Mistakes In Advertising

First of to let me say merry christmas, yeah I know it's actually over now but like that matters. Hell they're probably selling stuff for next halloween right now so why can't I have a delayed salutation?

This time I want to point out some common mistakes I've seen in job advertising. Now I heard a statistic that 87% of jobs that people get aren't advertised, they're done via friends or cold calling... well I don't have friends and I prefer to call when it's warm so I usually rely on advertised jobs. Most of the time they're good but every so often I see frequent mistakes that would help them get more people advertising. I wonder how many of these you've noticed.

Name the name of the store: Sounds basic doesn't it? Rule one in the job seeking handbook, know where you're going to apply right? Well it would shock you to know how many jobs I've seen that don't even mention the name of the company? I saw one online recently that said it was for a big store in the sydney CBD, 1 day work on boxing day. It was a perfect job, I loved the idea of getting a 1 day job for the experience... such a pity that at no point in the entire advertisement was the company name mentioned. Every single job network going tells you straight out to research where it is you're applying so you know ahead of time what you're going to be doing, so how the hell are you supposed to research a company when you don't even know it's name?

Give me an address: Again a basic rule but again one I keep seeing forgotten. Some people don't have cars, some people actually care about the environment and use the public transport system... or they just don't have the resources to get a licence but that environment thing sounds better. These people need to know where you are before they apply, heck everyone wants to iknow where you are before they apply because they need to know if they can actually get there. Saying that you're in Sydney's CBD tells me nothing, the CBD is freaking huge and has about 4 train stops that surround it. Give me a physical address that includes a street, suburb and building number and in return I'll give you an informed applicant.

Don't put in pointless questions: I can understand "Are you highly motivated?" being a part of an application. I can accept "Are you energetic?" being somewhere in that ad. I will never however accept questions like "Do you have a love of paper?"... that's right, you read that right. I have actually seen a application that. Now I don't care that it's for a paper store no one who's legally sane loves paper, we like it and we appreciate what it allows us to do but it doesn't mean we love it. If you want to have someone apply for the job read over your advert first, if you giggle then change it.

Tell me what I'm selling: Am I selling Perfume? Good, let's go. Am I selling Foxtel door to door? Thankyou for the honesty, please go one. Am I selling a cool new product that will revolutionise how people look at wallpapering? There's about 8 things wrong with that sentence. Simplicity is key here, give me a brand name, the item i'm selling and leave me be.

How Much?: I know it seejm's petty but let's face it, no one is picking a job based on how much good they're going to do for the community at large. We want to know how much cash you intend to put in our hands at the end of an hour. It's not like it's privilaged information, it's incentive to apply for the job. Picking a job is like shopping, you look around and find the best value.

Advertise: You remember that earlier statistic of 87% I mentioned? That's insane. There are kids coming out of school who don't have any experience or connection and the only way that they're going to get a job is when they see one online between their porn sessions. If you have a job then advertise it, don't give it to your buddy because he might not be the one that need's the job most.

How hard is it to understand these basic concepts? I can't be the only one who thinks that they'd make things a lot easier for the advertiser too.

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"Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it." ~

Theodore Roosecelt

Competency Schmopetency

Just what is incompetence? How does one get to be called incompetent at their job? Is it because of a lack of customer service? Is it an attitude thing? Is it just because the person doesn’t complete the task that they’re paid to do? I know this might seem obvious but to me it’s an interesting question because no one can really define incompetence, we know it when we see it but I’ll bet you anything you want that if we were to try and go into specifics on the subject that no one would ever be able to give a clear cut answer.

Is it incompetent for a store clerk to not know where a certain section is? Or if a certain items on sale? Is a lack of knowledge about a new policy incompetence? Sometimes people just take a while to learn things, it’s not their fault it just happens. There’s some times when people get confused, again not incompetence but simple forgetfulness. These are people not androids... though an android serving you in Kmart would be the coolest thing ever. No these do not, at least in my mind, count as incompetence. Incompetence is simply the person ignoring you or not helping you in the way you require them to help you.

If you go into a store and asked for DVD’s and the person said “Oh you don’t want those, let me show you the power tools” then that would be pure incompetence right? They not only refused to listen to you but they tried to get you to do something you don’t need. Not only is time wasted but, depending on how you feel that day, you may need to create an airtight alibi and buy some powerful stain remover for the trunk of your car. If I come into your store and ask for something then that is what I want, and this goes across the workforce in general.

I go to a Job Seeker company regularly, their purpose is to help me in finding employment. If they find me employment they get paid so there’s a decent incentive for them but something has been telling me lately that they just do not have the ability to do that. Let’s just begin with my own personal cold hard facts.

In my life I have had 2 job networks, I will name neither because I don’t wanna get in trouble but I will say that in that time they have only gotten me 2 job interviews, one of which led to a casual position. Meanwhile on my own without any assistance I managed to get 6 interviews, 3 of which led to a short employment.

