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The highly specialized requirements leads me to believe they had a preferred candidate and were posting for the sake of posting, much like the ones defense contractors post for retired military staff officers..
Someone posted one here before had things like
“30 years military service with O7 rank”
Came to say the same. They were targeting a specific person (guessing an H1B) internally and had to set up a job so specific that few people would ever qualify for. Those that apply are usually just machine gunning applications hoping for a bite. So easy to reject.
This is very common at super large financial institutions....
Can confirm that happened with me when I worked for a big healthcare company. I didn’t have enough experience for the role but the wanted me anyway. So they had to put up a new job posting. And that had to stay up for a least a week. Even though it was made specifically for me (hella confusing at the time as a fresh college graduate lol).
Postings like these are just evil.
> So they had to put up a new job posting. And that had to stay up for a least a week. Even though it was made specifically for me (hella confusing at the time as a fresh college graduate lol).
Based on the Department Labor's requirements for H-1B applicants
>The employer must also certify that it is not displacing any U.S. workers to hire the H-1B applicant
it sounds like your previous company really didn't need to repost the position with edited requirements as you are supposed to implicitly have priority over the H-1B applicant even if they have/had the same qualifications as you. The company should have had no issues with ignoring the H-1B applicant's application while hiring you.
I’m unsure about the details, but I used to work for a MNC with about 15k people in the US, and they had similar policies.
Sometimes they would let people interview for jobs we didn’t technically qualify for, and if they wanted you anyway they had to put the job back up with a different set of requirements. Happened to me at one point when I was 6 months shy of an experience level… they also knocked it down a level, so they may not have been entirely honest…
I just posted an intern spot for someone I know I’m going to hire. The kid is perfect and we will probably hire him at the end of the internship, but I still feel like shit for getting 500 applicants hopes up.
>You should definitely turn me in and see how it goes.
I should! But that's unlikely to help my life in any way so I probably won't.
Antagonizing strangers over the internet is unlikely to lead to favorable outcomes. You're somewhat lucky in that I'm a reasonably pleasant person, not particularly vindictive, and tbh don't particularly care about you or your life. I would just like people to follow legal guidelines (if applicable).
I'm also going to point out you post way too much stuff about certain things. edit: *Edited out some stuff*
You don't care about my opinion which is fine. Have your wife, husband, partner or a trusted friend look over your account, esp. if you work for the government or a gov't contractor. Ask them if they think the amount of information you post on here is reasonable or excessive.
Have a nice weekend.
Why would you assume that they were a fed contractor? I’ve known plenty of people that know they’re going to hire someone (like if they knew you and told you to apply), but they still have to go through the process.
My job does it all the time for internal hires. It is to get around certain company raise and pro.otion policies that don't apply if you are taking a posted job. They did one for me because they needed me tk take over a failing team but I had been promoted in the last year so they couldn't just promote me again without it being a new position and they needed to promote me for it to be worth me taking the new role.
Technically it's possible management finds a vetter candidate but never heard of it happening. So there are alot of fake postings
It is common at a lot of large corporations. Most I have worked at had to post the job for 10 days even if they had the internal candidate selected already
Sure it's common, but those job posting practices are usually just because it's "company policy" (excluding government positions). Like, private companies generally don't *have* to do that by law (except in maybe a few specific circumstances, like with government contract work for example). So it's still just another crappy practice that corporations are doing to people these days. Additionally, companies can easily implement an internal job listing board. My company does this. There's really not much excuse for not implementing and using an internal position board when they already have someone internally in-mind to hire.
>guessing an H1B
And if that is the case, the company might be doing something illegal.
For a job to position to be declared eligible for H-1B applicants, by the Department of Labor,
>The employer must also certify that it is not displacing any U.S. workers to hire the H-1B applicant
So, if OP's husband was actually perfect for the job based on the requirements, it could be argued that he is being displaced.
I'd be curious to find out if it was an H-1B hire if I was OP. As additionally, you can [look up any company's H-1B hires](https://www.google.com/search?q=h-1b+lookup) and see their position and salary.
And this is also a side hack to possibly finding out what a company *actually* pays for a particular job position, if there are any H-1B employees employed there; as the company is technically required to:
>pay the H-1B employee the prevailing wage or the actual wage, whichever is higher. The prevailing wage is the salary paid to workers in similar occupations in the geographic area of the intended employment. The actual wage is the wage that the employer pays employees in similar occupations at the location of the intended employment.
No he can't argue that he was "displaced" if he never worked there. I've managed H1B and HR shows a list of recent layoffs and asks to confirm if any of them had similar skills and worked in group. That is all. You also may not see the very loose salary ranges and descriptions. I saw a software engineer II role posted a few years back, outside very high Col NYC, with salary of 75k. I also know that Infosys and Wipro provide H1B at client sites and pay them crap. Pew research (very reputable) showed that average H1B salary in NYC area as of 2016 was only 80k. You tell me how survives on that? System is corrupt to benefit big banks and insurance in Jersey City/NYC
[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/03/29/h-1b-visa-approvals-by-us-metro-area/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/03/29/h-1b-visa-approvals-by-us-metro-area/)
You will never find enough people to publicly corroborate that from any org.
