Hate Social Rambling: dead kennedys frightened rabbit hr human resources job interviews recruitment consultants
by Matthew
21 comments
Toad 2.0
Job Hunting – People Are Such Cunts
A friend of mine is suffering from an appalling time trying to find a job, and it’s hard to offer sympathy in that kind of situation, but I have been through this before, so I do have some idea. It took me almost a year to get my first job in what I trained to do and in that time I went through all sorts of stages of despair, vitriol, depression, rage, apathy, grim determination and all sorts of others.
At first I couldn’t even find where to even apply for jobs I could do so I ended up applying for dozens that I was neither all that equipped to do nor all that interested in, and I think it showed badly in the interviews.
Even when I eventually did find places I was qualified to work they would invite me to interviews, tell me how brilliant I was, and then say ‘Oh well, really we need someone with at least one or two years’ experience’ to which I just once replied ‘Well that’s interesting, because it says on my CV that I am a graduate with no experience, and just imagine – if you’d read it then you could have saved yourself all this time’.
Then, when I did get my first job it lasted only eighteen months, during which the 11th September attacks took place and the dotcom bubble burst. The result: redundancy. It took a further six months to get a job after this one, during which I was offered interview after interview and showered with compliments and never given a job. Worse, it was always ‘yes, really loved your stuff, we’ll be in touch some time next week’, then they never were and I ended up having to spend two weeks chasing them for the inevitable ‘thanks but no thanks’ that I by then knew was coming. Often it would be accompanied by ‘well we really need someone who can use Pro/Engineer software’. Again, even cursory glance at my fucking CV would have told them that I couldn’t use fucking Pro/E so why the fuck were they interviewing me in the first place? ‘Recreational interviewing’, I came to call it.
Then, whilst I was trying to move from London to Edinburgh so Mrs. Toad and I could be together, similar stuff started to happen – for almost a year. There are so few jobs in what I do up here that I ended up applying for a few too many that, although I could have done them, I didn’t really want. Again, the compliments flooded in, but no fucking job offers. And I developed a new hatred: recruitment fucking consultants. Honestly, what the fuck fucking use are these parasitical cunts? They’re like fucking estate agents in slightly more dingy suits. They have no understanding whatsoever of any of the jobs they are trying to fill, they have not the slightest shred of basic manners, they are fucking vacant as an empty barrel, and they seem to have the memories of fucking goldfish because they never, ever do anything they say they are going to. Burn the fucking lot of the cunts.
HR departments are no better. Name me a single place that couldn’t just take its HR department, fill it with angry bees, seal up the doors, and in doing so signally improve the efficiency of their business. They are worthless fucking leeches who achieve nothing, have no skills, not a fragment of understanding of the business in which their company is engaged and do absolutely nothing but hold regular meetings to explain to everyone what a crucial job they are doing. Burn them; all of them.
Frequently when job-hunting you have at least two layers of these vacuous fuckwits in between you and the person actually doing the hiring – the one who actually has the faintest idea whether or not you can do the job in question. I actually applied for a job once where the department doing the hiring went to their HR department, who went to an outsourcing consultancy, who hired a recruitment consultant who put an ad on a website, whose ads were aggregated by another website, via which I applied. Do the people who purchase products from this company know what an incredible number of worthless, talentless, pointless paper-shufflers the price of their medicine is supporting? I doubt it. Thank goodness for the efficiency of the free market.
If you think I am being harsh on HR people, try this quote from Luke Johnson, writing in the Financial Times earlier this year:
“HR is like many parts of modern businesses: a simple expense, and a burden on the backs of the productive workers”
Random internet ranter? No, he is on the Times Power 100 List and apparently masterminded the acquisition of Pizza Express before the age of 30 and is now in charge at Channel 4.
So Lizzie, I have every sympathy, really I do. I do have a pretty good idea what you’re going through, and believe my I would flay, fillet and barbecue these self-important, parasitic whores in a heartbeat given the chance. Nae brains, nae skills, nothing to offer; just fucking pointless the lot of ‘em.
