Unemployment Chronicles: I Hate Them All

Those were pretty much my thoughts when I went to bed last night, and only a little less so this morning, but today was an unusual day in a good way, so I don't hate them quite so much now.  Still, I will never really trust them.

There was an incident yesterday that is typical of too many of my interactions with the world.  I filled out a job application for a King County accounting position, a job which pays between 60% and 70% of what my last job paid, a job for which I am -- avoiding the "O" word from my last post -- more than very well qualified.  It was one of those annoying applications, where they want your resume, then they want you to repeat all of the employment information and school information and other stuff that's on your resume on the application, so it takes a long time to fill it out, but I did it.  I thought that maybe King County would be more open to hiring an overqualified person than corporations are, I'm not sure why.

I got a response yesterday evening saying that thanks for applying, but all applicants who did not meet the minimum qualifications were eliminated from consideration, better luck next time.  WTF?  Didn't meet minimum qualifications?  I went back to the requirements to see if there was really some requirement I did not meet, and there it was.  They had asked about my Excel skills, and I had answered Intermediate, because I had used all of the intermediate features they listed and only 3 of the 5 advanced features (not the Solver or Macros.)  And they wanted advanced Excel skills.

And this is pathetic, because although I do not know every feature of Excel, my skills are very good.  I have been using Excel for about 25 years most days at work, and I know what I'm doing.  Let me make a few estimates:

Odds that I would have struggled in that job due to my inadequate Excel skills:  1 in 300.
Odds that most of the people who did meet the minimum requirements are actually stronger Excel users than I am: Approximately zero.
Odds that the person who gets the job is a stronger Excel user than I am: less than 50%.

And yet I'm kicking myself for not noticing that requirement.  Stupid Dennis, you should have lied.  Everyone lies.  But I answered the question literally and honestly, and that just won't do.  And so much of my interactions with corporate America (and now even the public sector) seem to go this way.  No one even looked at my resume; a computer spit out my responses and flagged one, and that was that.  Someone wrote that requirement even though it is almost certainly more than they need, and now they can check a box and say that they eliminated my unqualified resume, and only people who overstate their qualifications, or are true experts in Excel, will be considered.  It doesn't make any economic sense.  Instead it's arbitrary, uncaring, inefficient, and just stupid.  It's what big organizations do, and it clashes with my personality.

Then today I received calls from three different recruiters, two with possible jobs that could start soon, and the other wants to meet me tomorrow.  So I don't hate them all quite so much anymore.  For the moment.