The other day while reading an article, I came across the term “Homers”. “Homers” is a term used by some recruiters to describe the unemployedoy
ed equating them to the fictional character Homer Simpson. He is the overweight, lazy, rude and incompetent father in a cartoon series.
There are some company recruiters who falsely view job searchers as justly unemployed. Before the recent economic downturn people were out of work because they were fired for sleeping on the job, stealing, or incompetency. However, that is not the case in most situations now. Many people were laid off because their entire department was eliminated, their jobs were sent overseas, or the company folded. Yes, there were some people who deserved to be let go, but the majority didn’t.
Some company recruiters stereotype job searchers and discriminate against the unemployed in hiring. Resumes submitted through the big board sites and career fairs drop to the bottom of the pile never to make it to the top because these resumes are thought to come from the unemployed and the unemployed need not apply.
The following is a list of the job searcher stereotypes some company recruiters believe to be true of all people looking for a job. And while some people fit the stereotype, most don’t.
Job Searchers are lazy. There are plenty of jobs available all they have to do is look and apply.
Job Searchers apply for any available job whether or not their skills match the requirements of the job. They fail to research the job and the position. The job searchers are required to send resumes to fulfill the requirements for unemployment. The result for the company recruiters is that they have to go through many resumes of unqualified candidates and only rarely find someone who is a good match for the position.
Job searchers submit resumes that are unprofessional. Candidates lie about their qualifications to match the job requirements they don’t have. Their lies are discovered when the applications they are asked to fill out don’t match their resumes. Many resumes have not been proofread to eliminate typos, grammatical and other errors.
Job searchers can’t follow simple directions. They fail to send requested information such as salary history. They try to get around the rules by sending their resumes only to hiring managers directly.
Job searchers haven’t kept up with the changes in their field and their skills are rusty. They have been out of the work force and don’t know the current technology. They will not be ready to hit the ground running because they will have to be brought up to speed.
Job searchers are rude to people below the hiring managers’ level. They are late for interviews, aren’t sufficiently , don’t have the things they need but have their cell phones.
Job searchers are stalkers. They call and email the company recruiters often. They fill up voice mail and email in-boxes with pointless questions about their status of their candidacy.
Now that you know what some company recruiters think of unemployed job searchers, you can avoid doing what annoys them. Take the Homer Simpson test, if Homer would do it, don’t. If you take a look at my earlier posts, you will find ways to counteract some of these opinions. Doing all you can to stand out in a good way will do more to get you the job than anything else.