The Dead Kennedys – Take This Job & Shove It
This is one of the reasons I am adamant that as long as I possibly can I will read, listen and respond to anyone who emails me with a copy of their music. People seem, when they are in a position to give or deny someone something they want, to turn into patronising, arrogant cock-smokers. They come out with shit like ‘Well, what you have to understand is..’ or ‘Well, I’m just so busy…’ or they just seem to take masturbatory pleasure in ignoring you, condescending to you and generally treating you with such completely meretricious attitudes of superiority that it makes me want to urinate in their ears while they’re sleeping.
I am not doing anyone a favour by listening to their music, and if I ever start acting like it, please someone punch me. A polite email saying thanks is not beyond anyone. Delete the emails from PR companies by all means, but if someone takes the time to contact you themselves with their stuff listen, decide and get back in touch. Show some fucking graciousness, and some manners. Being in a position of power over anyone says nothing about you as a person, and it does not make you better than anyone. And just because you’re finally in that position does not under any fucking circumstances mean that it is in any way ‘your turn’. You do not have to teach anyone ‘the way it works’ and being a cunt to someone is never a favour because ‘that’s just what they’ll have to get used to in this cut-throat industry’. I am not suggesting you should necessarily lie to someone, and I am sure that there will come a point where I can’t answer everyone personally, but if you are unnecessarily unkind or impolite or hurtful to someone who is asking something of you, then you are cunt, pure and simple.
Did I miss anything?
Frightened Rabbit – Be Less Rude
Wow. You’ve singed my nostril hairs with this rant. I’m sorry to hear the lovely Liz is having a hard time on the job front, though it’s only a matter of time of course. Have you tried gun-running, m’dear? Highly lucrative, and no SPSS proficiency required.
great stuff. i’m entirely over-qualified, under-qualified and resolutely long-term unemployed (hence all the blogging).
i recently got rejected from a teacher training course. the reason? although i have plenty of experience teaching a-level and higher ed, i haven’t taught at gcse or key stage 3. i was hoping to remedy this by, erm, going on a teacher training course. catch bleeding twenty two.
keep up the good work, mister toad.
Haha, great rant, and something I’m going through at the moment as the end of my degree fast approaches…
[...] am writing this one quick, because that unemployment rant needs to be shunted down the page pronto! Christ, sometimes I really need to remind myself that [...]
It’s awful, and the crowing on the part of the people you deal with is enraging. Not because they look down at you, as such, more that they are smug as fuck with themselves and flushed with the importance they feel they have attained. Wait until they leave work and run them over at the lights.
oh so bloody true. i found it was either: you haven’t got the experience (fine but where do i get the bloody experience) or having a Masters meant ‘we know you could do the job but you won’t stay.’ I remember grumbling to someone that ‘whilst the world doesn;t owe us a living, it’s frustrating when all you want to do is a earn a living.’ The call centres sucked my soul out of me for two years, got fired from media sales after three months (I had a conscience) and when i got to work in Fopp it felt like a dream come true.
Temping aencies i think are the only people you didn;t slag off -they suck too.
Great rant, as ever
Ed
Never worked for a temping agency Ed, or I’m fairly confident there might have been an egg sandwich or two aimed their way as well!
Oooh, I’ve worked for a temping agency many times before and I have a horrible feeling that’s where I might be ending up when I’ve finished this PhD…….
Joy of joys.
Or the female equivalent of Sir Ian McKellen’s high class wino in Jack and Sarah.
Oh god no! You poor girl. You must visit here often for emotional sustenance.
(Jack & Sarah made me want to kick someone in the bollocks. The resolution was ‘Yes I am a selfish prick but occasionally I will apologise, even though I’m never going to make any attempt to change’. Wonderful.)
