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Being a veteran job hunter, I have spent a good portion of my life going through the mill of job hunting. The scouring through the job pages. Drafting and writing the job application. Answering lots and lots of mundane questions such as:

Are you a good team player?
Do you have excellent interpersonal skills?
Can you pay attention to detail?

Why is it that all the jobs I apply for ask the same ten questions? Has no-one updated the template in the last 100 years?

Let’s face it. Job hunting is a pain in the ass. Literally. A good application can take me up to five hours to do which means a lot of bum-on-seat time.

The other thing I hate about job hunting is when companies won’t accept your CV. Instead they ask you to re-type your whole job history on their application form. Why is this necessary? It’s a waste of time. Companies who ask you to do this are either

a) Really backward and inefficient
b) Manipulative and game playing
c) Sadists

As much as I complain about job hunting, I still do it. What choice do I have? A girl’s gotta eat and I’ve never been much good at the whole networking-let–me-introduce-you-to-this-person way of finding work. I’ve always done it the hard way which is to apply for jobs cold and hope that my experience talks me into an interview.

It’s great when you get asked for an interview. You have a chance and the five hours of writing about your interpersonal skills suddenly seems less painful.

The worst is when you don’t hear back. A lot of companies now state that they will only get in touch with you if you’ve been shortlisted.

This sucks.

Let me get this straight. You work your ass off, writing reams and reams of reasons why you are the world’s best team player. You re-type your whole CV on THEIR application form. Your ass gets numb and your shoulders ache. You ring your ex boss and suck up so that you’ll get a decent reference. You check and re-check your application. You send it off to them before the deadline.

And nothing. Not even a one line email to say, Thanks but no thanks.

Everything is supposed to be easier and quicker now that we have online technology. How hard is it for a company to send a group email to all their rejected candidates?

Why are the fuckers so lazy? And rude.

I don’t buy for one second that this is about saving time. It takes five minutes to send a group email.

Dear Employers of the World,

Pull your finger out and press SEND.

Yours Faithfully,

Lavendar Lee