This post starts with a surprise email from Adecco (UK), that "international HR company", and it made me speculate, that all the while, l was looking for work online, l was conversing with Adecco (UK). They contacted me because of regulatory changes.
I have had a jaded relationship with online job portals. While l had attempted to "join" Monster from Cyprus in 2012, looking for work, all my job applications never got answered, and l stopped seeking work sometime in late 2013.
After the intriguing email, l asked Adecco, l mean l had to beg Adecco to send me my profile. It contained a lot of interesting information, such as how many applications l had made (a lot...), and from where, etc... It was a pretty comprehensive profile.
The profile indicated that Adecco (UK) first registered me in 2015, when l began to look for work online, through both several different Belgian and Luxembourgian website, and continued to track me when l went to Scotland, and even recently in Cyprus.
While l have become quite cynical about online job hunting, it made me think, that while l "knew" that companies were "outsourcing" their HR head-hunting to outsider firms like Adecco, the whole process may not be that simple or straightforward!
What l learned from the Adecco experience, was it was like joining social media, without knowing you are joining social media! I don't have any social media accounts as l dislike them, for that very reason. Seemingly l got duped... Monster, Adecco, and what-not are essentially social media services.
During my brief conversations with "enlightened" HR staff, Adecco and like minded firms act as an intermediary, a slues-gate, to ensure that company HR is not "overwhelmed" by job applicants as happened in the 1990s, these websites do far more. They are Facebook in disguise!
I have had a jaded relationship with online job portals. While l had attempted to "join" Monster from Cyprus in 2012, looking for work, all my job applications never got answered, and l stopped seeking work sometime in late 2013.
After the intriguing email, l asked Adecco, l mean l had to beg Adecco to send me my profile. It contained a lot of interesting information, such as how many applications l had made (a lot...), and from where, etc... It was a pretty comprehensive profile.
The profile indicated that Adecco (UK) first registered me in 2015, when l began to look for work online, through both several different Belgian and Luxembourgian website, and continued to track me when l went to Scotland, and even recently in Cyprus.
While l have become quite cynical about online job hunting, it made me think, that while l "knew" that companies were "outsourcing" their HR head-hunting to outsider firms like Adecco, the whole process may not be that simple or straightforward!
What l learned from the Adecco experience, was it was like joining social media, without knowing you are joining social media! I don't have any social media accounts as l dislike them, for that very reason. Seemingly l got duped... Monster, Adecco, and what-not are essentially social media services.
During my brief conversations with "enlightened" HR staff, Adecco and like minded firms act as an intermediary, a slues-gate, to ensure that company HR is not "overwhelmed" by job applicants as happened in the 1990s, these websites do far more. They are Facebook in disguise!
In the 1990s, company's naively posted actual management staff addresses online, and so many emails were sent to corporate big shots and HR that they could not cope. Or so they say. I have a IT team builder / trainer gig in another city, and there the emails on their corporate websites, are received in a separate inbox, that management occasionally takes a look at, and replying to belatedly.
Being a Web 2.0 application, Adecco and such firms allow companies to operate multiple customer facing services and systems. I "confirmed this idea", with my own HR contacts, some of whom have been working since the 1990s, when the "internet revolution" took off.
They told me simply, that since the 2000s, companies like Adecco ensure that, "...we (HR departments in particular) can go about our business as we see fit, and can communicate to the outside world, but not allow outsiders in..." I then got them to tell me that, the board of directors and managers endorse these practices, as, "...It ensures that companies can continue their 'traditional hiring practices', while ensuring we can give the impression we are customer facing...". Another answer was, that corporate HR do not deal with the flood of potential job applicants.
My impression is that social media, has actually made people more isolated and insular, as they don't have to make an effort to communicate with the outside world. I have begun noticing that in the past few months, with the IT firm gig, where management are completely aloof of the outside world.
Well l know somebody at Adecco locally here, and l actually l got access to my profile, through an internal request, and with the support of Adecco HR staff. Try asking Adecco directly for your profile per email, you will get nowhere. I should know... Even with the threat of a court order.
What l have learned, as l am not an IT guy is that many social media companies on the internet "operate in mysterious ways", and that their operations, especially in countries that adhere to the European Court of Human Rights, are less than legal. They are simply undermining human rights.
On another profile, from an Adecco "friend", it seems l discovered something quite disturbing as it is interesting. I am listed as a graduate on the Adecco website. Where-ever l look for work l get the single response, "...you have no (legal) work experience, we can't hire you...".
I have seen profiles of other graduates who did find work. It had nothing to do with graduates lack of "work experience", as graduates are likely not to have any work experience. To be curt, graduates generally don't need to have a stellar CV's, good grades, or work experience, because those are a rare breed indeed!