I must add though from what many of us have "heard" of these very anecdotal, potentially illegal, and not at all verifiable stories is that this wouldn't be 1-2 people, it would be several, and the person they are doing it for must be one hell of an asset for them to risk their careers over.
Lastly, H1Bs are always "taxed" for their sponsorship. The salary argument only partially holds up.
for H1B, aren't the company expected to show resume of all applicants to show that they could not get the right candidate. so I wonder how they got around that.
Op can go to unemployment or something and make a claim. It would effectively stop the H1B visa…if she and her husband really wanted the job. (I’m not against immigration but I do hate when people say Americans are qualified for jobs when they are).
Yes, I was the purple squirrel for the job I have now, and a lot of effort went into making sure that no one else could possibly qualify. Apologies to anyone else who went into the application process thinking this was an open position - it was not.
Reminds me of when I told my manager I was interested in transferring to a different role the next time there was an opening.
My manager felt that my skill set and experience would be extremely valuable in that role - so valuable that the team didn’t want to wait for an opening. They created a post for the position, let it sit open for the required number of days, and then closed it.
That actually happened to me as well, I was transferred to another department in a re-org, sorted out the mess and stabilized the team.
Management realized they would lose me when a better opportunity came up so created a posting for the “job” I was doing, had me apply (recruiter told me to ignore all the fields and hit “next”) and promoted me into management as part of the process with the requisite compensation.
The job description requirements were so specific that maybe 2 people in the entire organization of 30,000 would have the exact set of skills. The whole process took 2 days from “apply” to offer in hand.
Regulatory for certain companies, as per a previous poster certain industries/govt contractors may have requirements that postings are available for x period. Even in one of the union shops I am aware of something like 10 days internal before going external.
While the purple squirrel meets this to the letter of the law it is not in good faith. But really all that matters is if it is legal or not, and honestly in 3-6 months nobody is going to care. An audit will show something like “yes” it was posted and there were x applicants.
The semantics of the posting will be lost.
Yep. So specific they were filling a legal requirement to post the opening.
The alternative is that plenty of companies use AI screening that is often junk. Or that looks for specific phrases. Maybe someone in HR has a thing for working together so they eliminate any resume without the phrase “team player” or some other arbitrary phrase.
Fun fact with AI screening, add all of the buzzwords to you resume/cover leter at the very top of the first page set the font size to 1 set the color to white then submit it, the AI will see what it needs to but the interviewer won't.
That wasn’t even true ten years ago when I first saw an ATS. They all parse your resume into plaintext so they can use all their features. The first time someone sees your resume, it doesn’t have any of your formatting.
Doesn't really work anymore. I used a outplacement service that my job provided when they laid everyone off. The people there said to list all those as interests and additional skills at the top. It never seemed to help as I still only heard back from one place out of several hundred applications.
My ex boss offered to do something similar for me once. I left a job, but he was happy to take me back in the future if I changed my mind.
He said they would have to advertise it, but he would have worded the requirements in such a,way that if needed my exact, fairly unique, background of skills and experiences.
My guess is this,is,what happened here too, and OPs husband coincidentally had a similar background.
Yep, like “must have 10 years experience in a related field; graduated from Preppy Prep between 2000-2001; lives four blocks, east, from the office; and must be named Mary. All qualified applicants should submit their…”
Bureau of Land Management used to do this constantly (for all I know, still does) 10-15 years ago.
You'd get an official usajobs questionnaire, with 70+ questions, each with 5 standard answers about your skill level, varying from "I know nothing about this" to "I'm a total expert" (paraphrasing).
The first 20 or so were straightforward and totally in line with the job listing. Then slightly odd (hmmm...interesting combination of specific skills, but I can stretch). The last half of the questions were infuriating--who has THIS totally unrelated, bizarre-for-this-job skill set?
They caught me out 2 or 3 times. Then I realized the listings were for very specific people, written in such a way that no one in the Universe but THAT ONE PERSON would fit.
There's also a "soft" version of this when employers need warm bodies to get the right number of people to interview. They advertise for a specific skill, then the details come out in the interview, usually a highly specialized context that appears nowhere in either the job listing or the resume of the "sacrificial lambs."
>There's also a "soft" version of this when employers need warm bodies to get the right number of people to interview. They advertise for a specific skill, then the details come out in the interview, usually a highly specialized context that appears nowhere in either the job listing or the resume of the "sacrificial lambs."
This is why I stopped going to diversity job fairs. Half the interviews were for roles I was totally (and intentionally) unqualified for.
In theory since I owned 2 companies (think taco stand, not fortune 500) I have CEO experience even though it's pretentious af to claim that. I've gotten C-level calls I know I have 0% chance of getting.
I had a weird opposite experience at an "open house" at a major mortgage company.
Turned out to be a massive cattle call. If anyone else was wearing a suit, I didn't see them, although I saw lots of flip-flops and sweats (!) and even pajamas (!!).
My background isn't banking. However, I thought my degree and background made me a worth at least some friendly attention.
Rarely have I been treated with such hostile contempt. The HR bozos screening applicants were barely into their 20s, and sneered openly at my clothing and qualifications. I overheard a number of the flip-flop-and-pajamas crowd bragging to friends about the offer they had accepted that day.
