Have you been on the job boards lately? Are you asking yourself the same question as so many of my friends and colleagues? What happened to just submitting a resume or CV to a hiring person? Big data has happened. Data that can be bought and sold to build databases, that can be repackaged and bought and sold again and again.

The Human Resources Machine

A lot of large companies have begun to incorporate hiring into a new form of consumable product. Even if they don’t hire you, or would ever consider hiring you, they still have a collection of valuable data. For example: They have your verifiable email which they can build into a sales or promotion list. Depending on what information they have requested and what information you’ve granted (please fill out all fields with the *) they can be very creative in their use of this information. In fact they can even sell it to other Human Resources (HR) or Recruiting Agencies in bulk and turn nothing for you (aka your job hope) into something for them. Start asking yourself honest questions next time you fill out a job application on a website. Does this employer need to know this information in order to screen my application??? Is this relevant to the position i’m applying for? Sadly, most people will obediently fill out everything they can – because they really need a job! Who cares where this information goes! The need outweighs the logical reservations you may have.

I’ve also submitted for job positions and been contacted by that company to come to a job fair to meet some of the current staff, to have free hot dogs and to see all the current in-store specials and promotions they are running. Unfortunately, that led me to question whether the job position was real or just a way to get people in their store. If it was just the latter, that poses an ethical problem for me.

The Recruiting Agency

More and more jobs are being outsourced to recruiting or hiring agencies. Why? The recruiters say because companies don’t have the time to hire or fire or manage their employees. Or they don’t have the willpower. Or the resources. Or maybe they can skirt labor laws, or save money. Be assured it has nothing to do with helping you.

When you apply for a job that’s been offered through a recruiting agency you’ll almost always get a call back asking you to come in and meet the recruiter. So away you go, spending your time and resources to get there. When you arrive you will be asked to fill out a bunch of forms and paperwork so they can help match you with potential employers. Wait a minute – didn’t I come in to talk about a specific job position?? Then you’ll get a customary 5 minute interview with a real person. This is so they can make notes about you and add it to your file. Yes – you’ve now become a file number.

The next step will be to contact you about limited time position (1 day -1 week) that has nothing to do with what you’ve applied for. That’s the test. These companies have a lot of jobs that nobody can keep filled because it is very limited and temporary, so they use the newest recruits to see how bad they want to work. If you say no, sorry this is not what I’m looking for, then you risk going on the black list for the job you actually want, the job that they hold power over. This is simply an abuse of power that goes on all the time.

Recruiting agencies have the resources to seduce these businesses into letting them handle their employees in order to save those business’s money in deductions. Pensions, RRSP, Dental, Health, etc – All gone for you. Sorry. It also can keep you labelled as “temporary” in case they need to quickly downsize and/or just let you go. I won’t even get into how this can skirt Unions. Win/Win for them.

I have noticed more and more corporations – global corporations – with huge internal human resources departments hiring local recruiting agencies to fill jobs for just these purposes. The middle man has inserted himself to lower your wage and benefits to no benefit for you. Something needs to be done about this.

Employment (Job) Websites

Whenever you join an employment website they want you to fill out identity profiles, upload your resume, CV, cover letters. So you do. Over and Over. Monster, Workopolis, Indeed, Dice, Glassdoor. Read the terms of agreement closely, you might be surprised what information rights you give up by submitting this information.

Indeed.com was sold in 2012 to a Japanese firm for $1 billion dollars. In 2016 Indeed.com hit a record 200 million unique visitors. Make no mistake, your unemployment is big business to someone.

Sadly the quality control on these sites is very rudimentary. How many of these jobs have been verified as actual positions to be filled versus pure data mining sites. Have you ever clicked on a job ad and been served a survey? And then this survey goes on and on, for as long as you’ll continue to supply information.

Most employment websites also re-post the same job over and over to make it look new and keep their numbers up. A lot of smoke and mirrors go into these websites. They all use similar systems and share the same job postings, and most employers post the ads on multiple sites.

For the first time today I noticed something new when I looked on Careerbeacon.com in researching my blog. They had some ads posted by an anonymous confidential source. They want you to submit your resume and cover letter through Careerbeacon for job positions – but aren’t telling you who the employer is. Is this a new trend they want to promote? What if you don’t want to work for that company or don’t want them having your information? How can you verify it’s even a legitimate job posting?

Linkedin

Did you know that Linkedin was founded 2 years before Facebook? Mind blown. Have you ever asked yourself – what is the purpose of Linkedin?

One of the purposes of Linkedin is to boost B2B (business to business) marketing (helping you). The other is for recruiting purposes (helping them). When Linkedin went public in 2011 it introduced “Talent Pipeline”. This is to allow job recruiters to go after “passive talent”, people who may already have jobs but may be interested in your offering.

In just 1 quarter (3rd) of 2014, Linkedin made 345 million from recruitment services sold to both professional recruiters and employers. How much did your linkedin profile make you during April, May, June of 2014?

Conclusion

There is a lot of money being made from general unemployment through employment services and data mining. For those that follow my blog, you know I don’t usually weigh in with such a strong opinion but something needs to be done to stop the clear exploitation of the unemployed. The information you supply is YOURS. There needs to be a way for YOU to in some way profit from sharing it, and the companies that deliver these job postings need to be held to higher standards to verify and protect you and your information.

Taking down the 5th Column (Series)

January 2 – 2018

Enjoying Blogs from The Idiot Savant? PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE THIS POST! Follow us Daily! and/or submit a topic you’d like to see blogged about. Twitter: https://twitter.com/MyIdiotSavant Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyIdiotSavant/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/MyIdiotSavant