Oh lord, this is the rant that hits home – I was unemployed until a month ago and went through all this same junk. Fifteen interviews in two months! I ruined my favorite dress with white-out during an editing test at one interview and still didn’t get that job. And a good portion of people made a point of saying how great a candidate I was and that they were positive I’d do wonderfully…elsewhere. I applied for a basic assistant job at a technology news website and gave them a resume with writing/editing experience because they wanted someone with an interest in publishing and journalism. Know what they told me? “You have a heavy editorial background and we’re looking for someone who’s spent more time as an assistant.” Why the publishing interest, then?! Fuckwits.
I actually found a great job after resorting to a temp agency, interestingly enough. The people at the temp agency don’t necessarily have it together, but if they serve their purpose you can end up at a good place and eventually out of the agency’s grasp.
Also, the end of your post reminded me that I might have forgotten to respond to a couple of bands’ emails! Crap, Toad.
Genius.
I suffered a few years back at the hands of a recruitment agency when I wasn’t even short-listed for something that almost everyone who was aware of my interest thought I’d be a near shoo-in…
I phoned up the recruitment agency and gave one of their ‘executive consultants’ the verbal equivalent of much of what you’ve written (used some swear words, but I dont think I called him a cunt).
Incredibly…..the same bloke phoned me up two weeks later and asked if I could assit him (for free) with some names of folk in my organisation who might be interested in applying for a vacancy with one of his clients…..
I genuinely did slam down the phone and go out of the building intent on going to the bloke’s office and akicking the shit out of him. But instead I went to the pub and called a friend who came round to calm me down.
Song by Toad, a Mr Agreeable for the noughties. Rant on you crazy amphibian.
[looks worriedly at the calendar and end of current contract in 6 months time]
Recruitment agencies, yes you are quite right. These dirty parasites live off the back of the IT industry and do their best to fuck everyone over. I was alas made redundant in the great 2000 IT bubble bust and after looking desperately for a full eight months was starting to give up hope. When one interviewer said that he really like my attitude and enthusiasm but wasn’t sure about my experience and offered me a trial three month period oh half wages, I was more than happy to accept. Imagine my surprise when the recruitment agency phoned up later to tell me that it was a no-goer, apparently they company didn’t think I would fit in with their team.
I phoned the company direct to find out that they had in fact asked to see me for a second interview but been told by the agency I wasn’t interested. I guess there’s not as much money in it for them when people accept jobs at reduced wages. Absolute bastards.
Currently I am stuck doing contract work with Computer Futures Solutions. After my first six months I told my company that I was thinking of leaving as I just wasn’t earning enough to get by. It was only then that I found Computer Futures were taking a 38% margin!
After three months having demanded a better rate, they decided they weren’t getting enough. They threatened to prevent me working for the client any more unless I was willing to take a cut.
Now I’m still tied to working through CFS. They took over six weeks to sort out my last contract, meaning I wasn’t paid all that time and there still seems nothing I can do.
Evil, pure evil. I wish them and those like them the very worst.
Anyway, all the best to everyone else 
Jesus, that’s the worst one yet. And to think I just hated them because they were idiots with no fucking manners!
Thoroughly out-ranted on my own site!
Ahh man,
This is completely spot on. I am busting my balls 9-8 continuing to absorb as many web technologies as i can and understand them. I ended up growing really comfortable with a physics engine which was out of my comfort zone but i assumed if i was component in this then it would prove i had a strong grasp of Actionscript 3.
Finding a job is just really unfair.
Dont get me wrong, i dont mind being told i dont have the skills or the ability to do a certain role…. ANYfeedback would be really welcoming but im getting no where.
ComputerFutures is the worst out of all the agencies. They never ever reply to me, regardless of what job i pursue with them…. never recieved an email out of about 25 applications for roles.
Also, one of the redeeming features of finding a job with the latest technology is that very few people (apart from Santino Boffina (sp?)) has any idea what Flash is. I seen a role that wanted APE physics understanding…. this was exactly what my skillset is apart from Box2D is 1000 times more complex and feature rich. I applied for the role instantly and clearly they didnt understand what i was telling them and they didnt even reply.
I can swear in my life though that had i been able to contact the employer directly and pitch to them… look im new but i am more than famililar with APE and more importantly, would like to say that i use the much more complex Box2D and believe i could show some ground breaking demos of my work….
then id have atleast been noticed.
