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I agree with Mark Seibold's submittal and have suffered a similar removal from the work force and lock out by its hiring procedures. I would like to extend the jist of Mark's comment to include an overlooked, yet profound reality, in the hiring process of most businesses.

The hiring process is illustrative of the adversarial relationship between the employer and the employee. With the job application procedures to seek out every snippit of possibly negatively suggestive information, it claims to be seeking an employee who has the attributes that the employer is not displaying in their employment process: Team player, go the extra mile, loyalty, works well with people, knowldegable, willing to accomodate work hours, creative, thinking outside the box, submissive, competence and so forth. These are attributes sought by employers but not shared by them.

I have applied for work since arriving in Portland one year ago and I am well qualified experiencially but I am not able to convey it to prospective employers because their application schemes are designed to remove me for qualities that have no relationship to the productive aspects or competence that I acquired in the reality of my work experience. I have not been able to even land an initial interview.

I submit that employers should shift their employee search mentality and procedures to devise and use strength based questions instead of personal questions presumed to predict posible "future failings". Indicative of the unlikely ability of employers to make this shift is the business world's move to out-sourcing their personell officer functions and responsibilities to agencies that are incapable of correlating the competences of the applicants to the needs of the position sought. 

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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