Something about this seems off to me, I’m doing a better job than the people who are paid to find me work.

But it get’s better, as I previously mentioned I had a course in job seeking that I had to do, one that provided no information that I could use and if anything it just wasted my precious time more than it should’ve. Well today I get a call claiming I needed to go in to sign for a form that should’ve been signed last Thursday, but no one told me to do it last Thursday so I didn’t do it. I always believe that you can’t sign for something if you don’t know you have to sign for it, so I went in and signed off. That should be the end of it, but it wasn’t. Upon me leaving I headed to get lunch, throwing out the booklet I had taken with me as I went because I didn’t believe I needed it anymore. The papers should’ve been with the person who was there but they apparently weren’t, in fact they called my house about ten minutes after I left. Now I don’t know about you but I need more than 10 minutes for lunch, I’m not superman and can’t go long distances in under ten minutes.

So now not only has this person lost my paperwork but they allege that I took it with me, something that makes no sense because who actually signs a form at a job network agency and then takes it with them? It’s pointless and offensive to even think that I’m that stupid, I can be but I wasn’t today. At no point did I take the paperwork with me and I mentioned that about 4 times on the phone, but I was ignored completely. Apparently they can’t make a mistake, the only one who can do that is the customer... whatever happened to the customer is always right? My only solace in this huge amount of incompetent idiocy is the knowledge that this stupid idiot that works there had to go off and look through the garbage bin outside where I got lunch.

So after this little story what is my point? My point is to prove that incompetence is simple, it’s ignoring what the customer says and going according to protocol. When you go out into the world I want you to look for people who are ignoring your requests, I’ll bet anything you like that they’re the same ones you call incompetent. Sad thing is, they’re just following orders from higher up. Incompetence is rewarded by the boss and the only ones to truly suffer is the people who come in to try and get some damn service.

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I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me ~

John Cleese

Answer A Difficult Question

Is conformity OK?

Pretty difficult right? Well I genuinely want to know if it’s OK to conform to what others want you to be, especially since I’ve always been told that it’s important to be yourself. Though haven’t we all? It’s one of the key messages in every childrens cartoon on the planet, be yourself and try not to chase that road runner.

Of course nowadays being yourself isn’t helpful when looking for a job. No nowadays you have to be a potential employee, being yourself just doesn’t cut it. You can’t walk into an interview dressed how you want to dress, you have to dress for the employer. You can’t talk how you talk, you have to use positive action words to make sure they hire you. You have to answer how they want you to answer in order to get the job. Something about this seems wrong to me.

I always believed that employers wanted to hire YOU, but how are they supposed to know who you are if you spend the entire interview being someone else? If you’re not going to go in and be yourself how are they going to know you’re the best person for the job? And what if some people aren’t that good at faking, those people are well and truly screwed.

Interviews in general piss me off, mostly because now that we have Job Network places the interview has become pointless. There are actually classes you can take to teach you how to ace the interview, which to me is comparable to cheating. It teaches you how to be a yes man, and I’m sorry but any job that requires a yes man is a job not worth doing. Nothing good ever came from yes men, Hitler had yes men and look how that turned out.

Sadly though the system is designed this way and there’s nothing I can do, but employers can. Any employer worth his salt would have to see people who are telling them what they wanna hear, it’s a basic skill a lot of people possess... it also helps us detect pure bullshit when we hear it. If you think someone is just telling you what you wanna hear then don’t hire them, they’re not the kind of person you’d want to work with.

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“Getting fired is nature’s way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place” ~

Hal Lancaster

Self Esteem, and why I can do without it

Who said self esteem was important? I always wondered why everyone needs to think positive and be happy 24-7... Sounds like hell to me. There are times in our life when we need to say "This is completely fucked" and be able to say it without some idiot going "That's not positive", if you want me to make my thoughts positive to make you feel better than I have a foot that I'd like to introduce to your ass.

Now I wasn't always this insane about Self esteem, I never really believed it but I didn’t think it was totally laughable till last Thursday. As I mentioned (I think) I am in the middle of a course on job seeking, it’s only 2 weeks long and ends tomorrow but believe me when I say it’s been the most pointless 2 weeks of my life. I’ve officially spent about 30 hours of my life doing something so pointless and stupid it’s hard to believe its government funded... OK so not that hard. The cherry on the cake of silliness came in a roleplay that we had to read through. Here it is, I haven’t changed a letter

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You are part of a space crew that has been sent on a mission to explore the universe. The space ship that you and your crew were piloting lost power and you have crash landed on the planet Kerrion. You know a little bit about this planet from previous expeditions and you know a rescue party will not be able to get to you for at least 20 days. You also know that you mst walk to the other side of Kerrion for the rescue ship to land. All your supplies floated off into the universe when you crashed. Your crew has been confined inside the craft for a long time and a lot of things have gone wrong on this mission. This has created a lot of negativity among the crew and many have low self-esteem due to name calling from others and the fact that they have made mistakes that have caused many problems on this mission.