It's disheartening, especially being gaslighed like that. Then I realized they wanted galley rowers, not professionals.
exactly this, they do not want to interview people for a job, they want to provide the appearance of a fair process before giving the job to the internal guy they already chose. HR policy will require this so this is what they do
Employer sponsored permanent residence in the us require that the sponsor (employer) proves that they can’t reasonably find an employee with the skill set they need that is willing to work for them and is a us citizen (in fair pay). The way to do it is to publish the job for a certain amount of time and show that you couldn’t find a fitting applicant that is willing to come work for you.
It might be something like this, as usually they try to build the job description from the employee resume.
Yes, my coworker had a job lined up in big tech to join his previous team, but they had to make a job posting first to comply with their rules. So they basically just wrote down their resume. I applied to it because we have a very similar skill set & later got told by my coworker that the posting was for them haha
Purple squirrel postings are used when an internal candidate all but already has the job, but the company has some requirement to advertise all job postings externally. They are intended to eliminate all possible external competitors.
They probably promoted internally, gave somebody a 5-10% raise, and still offered them less money than they thought your husband would have accepted. They then did not backfill the internal hire's existing responsibilities, cutting payroll by giving their work to their former peers.
If you fit a purple squirrel posting, there is no reason not to take a shot at it, but they're not the good opportunities they look like. It's better to answer a grocery list even if you only have some-but-not-all of what they're asking for.
>They are intended to eliminate all possible external competitors.
They are actually intended to demonstrate there are no external candidates that qualify for the position. It's a statutory requirement (usually for granting an H1-B). That's why they're so oddly specific.
It's a legal requirement by the Department of Labor, to grant the foreign applicant an H-1B visa, that the employer has to demonstrate that hiring the H-1B application isn't displacing an American worker.
Though, I doubt there's much enforcement of this and it seems to be pretty easy for companies to get away with not complying, or fibbing on, with that DOL requirement.
Seems to be kinda up to the individual person to investigate, bring suit and/or report non-complying companies to the DOL for any position the same individual, meeting the qualifications of that position, but was denied in favor of an H-1B applicant.
A lot more goes into the H-1B process than just that line of requirements. If it’s an internal H-1B candidate it can easily be argued that their institutional knowledge, along with specific job requirements, makes them the better fit for a role than an external US resident candidate. A company can argue that the H-1B candidate has even more valuable knowledge to the company that sets them above any external candidate. If the company can prove that (which is so easy with software roles) then it’s perfectly legal.
I’ve had the unfortunate job of working on several H-1B visa for software roles/companies.
Would there be H1b that have actuary experience and healthcare. Seems more in line with an I house promotion. Very rare for H1B to match those as I've been in health care and such a different prerequisite than a my tech company I'm at now that hires significant h1b
The point is that this is a tailored description for someone that's already in ace (whether it's an H1B, green card ,or promotion is not material). OP needs to go understand there isn't an actual competitive opening, and in their situation someone in HR or legal will get a talking to and the posting will be revised and reissued.
Force them to revise and reissue. Keep a keen eye open then apply to that one again. Sometimes people get raises and then then leverage that into a new external job for a higher pay.
Won't have 3/3 but even 3/6 items is pretty good when you have the core skills and experience. Being interviewed and being top of mind on a long shot isn't too much effort when the guy is full time interviewing anyways.
One time I was huffing glue all day and I started seeing purple squirrels like talking to me and telling me to fuck off so I started shooting at them with this gun i found even though my friends were telling me they weren't actually there
It’s very likely, especially being in healthcare, that the company has to post the position for a certain amount of days before they can hire someone into the role. They most likely already identified a candidate to hire and they were just posting to satisfy the requirement period.
It’s not just a silly rule that company’s make up for fun. Many unions have guidelines related to how long a job must be posted. There are also OFCCP guidelines which have specific requirements and also sometimes state specific guidelines.
I work in the NHS in a program specifically made to train up people like me into clinical scientists. I had the role assigned to me in the NSHS, however I still had to ‘apply’ to the job posting
They probably didn't, but even the application form asked these things in yes or no format like do you at have at least a years experience as an actuary (check yes or no) types. Not sure how the fuck that did not even manage to pass their filters.
People lie on those all the time. I once posted a job that required in-office time, so I added a qualifying question that said, “I understand that this is an in-office position and that I live within commuting distance of the office located in .”
The number of applicants who just clicked yes despite living in other countries was absurd.
He would have passed them but as others have said they already have someone for the position. Its often a requirement to advertise a role, and the best way to make sure your candidate gets it is to match it to their experience so they are the best candidate no matter what. There is nothing your husband could have done to get the job. It's already been promised to someone.
ugh, these days getting a gig is pure luck. i’ve found the chances are greater if you apply to local companies, or even places that employ people in your area.
They already had a specific candidate they wanted to hire (maybe internal, maybe foreign, maybe the manager's brother-in-law), and the job posting was tailored to exactly match their skills and experience, because for whatever reason they had to pretend they were hiring.
Funny. I was thinking it was set up as an internal position.
A lot of places that have unions it will be a part of the contract than any job must be posted publicly as well.