What you need is someone 'in the know', and an insider who can pass your CV through to the "right person", generally not in HR. HR people don't really hire you, it seems in many firms. From the names, of those lucky graduates, it was clear, that generally their names matched those of staff names in middle management or technical staff.
As a social media firm, it seems Adecco also collects company information about affiliated Adecco companies when they hire graduates outside the Adecco system. Hiring online is a "system" a "scam" if you would like to call it that. Simply put Adecco ensures that companies can go on, with their traditional work practices while Adecco reciprocally collects information about their HR practices, to "better target" future employment opportunities (or so they say!). It may explain why why since the 1990s it has become "harder" for graduates to climb the job ladder.
While l don't know this for sure, having talked to HR marketing people (yes they truly exist, there are jobs in that sector, but don't bother try finding them on Monster of Indeed, a lot of the HR industry is kept hidden in plain sight!). Adecco gets in exchange, the "right" to publish job applications most of which are actually false, to collect data about specific industries and skills. While l question the validity of the data, and its use, l understand it has good "marketing potential", in targeting dumb graduates and dumping them, into applying for work.
While it is true, that Adecco does help companies find people with the "right" education and industry work experience, there is much more to this whole system than meets the eye. On face value, lets assume that as Adecco acts as a social media driven filter / slues gate, it may explain why many of the graduate job applications never get answered, and why so many graduates view job portals as Monster and Indeed as "fake".
When gradautes apply for an online job, they are actually making a profile with firms like Adecco, and then graduates are guided and bombarded with fake job offers, to which require spending several days rewriting CV's and cover letters, to better "match" their profile to the job. These are word games, and honestly l have done this many a time. Guilty as charged! I think Adecco does a great job at helping companies dig out potential employees, so kudos to them!
What must graduates do? Get of social media and stop using websites as Adecco, Indeed, Monster and the many others that seem to be scamming graduates. Its back to the pre-1990s, when the Internet was "new" and companies naive: Graduates need to have the RIGHT internal corporate email addresses to communicate with HR and management, and bring their profiles to the attention of the right people within the firm.
As l stated before, l have come to the belief, while we have improved, instant and globally pervasive communication technologies and systems, since their emergence, firms, have used these to become ever more isolated, like islands in the main information streams that string our fragile global social fabric together. Internal emails and telephone numbers is like having insider information. Such information is generally well guarded, and in many cases, where one to get your hands on such, it would be "illegal". What l say here l must say carefully. Firms like to hide themselves in plain sight.
While l had intended to reserve the next section for another post, due at some future date, l think it has, in part to do with ingrained organizational cultures and mentalities. While l have a fearful and meek relationship with management and especially my "boss" who is a thug, at the IT firm, l have asked and picked up many a thing about how firms perceive "graduates".
I personally think there should be a change in the law in many European countries. Graduates need affirmative action to join the world of work. Companies should be encouraged to hire graduates on short term schemes; why don't they? The obvious answer seems to be that they have "enough staff". The answer may be less straight forward, graduates have a reputation, that l think they don't deserve.
Here is an answer, you all may like - companies are "resistant" to hiring graduates, because they are "perceived to be a pain in the rear end" as one manager told me, and the "preference is for people like yourself, educated but insecure... we want people on the cheap, on short term contracts...". I asked these questions to my boss at my current gig, and he was of the opinion, that "graduates need to go through the meat grinder, as they are unprepared... There are a few l would like to kick and beat up".
While l "officially" work one day a week at a IT company, in another city, l find it strange that companies are hiring graduates like myself on very unfair, if not disproportionate contracts, while we are actually "working" and not "interning", and are deliberately kept out of their organizational culture, and intentionally made to feel like second class citizens.
Its very frustrating to be part of the generation "failure to launch / out by lunch(time)". I currently have a gig job / a flex time job / a black part time job, that is going nowhere. My gig is that of an IT team trainer / part time HR assistant who like a secretary answers calls, and escalates them onto higher ups or to their outsourced HR department.
My current gig's employer makes around 5 million EUR a year in profits, and employs less than 60 people, in Cyprus, and more abroad. The company is a very "modern" firm, in that it has outsourced its HR, to another local company here. My monthly salary for four official days of work, and 15 unofficial days a month is 0.00003 of their declared after tax profits. Typical douche-bag employer.
I work "black", l am off their books, and hired as a "consulting agent", l have no job security, and my salary for four days of work a month is the tuppence l mentioned above. I can't find a better job, l have tried, believe me, l have tried to find work. Where-ever l go in Europe, l am deemed "under-desirable", because l believe in Europe, there is a lot of employment racism. However, after seeing how complex the whole jobs online scam is, l am reconsidering that.
