Melinda's obsession 02
Forbes-100
This is a second part of "Melinda's obsessions" trilogy. It's a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
***
Jeff grabbed a fresh issue of
Job Seeker
, a newspaper available for free at any gas station or bus stop. He had graduated from the college a couple of months ago and was still actively looking for work. His major in "Business Management" opened tons of opportunities for him. However, nothing attracted his eye yet.
Ads in newspapers and "Now hiring" signs at different businesses offered only entry level positions of CSR's, store clerks, cashiers, telemarketers, and other jobs for minimum wage he wasn't interested in.
Websites suggested more interesting positions. However, when Jeff submitted his maybe second hundredth resume for last offer and received no call from HR again, he decided to make a visit to the company as it was local, and its name looked familiar.
When he finally found the HR manager, showed her his resume, and pointed to it comparing with the position requirements indicating a 100% match, she smiled at him and asked, "Do you want an honest answer?"
"Yes, please," nodded Jeff.
"You are about the five hundredth candidate for that position who applied online.
"We aren't even physically able to interview all those candidates whose resumes 100% matched the position's description. So, we decided to interview about fifteen people with ten years of experience or more in similar jobs," said the manager.
The news was upsetting but sobering. Jeff realized that starting career in a business he wanted wouldn't be a simple task. He didn't have many hopes about
Job Seeker,
as that paper usually offered very basic and low paid jobs.
Jeff was almost ready to give up in his search and apply for a job at "Seven-Eleven" or Walmart just to be able to pay his rent and fill up his truck's gas tank.
Looking through multiple pages of CSR positions, cleaners, janitors, and other similar jobs, he suddenly spotted something that looked too good to be true:
Full time job 120k/year. No experience required
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
With no details, it looked pretty suspicious. It might be something illegal or dangerous. Jeff's mind pictured drug trafficking, assassinations, covert military squad, or maybe gray area medical experiments using humans as guinea pigs. He knew nobody would pay 120 grand to a total rookie unless that business owner was insane.
Nevertheless, desperate as he was, Jeff picked his cell phone and dialed that number.
On the other end of the line a robotic female voice answered, "Thank you for your interest in our position. Are you twenty-one or more? Please tell us your full name and briefly describe your education."
Those questions sounded pretty legitimate. So, Jeff answered them honestly.
The voice system recognition on the other side told him, "Thank you. Your responses have been recorded and will be reviewed by our HR specialist. If you qualify, we'll call you back soon for the interview. Have a good day."
The next day the same robotic voice called back and set up an interview appointment in a couple of days giving Jeff an address on the 48th story of a huge business tower downtown. It told Jeff to bring a printed copy of his resume with him.
Jeff was slightly confused why the resume couldn't be submitted online? But obviously there was nobody on the other side to talk about that matter.
That day Jeff showed up forty minutes early to make sure he wouldn't miss his appointment. The 48th floor had a large auditorium with a huge lobby.
Jeff was surprised to see about five hundred men there waiting for the interview. The vast majority of them were between 21 and 30. Only a few were slightly older.
As there was still much time before the event, Jeff decided to join a conversation with a few folks. He quickly found out that all of them were waiting for the same interview for the same position.
However, they found it in different ways. Only a few of them found it in
Job Seeker.
Most of the others came via TV commercials popping up in shows about muscle cars, guns, warfare, DIY projects, and other programs targeted mostly for young to middle-aged men.
While the ad didn't specifically ban female applicants, perhaps to avoid blame in discrimination on the grounds of gender, there wasn't a single female in the room.
Some guys told their sisters and girlfriends also applied and IVR said they would be called back. But it never happened.
Jeff realized that the IVR was pretty sophisticated and just filtered out all applicants with female voices for some unknown reason.
Exactly at ten, the time of appointment, the doors to the auditorium opened ajar and all applicants were invited by a middle-aged lady to come and have a seat.
Once everybody took their chairs, the lady ascended to the stage and two men joined her sitting at the desk there. They announced that this was going to be the very first round of the selection process and they were going to select fifty candidates to participate further in the hiring process.
The panel still told them nothing about the nature of the job and when one applicant raised a hand and asked about it, they answered that details would be provided only to those selected fifty. Then they started calling applicants by their names.
When each applicant ascended to the stage in front of the panel, they collected his resume and asked very few basic questions, not taking more than a minute altogether. Those were about residence, education, and fluency in other languages.
However, all three panel members looked with great attention at the appearance of each candidate and his walk. The process ended up taking several hours. The panel then suggested taking a break and coming back in one hour.
When that time had passed and the men all returned, the panel read a list of the lucky fifty and said thanks to the rest of participants, wishing them a wonderful day.
Those fifty got an appointment at ten for the next morning. Jeff was one of them and he showed up fifteen minutes before the scheduled time.
They all had a little chat about the mystery of the process and guesses about what to expect.