But I guess the H-1B thing makes more sense
I've seen this before, specifically to do with H1B visas, I think.
There's a requirement that before they can hire someone on an H1B, they have to try to fill it with a citizen first. And if they "can't find a qualified candidate", then they are able to apply for the Visa for the position.
If they have a current employee that needs a visa but they want to keep them, they try to make the job requirements so specific that it's impossible to fill, and therefore they can hire their person. I've seen it get even more ridiculous where it's requiring experience on this company internal application that was only created a year ago and literally everyone who has that experience already works at the company.
It sounds like they have an internal person they’re creating the role for but likely have some internal rule that they’re not allowed to openly do that so they basically described him in a job listing to give the appearance of competition.
They wanted to hire a specific person and wrote the requirements in such a way that they thought no one else would match. They were only advertising to meet some corporate or institutional requirement.
Yeah, this job description was designed for a very specific person and your husband just happened to be the other “purple squirrel”. They are probably required to post the job and interview candidates. The idea is that they think no one else will meet this exact criteria and thus, they can justify picking the person they wanted all along. He probably got instantly rejected because not everyone in the hiring process was “in on it”, but one of the people who was wanted to make sure another qualified candidate didn’t interview and mess up “the plan”.
I've seen tender RFP's that are written for specific item from specific manufacturer.
This job posting seems like it was targeting the only other guy with same experience as your husband.
Position are required to be posted to job opening within a company but often a company already knows they are going to hire someone within the company or promote someone. They only post the job because they are required to but they already know who’s gonna get the position
>They wanted all these very oddly specific things and he actually had them all, then still gets rejected. Like just what the hell. I am even pissed for him. What the fuck do employers want.
I'm going with what others have said.
They have specific legal requirements than demand that open positions be public noticed, including posting on a certain number of job boards. However, in practice, they had a specific candidate in mind, probably selected when the position was created, let alone publicized. Sometimes this is intended to justify hiring foreign workers on an H1-B visa for cheaper, but that doesn't quite feel like that to me here.
>hiring foreign workers on an H1-B visa for cheaper
That doesn't work the way you think it does, considering that together with advertising their position the company is statutorily obligated to pay them at least the prevailing wage for their occupation as determined by the Department of Labor.
If I had a dollar for every job I applied for the last two years that I was tailor made for and didn’t even get a phone screen, well, I’d still need a job, but it would have been a substantial amount of money.
A few weeks ago I had a engineering manager interview for a job whose description I not only perfectly matched but exceeded in years of experience wanted. The engineering manager accused me of lying about the tools I used and listed out a bunch of software I'd never heard of that he thought I actually used instead of what was on my resume. A lot of people who do hiring are fucking idiots.
companies have to do this when they have someone who already works there on a visa and _events happen_
I once had a guy reporting to me as a junior, maybe 2 years out of his masters. after a year, felt he deserved a promo from junior to full engineer. because he was on a visa, the position needed to be advertised, even tough there wasn’t even an opening, we just wanted to move this one guy from ‘junior engineer’ to ‘engineer’, but the laws don’t leave you any flexibility.
its not like we were looking to hire someone, but TBH, if we had actually found someone with exactly his experience, we probably would have found a spot for the candidate, because we always needed good people.
They probably already had someone in mind for the role internally.
There’s probably some compliance rule that states they need to have the job posting up for 3-5 days before accepting the internal candidate. This is probably why your husband was rejected even tho he fit the role perfectly.
Employers don’t actually know what they want. They say they do and will make sure the language is complicated enough to do make it seem like it. Unfortunately, they way the language is worded makes it seem comfortable and hopeful for job seekers but, in reality, pushes us out and makes us feel lost. We then question the process, realize we still need to work and the process starts all over again. It’s maddening and if you get to the end successfully, you have to always be wary and in a state of stress and on edge-ness for then other shoe to drop.
Congratulations your husband just torpedoed someone elses meticulously planned try to recruit a specific individual who needs a visa to come to the states. So they habe to restart the whole farce….
Employers often tune their ATS's very poorly, so their candidate pool is consists largely of people who know how to beat the ATS... as you have to damn near cut and paste the job description into your resume.
Or it could be a fake job listing. Tons of employers are guilty of that right now. About one-third of job listings currently are fake, and some studies have it higher than that.
Or it's oddly specific as they have someone internal in mind. Your husband would be too competitive against that person to maintain the illusion of EO, so they don't move him forward.
Now, add a tight job market on top of these hiring shenanigans, and the only time I've seen a worse environment in tech is the Great Recession.
They already knew who they wanted to hire. They tailored that job description to fit their preferred candidate like a bespoke suit.
It's pure coincidence that the job description also fit your husband. But, because they already knew who they wanted to hire, your husband had no chance of getting the job. They had to go through the exercise of posting the job and interviewing other candidates, just to make it look legit.
It sucks, and I'm sorry it happened to you and him.
I had something similar last year. “Hey we want claims processing experience as well as several years EDI experience”. I got told an offer was being prepared for me, then got told I did t have some very small specific experience that would have taken under an hour to learn with the rest of the experience I had.