Getting back to me, myself and l, the thing / person l quietly despise, as l hate egocentricity. I work like a half baked consultant / support worker. Cynically the consultancy work means that a great part of my employment duties, apart from working "illegally", are mostly conducted by "distance ", at home through a dedicated corporate communications "hard line", meaning l am actually working for their firm, when l access that terminal, but am not in the office. They don't pay me social security, and l get paid every two months. Like a high school kid, l have "home work", for those other three days a week, sometimes four, while l am not officially in the office. I am free-lancing.
Its a scam, and the governments are looking the other way, and l count myself lucky, as l know many who, after graduating as undergraduates from "uni" are working in supermarkets as check out clerks.
It has been very hard finding "real work", as employers don't want to hire you legally.
I am dissatisfied with the salary not with the work. I actually work more than half a week, and these are 7.5 to 8 hour work days. I do real work, spending half my time, communicating and updating different teams about their training, then preparing reports and schedules, getting training materials prepared, and evaluating each team and their locale's feedback. Making reports to HQ and local management alike.
I have to wake up early, and while l generally work from before dawn, due to different offices being in different time zones, till just afternoon, the work is sporadic, and chaotic, its me running behind others to get them to hand in their worksheets and reports. Its dealing with chaos. I don't have the resources and time to fulfill all the coordination tasks l have to do, and l acknowledge l need to know more about project management and budgeting. However my employer has not provided me with that training. When l asked for support, l was threatened by a director.(I was strangely enough not fired - no Cypriot would work for so little, and put up with them).
Sometimes during the afternoon l get a call, be ready for an evening meeting with Mr X. I oblige. I feel that l am being taken advantage of, and that l am working for free. On top of that l have to deal with arrogant and irate regional management staff, angry IT staff, and by bosses' devious management team. It feels like l am a vessel for their useless political machinations! I have become a cynic, cold, distant employee. On the face of it, l have to constantly be diplomatic and friendly, while getting shouted at all the time. I am begging them to do their work, and complete the training. They like me begging. I have no one in management to turn to. I am totally isolated. I am trying hard to escape this gig...Running to where? I don't know...
Here is an answer, you all may like - companies are "resistant" to hiring graduates, because they are "perceived to be a pain in the rear end" as one manager told me, and the "preference is for people like yourself, educated but insecure... we want people on the cheap, on short term contracts...". I asked these questions to my boss at my current gig, and he was of the opinion, that "graduates need to go through the meat grinder, as they are unprepared... There are a few l would like to kick and beat up".
While l "officially" work one day a week at a IT company, in another city, l find it strange that companies are hiring graduates like myself on very unfair, if not disproportionate contracts, while we are actually "working" and not "interning", and are deliberately kept out of their organizational culture, and intentionally made to feel like second class citizens.
Its very frustrating to be part of the generation "failure to launch / out by lunch(time)". I currently have a gig job / a flex time job / a black part time job, that is going nowhere. My gig is that of an IT team trainer / part time HR assistant who like a secretary answers calls, and escalates them onto higher ups or to their outsourced HR department.
My current gig's employer makes around 5 million EUR a year in profits, and employs less than 60 people, in Cyprus, and more abroad. The company is a very "modern" firm, in that it has outsourced its HR, to another local company here. My monthly salary for four official days of work, and 15 unofficial days a month is 0.00003 of their declared after tax profits. Typical douche-bag employer.
I work "black", l am off their books, and hired as a "consulting agent", l have no job security, and my salary for four days of work a month is the tuppence l mentioned above. I can't find a better job, l have tried, believe me, l have tried to find work. Where-ever l go in Europe, l am deemed "under-desirable", because l believe in Europe, there is a lot of employment racism. However, after seeing how complex the whole jobs online scam is, l am reconsidering that.
Getting back to me, myself and l, the thing / person l quietly despise, as l hate egocentricity. I work like a half baked consultant / support worker. Cynically the consultancy work means that a great part of my employment duties, apart from working "illegally", are mostly conducted by "distance ", at home through a dedicated corporate communications "hard line", meaning l am actually working for their firm, when l access that terminal, but am not in the office. They don't pay me social security, and l get paid every two months. Like a high school kid, l have "home work", for those other three days a week, sometimes four, while l am not officially in the office. I am free-lancing.
Its a scam, and the governments are looking the other way, and l count myself lucky, as l know many who, after graduating as undergraduates from "uni" are working in supermarkets as check out clerks.
It has been very hard finding "real work", as employers don't want to hire you legally.
