By ARTHUR VIDRO
There’s a growing trend of companies saying they are unable to find enough workers. I believe much of their hiring difficulties are self-inflicted. If they’re serious about hiring, they can put a Help Wanted sign on their door and set up a display of one- or two-page job applications. That would work, but it wouldn’t satisfy the companies that insist on computerizing the process.
There are a lot of good workers looking for jobs who are not able to jump through the computerized hoops that companies set up for applicants. For instance, take the Post Office.
Can’t just hand in an application at your local post office, oh no, you have to go to the post office’s website, open an account with them, set up a password … in short, you need a computer. And not just any computer. It must meet certain technical requirements – Adobe reader 7.0 or higher; Internet Explorer IE 7-11; Mozilla Firefox; Chrome; or Safari. If your computer system is too old or different, too bad, you can’t apply. This requirement is for all post office positions. This disqualifies would-be applicants without computers and those with older computers.
Suppose you don’t own a computer but have access to one at work and want to apply, say, on your lunch break? Can’t. Post office warns you it will take 90 minutes (often longer) to fill out the application, which must be filled out in one sitting. That means you can’t use a public computer, such as at the library or the state employment center, where computer usage is limited by time.
Ninety minutes is a long time to work on an application. I wouldn’t protest if someone from the post office was giving up their time too. But that’s the point. Because computers shield employers from giving up their time, the companies no longer have any reason to limit the scope or length or reasonableness of the application process.
One longtime postal employee confided in me that if she had to apply using today’s method, she wouldn’t. The process is too demanding.
My friend Paul applied to CVS. Per company rules, he had to apply over the computer. He spent several hours applying and never heard back. It’s possible no human being even saw his application. The process, which to Paul was exhausting and at times pointless, spurred him to decide not to waste his time on ultra-lengthy applications anymore.
A lot of information asked for on job applications is ridiculous. I once tried to apply for a teller trainee opening at Claremont Savings Bank, on a computer in their main lobby, but had to abort the effort. The computerized application demanded the address and phone number of the college from which I’d graduated. I surprised myself by remembering the address, but the phone number eluded me. It was a phone number I had never dialed.
If this were a paper application, I could have left that line blank; but no, it’s a computerized application, so the computer keeps rejecting your application until you add the required information (which probably wouldn’t have been looked at anyway).
As proof of graduation, I would have been happy to brandish my diploma, but that didn’t matter to the computer. And suppose I did have the school’s phone number on hand? It would have been the phone number from when I attended 30 years prior and possibly no longer valid.
(To the bank’s credit, after I wrote a letter to its then-president pointing out this barrier in the application process, he replied with a kind note and promised to change the process so that phone numbers of schools would no longer be required. And he kept his promise.)
Some applications require a phone number for each place you previously worked, and the name of a supervisor who can vouch for you. But some folks don’t have references to list. If you’re trying to re-enter the work world after taking off a decade or more, then your contact information could be out of date or long forgotten. Or suppose you have no work gaps but your former supervisor was laid off, too. Or moved away. Or died. Perhaps the company itself went belly-up.
If certain information is not provided, regardless of the reason, your application is rejected. A computer doesn’t care that you can’t provide a phone number for a company that no longer exists. The computerized application process is unforgiving and heartless.
Last month my friend Paul saw a sign at a Hannaford supermarket announcing positions they were looking to fill. He asked for an application. He was referred to the company’s website.
He went to the website and tried to fill it out. But at one point the application demanded his Social Security number. Paul paused. Granted, an employer needs to know this number, eventually. But a prospective employer doesn’t need it. It should be revealed only when a job offer is made.
Paul values his privacy enough to know that by revealing his Social Security number as seldom as possible, he is protecting himself from the risk of identity theft.
But the darned computerized application wouldn’t relent; it demanded his Social Security number, wouldn’t let him skip the question, and barred him from submitting the application without including the number.
He consulted me. I suggested he print out the application, fill it in by hand, and attach a note explaining he’d give his Social Security number upon getting interviewed or hired.
He returned to the store to hand in his application but an apologetic employee told him no dice; they couldn’t accept paper applications, even if it was printed up from the store’s own website; only applications submitted through the website were permitted; and to send the application through the website he’d have to cough up his Social Security number.
So he didn’t apply.
Too bad. Not just for Paul, but for that store, and all the other stores that make the application process needlessly arduous and unforgiving to the applicants.
He would have been a much-valued worker.
If you have consumerism questions, send them to Arthur Vidro care of this newspaper, which publishes his column every weekend.
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