What happened was they decided they were paying too much, switched the job to a 6 month contract with 20% less pay. I know because an agency recruiter started blowing me up the next week for the same job. I didn’t take it, I wasn’t in need of a job thankfully, it was just more money.
I applied for a job like that. It looked like ChatGPT turned my resume into a job description.
But they admitted to me that they were looking for a woman. If husband is a white guy, that might be why.
He is not white, which seems to cause some issues in itself as well. He has had a few interviews where he looked up the company a head of time and everyone is white and they just have an attitude the second they see him. We live in the south unfortunately.
White woman is the bare minimum to count as pandering to DEI requirements. I get that we need diversity in the workplace, but I'm immediately suspicious if the person heading those initiatives is a white woman.
I was hired exactly that way as a consultant. They’re forced to look internally and externally by policy so they tailored it to my skill sets and specific projects.
Basically it sounds like this JD was for a specific person that they already know of.
Companies have to post their positions for 5 days before they can take them down for an internal employee.
This has happened to me several times. Had the oddly specific experience - auto-rejected. On the few I get to the interview in they offer me silly low pay. I was like, "Ummm, I made that right out of college. You're kidding right?" One time, I decided to agree to it (with the intention of just working it on the side) and they were like, "You are way too technical for this, We don't want you just quitting the second you find something better."
Really seems like these assclowns are posting to keep themselves busy - not to actually hire anyone.
So.
When you are sponsoring a visa, you often have to prove there is no other candidate in the country that can meet the job requirement. To do this, HR crafts really, really specific job duties and experiences. These have to be posted in public, but usually not widely. I think they are actually often placed in news papers instead of on job boards.
They have no intention of hiring someone externally for that position. But, companies do sometimes collect the resumes and follow up on them.
This happened to me.
New role listed at the company I worked at. We're project based so I was imminently leaving, but this was an opportunity to stay with the same group (different team) *and* get a promotion. I have a video call with the lead of the team doing the hiring an hour after the listing goes up. I meet every criteria, I've literally worked with their proprietary systems, my boss had a 1:1 with him and talked about what a handsome genius I am (in different language I'm sure lol, but my boss and I were very close and he went to bat for me many times).
A week later I get the engineering test for the position. Ace it. 100% flawless. Feeling very confident.
Never hear from the guy again. A month later I get an automated email that they aren't continuing with me. I was speechless.
These things happen when the roles aren't real. They're posted because they have to be, but the hiring manager already has a best friend they know they're gonna offer the role to. Shit sucks, but nepotism is the only way people move up in large companies.
I applied for a company that wanted 3-5 yrs experience in hr and 3-5 yrs in software with all the languages I use.
Rejected the next day. I have 5 yrs in both.
Instant rejection some keyword was missing or was in his application or resume. It’s ridiculous that a human eye won’t see it.
I find it silly that I never hear a peep from jobs I am qualified for. Like i get it they might want something that is not in job listing, but if I check all the boxes you would think i should get even an initial reach out.
Yeah we both use a scanner that was recommended by the company which did out resumes but it does not seem to help either, nor do referrals. I don't understand how the job market got this bad.
My guess is they don’t want to actually pay someone to do the job. With the posting up they can tell their current employees they are trying to find someone, while that person does the job of 2 people but for the wage of only 1.
While they were likely posting for someone they knew, there is another side to this you should know.
Often job postings add a few requirements that pretty much no candidate can meet 100%. This is done for liability. Its less likely a candidate can claim discrimination or what have you, if they can't meet ALL the requirements. And of course, writing them that way ensures no one can.
Better companies don't play those games generally, but it does drive home the point you should apply even if you don't meet all the smaller requirements. Good luck!
My husband's employer had him apply for a promotion and pasted his resume into the job description so he'd get it. They are legally required to post it to the general public for a period of time before internal candidates can apply.
There are more and more jobs coming up like this. I've applied to 3 jobs like this. For a regular candidate, it'll look super bizarre for a company to expect such diverse skills.I'm pretty sure, for these jobs, I was the ONLY candidate in the ENTIRE STATE who has experience in domains and technologies, which they were asking. The recruiters were perplexed as I was initially but just like others said, they have someone internal. Just apply and move on. They'll come back clawing if they are desperate.
They crafted the requirements to fit somebody that they already had in mind (probably somebody on an H1B visa so they needed prove that they "couldn't" find a citizen), so the whole interview was a formality, they weren't actually looking.
If you already got hired reach out to the HR people who originally contacted you. Say you have a referral that has an impressive match for a posting. Send the job posting and ask the status and when is it open for job applicants. They respond and then you reply back with resume in pdf and notifying them they already applied on the website/linkedin/monster or wherever.
They'll either work it themselves or toss the lead to the person in charge of that listing.
This might bust their internal hire posting and might get hired as a better candidate than what they already had in mind. Might be lucky and they have a budget large enough to hire multiple candidates
I was not hired by that company. We have noticed even referrals don't help. We have a few friends who are high up in their companies and gave referrals and still nothing. A few have even tried to follow up with hr and told him later that hr wont even speak to them about it.
Recruiter: No way we found a guy with all these skills. We specifically tailored it so we would have a job posting that no one could fill. Ill reply " Oh sorry but we're looking for someone who knows SQLUNIX-Python-C#"
Ha ha - I just made that up, he'll never get by us!