I am dissatisfied with the salary not with the work. I actually work more than half a week, and these are 7.5 to 8 hour work days. I do real work, spending half my time, communicating and updating different teams about their training, then preparing reports and schedules, getting training materials prepared, and evaluating each team and their locale's feedback. Making reports to HQ and local management alike.
I have to wake up early, and while l generally work from before dawn, due to different offices being in different time zones, till just afternoon, the work is sporadic, and chaotic, its me running behind others to get them to hand in their worksheets and reports. Its dealing with chaos. I don't have the resources and time to fulfill all the coordination tasks l have to do, and l acknowledge l need to know more about project management and budgeting. However my employer has not provided me with that training. When l asked for support, l was threatened by a director.(I was strangely enough not fired - no Cypriot would work for so little, and put up with them).
Sometimes during the afternoon l get a call, be ready for an evening meeting with Mr X. I oblige. I feel that l am being taken advantage of, and that l am working for free. On top of that l have to deal with arrogant and irate regional management staff, angry IT staff, and by bosses' devious management team. It feels like l am a vessel for their useless political machinations! I have become a cynic, cold, distant employee. On the face of it, l have to constantly be diplomatic and friendly, while getting shouted at all the time. I am begging them to do their work, and complete the training. They like me begging. I have no one in management to turn to. I am totally isolated. I am trying hard to escape this gig...Running to where? I don't know...
I am increasingly frustrated with the work... So a few weeks ago, their outsourced HR company staff came in to work for a few days, they only come once a month for three or four days, just before the paychecks are issued, for the rest of the month they are "absent". So l tried to talk to them, about how these issues, and some strange things started to unfold. With some difficulty l got them to show me how it was done, through their dashboards. Job sites, are nothing more than social media firms.
How did l get involved in job seeking social media? The moment l searched for their sites! In my life, these firms have skewed my opportunities, and have negatively affected me. The local story before l got the IT gig, started in October 2017 l applied for a call center job by another IT/ gambling firm called IQOption in Limassol, l was invited to an interview, and then rejected quite rudely, however the "interview" was quite strange. It was important, was that l turned up! It was an elaborate fraud.
I later discovered that that it may have been a "scam" run by IQOption and a UK based HR firm, where they would interview people to see if they "really existed" and seemingly would sell their profiles to other firms. And my profile is still 'live' and l suspect linked to my social media profile. So social media and actual life somehow converge! It is very unclear how its done...
However the fraud continued. In early 2018, l got a email from a government employment website, asking me to go to a Limassol law firm, which was looking for a bilingual UK law graduate, with a salary of 650 Euros, not a lot, but good enough for me. I was amazed how well my profile, actually fit the online CV profile, saying, " (the online job offer on the government website) fit my skills and profile perfectly". I now realize that IQOption may had sold my profile and my existence... This is a human rights abuse, as employers have different legal and above all ethical ways of checking education and work experience. While the job offer was genuine, it came with strings attached.
Clearly joining a online job platform exposes you to exploitation. Let me explain. While going for the interview, l arrived at a very shabby building, with a law firm on the first floor and a business management company on the second in a decrepit part of Limassol. Upon entering the landing, l entered a palatial building, fully decked out in marble, high end finishing and moldings, and exquisite office furniture. There was a well legged Russian secretary, who seemed to be an angry airhead.
I was urshur-ed into into an even more opulent board room, where a overly groomed gentlemen more akin to a mobster was sitting, wearing a flashy Armani suite, costing some 3000 Euro and his hands encrusted in many diamond rings. I had never seen such opulence in my life. He did not "like me" and he treated me like "dirt"; the interview was very rude and threatening. I was desperate for a job so l put up with it. I should not have. While the conversation was ongoing, he said, because l don't write and read Greek, he would not pay me for the job.
The mobster / interviewer wanted to hire me for "free" and not pay the 650 Euros, advertised on the website. I later learned that the 650 Euros was being paid by the government for a legal trainee. The ad said they wanted a "legal assistant" and not a "legal trainee". He curtly stated, as l don't speak Greek l was expected to "work for free", meaning l was to "work illegally without papers" and work more than 8 hours. He was very pushy, which suggested he was looking for idiots like me.
During that most peculiar of interviews, l got to know they had Dutch clients, and l had to carry out various management and legal functions for those clients, in addition to other English based legal work which Cypriot law graduates who had studied in the UK, "could not satisfy the English requirements the firm requires...". What were they up to? I wonder... The mobster, had gone to an ex-poly, was a Pontious, namely a Greek from the ex-USSR, who spoke English, Greek and Russian.