Of all the planets in the universe to crash on, you crashed on the worse one. From previous reports about this planet you know that if anyone thinks a negative thought or says a negative thought out loud terrible things happen. One of your crew has already made a negative comment and a big ray of light appeared from nowhere and zapped him away, so you know that negative thoughts and statements can cause a loss of life. You have started to make your way to the rescue point and have been walking for days but every time someone in your group has a negative though tey are instantly zapped back to where they started and have to start all over again.

You cant possibly survive without food or water and the only thing edible on the planet is slinmy green worms. The only fluid you will have to drink is the orange blood inside the worms. Yuk!

How will you change the negative thoughts that each team member has to positive thoughts?

To get the remaining members of your team to the rescue site, they must turn all negative thoughts and comments into positive thoughts and comments.

- How can you boost the morale of all members so all thoughts are positive?
- How will you motivate yourself to remain positive?
- How will you encourage each other to get over the feeling of failure associated with the trip?
- What positive affirmations and thoughts could you use to help your team survive?
- What positive thoughts or actions could you use to help your team survive?
- What positive thoughts or actions can change the teams attitude to having to eat the slimy worms?

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How on earth is anyone meant to learn anything from eating slimy worms? Is this job seeking or a new version of survivor? How exactly will this hypothetical help me in gaining employment in any way? So far all it’s done is give me hope, the idiot that wrote this has a job... I expect 4 by the end of the month.

So how on earth was I meant to answer this? How could I have looked myself in the mirror and said I was honest to myself. yes I could've easily toed the company line and answered the way I know they wanted but damnit that's just not me. I have here my actual answers, the real things that I handed in and, best of all, got marked off.

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a) What steps will you as a team decide on to boost the morale of all team members so all thoughts are positive. Kill them all, then I only have to worry about myself

b) What steps will you as a team decide on to motivate each member of the team? Not applicable, all dead

c) What steps will you as a team decide on to encourage each other to get over the feeling of failure associated with the trip? What part of all dead don't you understand

d) What positive affirmations and thoughts could you use to help your team survive? Can't survive if you're dead

e) What positive thoughts or actions can change the teams attitude to having to eat the slimy worms? Corpses can't eat

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If you can't take something seriously, don't bother faking it.

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"I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everyboy to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs" ~ Samuel Goldwyn

Day 1: I start a blog

Morning started like most of them do, I got up and wanted to go back down again.

Lately I've been suffering the same illness that 5.8% of the population suffer from and that number seems to rise by the day... I have unemployment. This isn’t a condition I wanted or looked for, I took all the needed precautions and made sure I did everything I could to fight it off but it hit me anyway and it hasn’t let go.

To date I’ve been unemployed for about three years, I didn’t choose it and I didn’t want it. Every week I fill out application forms, cover letters, copy resumes, ask for work, go to meetings and even take classes just to get a job. I’m not unemployed cos I’m lazy, I’m unemployed cos I’m an unlucky son-of-a-bitch... no offense mom.

It’s not to say I’ve been completely unlucky, since my last proper job there’s been about four job interviews and three small jobs that lasted under three days in total.

~ One I was on a trial basis, 3 days to make sales of a product I’d never heard about at a price that even I thought was unreasonable to people who were preparing for work or in one case a funeral... oh and I was never told how many items I had to sell in order to keep the job.

~ One was work experience at a book store, I wish it had amounted to an actual job but hell at least I tried.

~ One was for one day and even that felt like it was too long. I can’t mention the company name due to a contract I signed but I will say that at no point during the job interview was I told the job would consist of 12 hours straight walking up and down hills selling pointless crap door to door. Now I know walking is a good thing, but not for a guy who’s about 30kg overweight and especially not at that level. Oh and did I neglect to add on the part about it being a commission based job?

If I could have a job I could do that would be lovely but then again I am the man McDonald’s rejected. That’s right, out of all the teenagers in all the world that apply for a job at McDonald’s every single year I’m one of the few that’s too inexperienced for them.

Something is messed up there, that a normal guy with a good brain and the ability to learn important skills fast is unable to hold down a job. Meanwhile there are people who make money selling air guitars on eBay. People can enter contests to see who can eat the most hot dogs and get on TV. A woman sold a sandwich with the picture of the Virgin Mary grilled onto it for $28000 and goes around touring with the edible deity... and I can’t get a job flipping burgers for $7.22 an hour.

If only there was a job tailor made for me, one that was intended to be my life’s work... well OK there is but I have no idea who to contact to be Jenna Jameson’s G-string.

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“In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.” ~ John Ruskin