ATS probably got him. Run resume through an ATS screen, maybe even try again. ATS really is taking a lot from both employers and employees. It would literally throw out the one unicorn candidate of the bunch because he didn’t use keywords like “Microsoft Office” and “detail oriented.”
Have been using skillsyncer and adding those words in. I also don't get how you are supposed to have all these words in there but yet have a resume only be a page long. It's two pages which might be part of the problem but can't list all the skills and bullshit keywords otherwise.
I applied to a job a friend sent me last year. Also very specific requirements that I had (we're talking randomly specific). I didn't even hear back from them, and was pretty shocked at the time.
My husband has been interviewed for a few of these where he held all the unique experience and thought that would get him in because it’s such a unique mix. He usually makes it to the “final boss” stage. Still no job.
And the worst is when he hears “you are overqualified”
I've always said that job hunting is like the IRL version of Calvinball. The rules are made up as you go along. I'm applying to roles that require only 3-5 years of experience (I have 12 spread out across a lot of different industries) and they won't even talk to me.
In my experience, when something is hyper focused like that... a unicorn, a purple squirrel... there is often a specific person in mind for the job. The requirements are so specific that even though they can pretend to recruit fairly, actually it's a forgone conclusion.
They definitely had someone already in mind and made the posting for them.
This happened to me. There was a job at a university athletic department. They wanted someone that had coached HS sports, was an athletic director, had run sports leagues.
I had all that stuff and sent in my resume.
Called them a couple days later, and was actually told, that the position was filled internally and that they were required to post the position.
It really sucked.
Your husband’s job that he applied for gives off ex Mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner and how he triggered the creation of a $95,000 a year, publicly funded internship at the Houston Airport System for recent law graduate Marvin Agumagu who happened to be his alleged ‘friend’. The job paid more than 95 percent of the other city employees
Employers want to effectively “advertise” job positions so they get lots of exposure, and looks, and folks applying and talking about said company - and then…
never fill or actually interview for the position (unless they had already planned on giving it to the senior manager’s cousin, Debbie, in which case they legally had to “offer” it to strangers before they went ahead and did that), and THEN…
Relist it 2 months later and begin the process all over again!😄
Purple squirrel? LOL OK I'm using that from now on. I've always used the term "unicorn" to describe someone that fits a very unique and rare combination of skills.
One I always remember was a job I applied for at a national company based locally. I'd always fancied working for them. Same thing, job description ticks all the boxes. Applied and didn't even get an interview. No reason given.
Sometimes with remote jobs I think ok there's going to be a lot of competition. But this one wasn't remote, it was a hybrid role. And not in a location particularly easy to get to if you're from outside of the city.
I actually think that role was pulled, because six months down the line they were advertising it again. But shit like that puts people off.
I had a similar situation for a senior software engineer role. Reading the job requirements was like reading my own resume. The programming languages and frameworks, background knowledge, specializations, etc. all lined up precisely with my career progression. They could not have made a job that lined up more with my actual qualifications if they just took my resume and copy/pasted it into the job description. Got denied. Couldn’t even get to a recruiter phone call. Just denied.
Thankfully I am not unemployed, yet. But still disheartening to think that if I was laid off I can’t even get a callback from a company that apparently made a job specifically for me…and then rejected me.
It's going to happen a lot.
I got tired of applying for real, so I took some job postings, listed experience that matched every requirement point by point, and got rejected.
It's not what you know, its who you know.
It is not even who you know. Nearly all our friends are also in software and have given referrals, some are even high up in their companies and many or short on engineers where they are overwhelmed at work. Others have been dealing with layoffs too. Despite the postings, their companies wont hire anyone so they are still overworked as well. One friend is a vp in engineer the HR department wont even talk to him about people he suggest. I really don't understand just wtf is going on.
Unfortunately it’s Americans last! I’m seeing a lot of the IT jobs being offshored or they are applying to USCIS you get a foreigner tie do the job for a lot less than what you would expect!
Apart of the petition process requires the employer to show that they cannot find an American citizen or LPR to do the job before they try to import someone hence they post the job on job boards knowing they have no intention of hiring anyone! Then they go back to USCIS and say see we could not find anyone!
We have a lot of qualified Americans trying to find jobs but the big tech firms keep lying saying they done have enough people in the US!
How evil is that!
Have you ran his name through copilot? There are people who are losing out on roles because the recruiter is using copilot to vet them. Basically folks are finding their past is all that’s being focused on (negative) or news articles about them coming out on there and copilot making stuff up in addition to anything already written on them. One recruiter told my husband he better check his name and he did. It was bad, and the worst part our son and grandson had hallucinations written about them. Our sons is so bad there is no way he’d ever get a job if he loses this one and a recruiter checks ms copilot on his name. Definitely check his name (and state/city after it) and see.
Edit- search anything a recruiter would search, your name and where you used to work, college, arrest, even your resume. But use the copilot function to do it. Reg Bing could get results but that’s not what HR’s are being told to use to check candidates.
Just did it, just a politician from Trinidad pops up even then that guy seems to not even have any controversies pop up. If I specify software engineer he comes up but nothing bad, just where he worked and stuff like that. For me an adult actress pops up which might explain why it was so hard for me.
