Browsing Craigslist is one of my favorite pastimes; I can scarcely sing its praises enough. The majority of bigger-ticket items in our home have been updated through Craigslist, along with some exquisite, one-of-a-kind antiques. Even if you’re not looking for anything in particular and not planning to purchase, it’s relaxing to browse–like an antique shop that’s open 24 hours a day. The marketplace beauty of Craigslist, of course, is that it simply provides a cost-free forum for buyers and sellers, then sits back and doesn’t get in the way.
With a member of my family (and a couple of acquaintances) out of work for the past few months, however, and using Craigslist as one resource for job hunting, I have to say that I’m beginning to have some reservations about the wisdom of a completely hands-off policy where job postings are concerned. Employers have enthusiastically jumped on the Craigslist bandwagon, and list there first, rather than paying to have their openings posted on Monster.com or other job-search sites, or for an ad in the Sunday newspaper. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Or at least, there shouldn’t be. However, since the economy has hit the fan and so many more people are out of work, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among the postings.
Because the employers are allowed to be completely anonymous and have no oversight at all (look what happened to the banks, mortgage lending, and the stock market without any kind of standards to meet), many are taking advantage of today’s larger pool of job-seekers not to actually fill a legitimate position, but as a fishing expedition to–in the very words of a couple of them–“see what’s out there.”
In the past few months, I’ve seen this repeated at least half a dozen times. An applicant’s resume is selected; sometimes a telephone interview is even conducted; the candidates who make that cut will be called in for an interview–which more and more often involves half a day or more meeting several interviewers, accompanied by an unhealthy dose of stress and angst–full of hope at a chance to restore their lives to even a reduced chance of normalcy (as pay plummets according to supply-and-demand, and applicants become willing to apply for positions for which they are overqualified). They will double-check their interview clothes, sit through rush-hour traffic, pay a ludicrous amount for parking in a downtown garage; and they will come away feeling they did so well in the interview that they couldn’t possibly fail to be called back. They wait a day and conscientiously send a thank-you e-mail to all of the interviewing parties.
And then . . . nothing. A week goes by, then two. Finally, the aspiring applicant contacts the human resources representative, who will either tell them cheerily one of the following variations: “Oh, you know, we haven’t really opened that position yet. We just wanted to see what’s out there,” or “You know, we really liked you, but we had a meeting and decided not to hire for that position,” or “We decided to fill that position from within.” No matter how they phrase it, what they are saying is, “there really wasn’t any job.”
All of the above are decisions that in human resources terms are simply irresponsible to have NOT been made before posting the position. While it may be some comfort to the candidate that they didn’t lose the position to another applicant, the employers’ ability to jerk the chains of the unemployed is wrong.
I’m not suggesting that Craigslist “get involved”–because that’s not what Craigslist is about. But I believe that Craigslist should require the employers to identify the names of their firms in their postings as part of their job-posting protocol, so that the job seeker knows where their resume is going; and secondly, that they should require the employer to check a box certifying that their posting is for a legitimate, open position, before they are allowed to publish their posting. Of course, they could just check that box anyway, or say that the situation changed after the fact–but the suggestion that it’s a way to make them accountable might give them pause and help to level the playing field. (I’m going to send this suggestion this to Craigslist.)
Any thoughts?
03.27.09