The very truth of the matter is, i apply for any roles, even jobs i know i might not ever do… and the reason i do this is for a sanity check….. its like i am craving some kind of a recognition that i am alive and exist.
Right now i feel in a bubble, my life is pointless as i never have a penny to do anything with, i cant ask for advice from the job centre because the technology i work with is new and jobcentre or many other agencies offering advice… cant advise me and offer me completely unrelated advice. Agencies in general dont want to know, im wasting all my days infront of a PC with a single goal of getting a job, my friends and family must struggle to accept im not just a lazy cunt layabout…. but i have nothing to show them to prove im trying my hardest.
The last 2 days i applied for 9 roles and my inbox is still empty. And to be really honest, i met a guy at uni who dealt weed and had an amazing lifestyle because of it and im not far away for pursuing a career on the other side of the law instead. You can only try so hard every day and get slapped in the face for it for so long….
Ahh man I am dancing to the tune you are singing. I totally relate to what you say.
I’ve been going through this for nearly two years, and got nowhere. I must have had around 30 or 40 interviews in that time, if not more, in that time. The agencies have been completely useless. I’ve been lied to many times by them, and on two occasions it appears that the contact was working for themselves instead of the company, and then disappeared. I’ve had them mislead me on the actual location of a job many a time; I once agreed verbally to attend an interview in a particular town, only later to receive the full address via E-mail to discover that the job was actually based in a village several miles to the south and with no transport links.
Even applications via HR departments have been hopeless; I had an interview a few weeks back that I was a shoe-in for, but the only person to interview me was a non-technical manager who couldn’t answer anything about the job itself. He then handed me a sheet of technical questions to answer, only for them to be on the whole aimed at people already working for the company, as the questions were specific to particular customer’s needs. The rest of the technical questions were either extremely basic, or worded so vaguely they could have been answered in several ways. I wonder if he deliberately gave me the wrong set of questions?
I can’t believe how many tales of horror this post has managed. Fucking hell. And something tells me that the approaching recession will only make matters worse. I was unemployed during the post-dotcom bubble and it was fucking shite.
well i must say i was rather disgusted by this rant. i mean really. all you ‘old’ people know is how to rant i mean COME ON PULL YOUR SOCKS UP. this is the 21st century . i mean get with it. really. if you werent so bloody abhorrent you wouldve taken advantage of the market and invested a shilling or two and youd be tittering. like me. recession recshmesion as my dear pater used to say. keep everything liquid and watch as everyone else suffers. sorry dahling but thats the way the world is. dog eat dog. and consider your dog scoffed! hwa hwa. right. enough blogging. lifes tough enough as it is. off to inhale some country air. ‘ toad’.ha. how appropriate.
Thank You. You made my morning. I think I will get dressed and apply for some more jobs now.
I got here by googling people who work in hr are cunts. I now have full confirmation of my suspicions. You have experienced exactly the same level of Human Resourcefulness as I am currently receiving daily.
this is the best rant yet. and i sympathise and understand how your friend must be feeling. i went through something similar after completing my masters degree where I was either not experienced enough or “over qualified” – how the fuck can you be over qualified?!?! anyways, I spent my first 8 months in Edinburgh unemployed, alone during the day whilst the few people I knew in the city were working and feeling down right miserable and angry with life. it was a horrible experience – couldn’t even get a job in HMV!!!! and as for HR people – well my first job was a good place to work until they installed an HR department! evil, twisted fuckers who have nothing better to do than meddle and ruin people’s lives. certainly in my experience they are useless and yet hold so much power! it’s all rather confusing. and I agree completely, it’s good manners to reply to everyone who gets in touch with you and I certainly try to respond to all those people who take an interest in Trampoline. it’s what I hope sets me apart from other promoters, that I take the time to listen and respond – and I don’t do it full time so it makes me even sadder that the so called Big Promoters in Scotland have a tendancy to ignore e-mails etc. I better stop now cause I feel myself getting angry!