry.  I mean Dry.   Dry like if you have been suffering with insomnia for days and tune in to C-SPAN to watch this you'll be out like a light in 10 minutes. I was even getting (*yawn*) sleepy typing these last few sentences.

Then, about 54:30 into the testimony, Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders begins almost six minutes of Q & A with Bernanke.

A portion of this Q & A's transcript can be read here, but to get a sense of the tone, best to head to C-SPAN.org's Video section then watch and listen.  There's no separate clip of Sanders' Q & A with Bernanke; however, the player makes it a little easier to click & drag the length indicator to approximately 54:30, then let it play for the next six minutes.

Makes me wonder why more of our Legislators are not listed as neither (R) nor (D).  

Can't wait for the next Brunch with Bernie on Thom Hartmann's radio show (it should be this coming Friday 12 noon Eastern/9 am Pacific).

Arnoldbucks

Sometimes, the inspiration to post here just falls into my lap.  This one came by e-mail and, as I have a laptop computer, it's almost the same thing . .

Kudos to the Courage Campaign who is elevating the snark to new levels by sending out today a mass e-mail to supporters (thanks to the protesting of the passing of Proposition 8, I am one of those supporters) with a goofy 67 second clip with a dude trying to pass off "Arnoldbucks" as real currency to a liquor store owner, a vending machine and others.

Doesn't matter to me if the clip was staged (that's my bet) or an actual submission, the point it makes is quite valid:  If California's Legislature and Governator cannot pass a budget to make up a 40 billion dollar shortfall, the state will eventually issue IOUs instead of money   California has done this once before and I received them in 1992 as I get slightly more than minimum wage as an IHSS worker .  The banks in California accepted those and treated them as if they were real checks.  I may luck out this time around, it seems, but many who rely on state funding may want to prepare.

So, you Californians who voted for Schwarzenegger, how's the California Recovery Plan from late 2003 working out for you?

 

Like a new car price sticker

Courtesy of CrooksandLiars.com, a column by Eric Boehlert has been posted at mediamatters.org about the estimated cost of tomorrow's Inauguration.  Check out the article -- I suggest careful reading of the last 25% of the article where the author illustrates the spin placed on the reporting of tomorrow's Inauguration versus the one we had four years ago, which was supposed to be a "scaled back version" of the one in 2001.

While both the sites above are best known for their liberal leanings, it is that last quarter of the article that cuts through all the hooey.

While I'm looking forward, as a political junkie, to all the events and decisions to be made this week, I am also looking forward to cutting through hooey as often as possible.  

I'll pledge to post something that stops the spin, the hype and whatever hooey gets shoveled out, no matter from what direction.

and, yeah, I'll have a couple more party tunes picked and posted.  Yeah-hoo !!! 

Crooks part 2

First, AIG's "retention payments".  Now, the Federal Reserve refused a request from Bloomberg News to release names of institutions who received around two trillion dollars in loans.

I wish Bloomberg News the best of luck suing to get this information pried out of the Fed.

So, now I've missed out on a $100 K to $1M "retention payment" and a huge loan of money from American taxpayers where I don't have to tell the press how much I got or what I put up as collateral.

Now all I need is a story about someone undeserving getting a 3000 square foot home two blocks from the beach and free groceries for a year and . . I'm all set?

Crooks and Justice?

While running errands earlier today, I heard on CNN (thank you, satellite radio!) that the primo business people at AIG had decided to pay "retention payments" to 168 management staff ranging from around $100 K to $1M.  This was even after they had asked from the government and received around $150B in loads.  The payments were meant to retain quality management staff at AIG for the coming year.

I could feel my blood begin to boil and my head swell and almost could feel steam pouring out of my ears like an old-timey cartoon!  As I'm driving around, I kept saying and singing about how, well, dishonest all of this seemed.

After searching for more info on this story, I found this article on a Congressman who is starting to ask some questions about all of this.  I have a deep well of optimism from which to draw, so I am hopeful that the inquiries will lead to something more and either AIG will somehow be compelled to rededicate the money they received to something else or to return to the government those monies meant for the "retention payments".

Then again, if you loan a friend money to help him pay his rent and he decides to spend the money you loan on lottery tickets instead, unless you had him sign something which would compel him to use the loan for rent, you really have no business being upset at how your friend spent the money you loaned.  You also would never loan money to him again and would do well to write off the loan as poor judgment on your part.