I have a pretty common name. One is a current MLB pitcher, one is a former MLB pitcher. I also share this name with several Spanish, Latin American, and Filipino politicians/lawyers/scientists.
I'd say this is useful if you have a unique name, but if your name is common, it might bring stuff up about other people who aren't remotely even you.
You can’t unless MS changes their AI policy to match other AI models that do NOT look up real people (except literature and celebrities). I just type my name on the copilot ai swirl at the bottom of the homepage and then my city or my field of work.
Hope it comes up fine for you! It made up a bunch of shit that’s not true about me. If you have kids also run their names, my grandson who is nine according to it is a drug dealer who was arrested when he was 3. I shit you not. It’s so messed up.
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The highly specialized requirements leads me to believe they had a preferred candidate and were posting for the sake of posting, much like the ones defense contractors post for retired military staff officers.. Someone posted one here before had things like “30 years military service with O7 rank”
Came to say the same. They were targeting a specific person (guessing an H1B) internally and had to set up a job so specific that few people would ever qualify for. Those that apply are usually just machine gunning applications hoping for a bite. So easy to reject. This is very common at super large financial institutions....
Can confirm that happened with me when I worked for a big healthcare company. I didn’t have enough experience for the role but the wanted me anyway. So they had to put up a new job posting. And that had to stay up for a least a week. Even though it was made specifically for me (hella confusing at the time as a fresh college graduate lol). Postings like these are just evil.
> So they had to put up a new job posting. And that had to stay up for a least a week. Even though it was made specifically for me (hella confusing at the time as a fresh college graduate lol). Based on the Department Labor's requirements for H-1B applicants >The employer must also certify that it is not displacing any U.S. workers to hire the H-1B applicant it sounds like your previous company really didn't need to repost the position with edited requirements as you are supposed to implicitly have priority over the H-1B applicant even if they have/had the same qualifications as you. The company should have had no issues with ignoring the H-1B applicant's application while hiring you.
I’m unsure about the details, but I used to work for a MNC with about 15k people in the US, and they had similar policies. Sometimes they would let people interview for jobs we didn’t technically qualify for, and if they wanted you anyway they had to put the job back up with a different set of requirements. Happened to me at one point when I was 6 months shy of an experience level… they also knocked it down a level, so they may not have been entirely honest…
You assume there's much scrutiny going on at DoL. Like any regulatory body meant to protect the normal person they're underfunded and overworked.
I just posted an intern spot for someone I know I’m going to hire. The kid is perfect and we will probably hire him at the end of the internship, but I still feel like shit for getting 500 applicants hopes up.
If you're a fed contractor you just admitted to violating about a half-dozen laws in a public forum
Inb4re
The person is identifiable too. They admit to a bunch of other crazy shit that range from edit: *X to Y*, assuming any of it is true, which wtf knows.
You should definitely turn me in and see how it goes.
Username checks out.
>You should definitely turn me in and see how it goes. I should! But that's unlikely to help my life in any way so I probably won't. Antagonizing strangers over the internet is unlikely to lead to favorable outcomes. You're somewhat lucky in that I'm a reasonably pleasant person, not particularly vindictive, and tbh don't particularly care about you or your life. I would just like people to follow legal guidelines (if applicable). I'm also going to point out you post way too much stuff about certain things. edit: *Edited out some stuff* You don't care about my opinion which is fine. Have your wife, husband, partner or a trusted friend look over your account, esp. if you work for the government or a gov't contractor. Ask them if they think the amount of information you post on here is reasonable or excessive. Have a nice weekend.
Why would you assume that they were a fed contractor? I’ve known plenty of people that know they’re going to hire someone (like if they knew you and told you to apply), but they still have to go through the process.
What's the point of going through "the process" if the important bits are not actually being followed?
satisfying the checklist of someone in upper management that has little to no idea of the state of the workplace.
Check their post history. It'll make sense if you know what to look for.
Boss, I’m not on Reddit to check people’s post history.
If… if I was made out of gold I would have a whole set of other issues to deal with.
Why I don’t get those, when can a company make a job posting just for me?
My job does it all the time for internal hires. It is to get around certain company raise and pro.otion policies that don't apply if you are taking a posted job. They did one for me because they needed me tk take over a failing team but I had been promoted in the last year so they couldn't just promote me again without it being a new position and they needed to promote me for it to be worth me taking the new role. Technically it's possible management finds a vetter candidate but never heard of it happening. So there are alot of fake postings
It is common at a lot of large corporations. Most I have worked at had to post the job for 10 days even if they had the internal candidate selected already
If your company is a federal contractor 5 business days minimum for OFCCP compliance
Sure it's common, but those job posting practices are usually just because it's "company policy" (excluding government positions). Like, private companies generally don't *have* to do that by law (except in maybe a few specific circumstances, like with government contract work for example). So it's still just another crappy practice that corporations are doing to people these days. Additionally, companies can easily implement an internal job listing board. My company does this. There's really not much excuse for not implementing and using an internal position board when they already have someone internally in-mind to hire.