At the very end of the "interview", the interviewer who was extremely impolite, then told me to "wait for his boss who would arrive at 6-30 PM", meaning l had to wait around 4 hours. As l was already told l would not get paid, and l would have to work for free without any proof of my employment, l decided that l better leave. I told the story to my current boss and the HR company. They laughed at me, and said,you have been duped. They NEVER explained how...
They simply told me, that today, in Cyprus many companies have taken over UK HR practices and insights. Because there is no law regulating firms hiring practices, they are free to do what they like, much like in the UK. Because l have been asking the wrong questions since l started working, in the past few weeks, l have been trying to ask the right questions to the right people, l have discovered why, after so many years, like many graduates of working "black" l can't really enter the job market. And these social media job firms seem to part of that system / scam.
At the very end of the "interview", the interviewer who was extremely impolite, then told me to "wait for his boss who would arrive at 6-30 PM", meaning l had to wait around 4 hours. As l was already told l would not get paid, and l would have to work for free without any proof of my employment, l decided that l better leave. I told the story to my current boss and the HR company. They laughed at me, and said,you have been duped. They NEVER explained how...
They simply told me, that today, in Cyprus many companies have taken over UK HR practices and insights. Because there is no law regulating firms hiring practices, they are free to do what they like, much like in the UK. Because l have been asking the wrong questions since l started working, in the past few weeks, l have been trying to ask the right questions to the right people, l have discovered why, after so many years, like many graduates of working "black" l can't really enter the job market. And these social media job firms seem to part of that system / scam.
Companies since the 1990s have made an effort to exclude graduates, and when graduates find work, it is actually "real work" and the "technical work" they had been trained to do in college, those companies see graduates as canon fodder. There is a need for graduates, but companies employ you on their own terms. They prefer that you work "black" and "off the books", as they can put you under pressure, and fire you, without compensation, at a moment's notice. It is very hard to make the transition to "real work", its basically impossible.
Companies are like like Punch and Judy shows, on the outside, but their inner workings are mysterious. For graduates, its getting your CV out there, while the world of internal emails, and knowing the right addresses l think is the tip of the iceberg we think we can overcome with social media job sites, as they seem to bring us "closer" together, when that is part of their scam. Governments don't want to regulate, and if they did, then like Adecco there will be intermediaries immediately exploiting that new legal regime, to create a lot of new loopholes.
In the past few months, l have decided to rethink my "employ-ability" and not take whatever job that does not pay enough, because l naively gain "work experience", l know l will not. Companies and indeed governments are asking for trouble. I come from a marginalized generation, and if things stay the way they are, the current "lost generation" is going to become increasingly dissatisfied. As temp workers, we are outsiders in the firm, where we work. We can be easily replaced.
For example, because l work one day a week, l have made it a policy not to get involved in company politics. That is exactly what my current IT training gig is all about. Company management want to keep the circle of power within their current sphere of influence. Hiring graduates, who are already on the outside, while these graduates are performing functions the managers are supposedly required to do and paid for, for very little money and for long hours, allows those managers to maintain the status quo and keep on politicking. Perhaps social media, should be called 'disconnecting the world'.
For example, because l work one day a week, l have made it a policy not to get involved in company politics. That is exactly what my current IT training gig is all about. Company management want to keep the circle of power within their current sphere of influence. Hiring graduates, who are already on the outside, while these graduates are performing functions the managers are supposedly required to do and paid for, for very little money and for long hours, allows those managers to maintain the status quo and keep on politicking. Perhaps social media, should be called 'disconnecting the world'.
I have come to a strange conclusion, worthy of management research, that since the introduction of personal communications devices and systems, as mobile phones and the internet, in the 1980s, firms have become increasingly able to control and mold their image, while shaping how information flows inside and outside the firm. In today's organizations, management works to adopt technical systems that seem to undermine the public's ideas about how traditionally business function. And that companies spend time and effort, to create a pantomime, that aims to fool graduates, that while they are traditional employers, and are seeking graduates, they are not. I think digital communications / social media have enabled creating societal barriers around firms, who are increasingly cut off, from the world. The hypothesis is as follows...
"... Since the internet / mobile phone revolution of the 1990s, and the 2000s social media and Web 2.0 revolution, many companies seem to have become increasingly isolated and cellular, instead of "open" and competitive..."
While it is a counter-intuitive view, but l believe worthy of further study and analysis.
"... Since the internet / mobile phone revolution of the 1990s, and the 2000s social media and Web 2.0 revolution, many companies seem to have become increasingly isolated and cellular, instead of "open" and competitive..."
While it is a counter-intuitive view, but l believe worthy of further study and analysis.
Comments
Post a Comment