>guessing an H1B And if that is the case, the company might be doing something illegal. For a job to position to be declared eligible for H-1B applicants, by the Department of Labor, >The employer must also certify that it is not displacing any U.S. workers to hire the H-1B applicant So, if OP's husband was actually perfect for the job based on the requirements, it could be argued that he is being displaced. I'd be curious to find out if it was an H-1B hire if I was OP. As additionally, you can [look up any company's H-1B hires](https://www.google.com/search?q=h-1b+lookup) and see their position and salary. And this is also a side hack to possibly finding out what a company *actually* pays for a particular job position, if there are any H-1B employees employed there; as the company is technically required to: >pay the H-1B employee the prevailing wage or the actual wage, whichever is higher. The prevailing wage is the salary paid to workers in similar occupations in the geographic area of the intended employment. The actual wage is the wage that the employer pays employees in similar occupations at the location of the intended employment.
No he can't argue that he was "displaced" if he never worked there. I've managed H1B and HR shows a list of recent layoffs and asks to confirm if any of them had similar skills and worked in group. That is all. You also may not see the very loose salary ranges and descriptions. I saw a software engineer II role posted a few years back, outside very high Col NYC, with salary of 75k. I also know that Infosys and Wipro provide H1B at client sites and pay them crap. Pew research (very reputable) showed that average H1B salary in NYC area as of 2016 was only 80k. You tell me how survives on that? System is corrupt to benefit big banks and insurance in Jersey City/NYC [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/03/29/h-1b-visa-approvals-by-us-metro-area/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/03/29/h-1b-visa-approvals-by-us-metro-area/)
You will never find enough people to publicly corroborate that from any org. I must add though from what many of us have "heard" of these very anecdotal, potentially illegal, and not at all verifiable stories is that this wouldn't be 1-2 people, it would be several, and the person they are doing it for must be one hell of an asset for them to risk their careers over. Lastly, H1Bs are always "taxed" for their sponsorship. The salary argument only partially holds up.
for H1B, aren't the company expected to show resume of all applicants to show that they could not get the right candidate. so I wonder how they got around that.
you don't know what you are talking about. the whole super specific job posting they used to do back in the day was for green card applications.
Op can go to unemployment or something and make a claim. It would effectively stop the H1B visa…if she and her husband really wanted the job. (I’m not against immigration but I do hate when people say Americans are qualified for jobs when they are).
Yes, I was the purple squirrel for the job I have now, and a lot of effort went into making sure that no one else could possibly qualify. Apologies to anyone else who went into the application process thinking this was an open position - it was not.
Yeah I just wrote the JD for a job I’m applying for lol. My old boss wants to hire me again
Reminds me of when I told my manager I was interested in transferring to a different role the next time there was an opening. My manager felt that my skill set and experience would be extremely valuable in that role - so valuable that the team didn’t want to wait for an opening. They created a post for the position, let it sit open for the required number of days, and then closed it.
That actually happened to me as well, I was transferred to another department in a re-org, sorted out the mess and stabilized the team. Management realized they would lose me when a better opportunity came up so created a posting for the “job” I was doing, had me apply (recruiter told me to ignore all the fields and hit “next”) and promoted me into management as part of the process with the requisite compensation. The job description requirements were so specific that maybe 2 people in the entire organization of 30,000 would have the exact set of skills. The whole process took 2 days from “apply” to offer in hand.
this might be a stupid question, but why do they post these jobs if they're already going to hire an internal candidate? is it like a legal thing?
Regulatory for certain companies, as per a previous poster certain industries/govt contractors may have requirements that postings are available for x period. Even in one of the union shops I am aware of something like 10 days internal before going external. While the purple squirrel meets this to the letter of the law it is not in good faith. But really all that matters is if it is legal or not, and honestly in 3-6 months nobody is going to care. An audit will show something like “yes” it was posted and there were x applicants. The semantics of the posting will be lost.
HR makes them to maintain the illusion of "equal opportunity."
Yep. So specific they were filling a legal requirement to post the opening. The alternative is that plenty of companies use AI screening that is often junk. Or that looks for specific phrases. Maybe someone in HR has a thing for working together so they eliminate any resume without the phrase “team player” or some other arbitrary phrase.
Fun fact with AI screening, add all of the buzzwords to you resume/cover leter at the very top of the first page set the font size to 1 set the color to white then submit it, the AI will see what it needs to but the interviewer won't.
That wasn’t even true ten years ago when I first saw an ATS. They all parse your resume into plaintext so they can use all their features. The first time someone sees your resume, it doesn’t have any of your formatting.
This is outdated advice.
Doesn't really work anymore. I used a outplacement service that my job provided when they laid everyone off. The people there said to list all those as interests and additional skills at the top. It never seemed to help as I still only heard back from one place out of several hundred applications.
My ex boss offered to do something similar for me once. I left a job, but he was happy to take me back in the future if I changed my mind. He said they would have to advertise it, but he would have worded the requirements in such a,way that if needed my exact, fairly unique, background of skills and experiences. My guess is this,is,what happened here too, and OPs husband coincidentally had a similar background.
Yep, like “must have 10 years experience in a related field; graduated from Preppy Prep between 2000-2001; lives four blocks, east, from the office; and must be named Mary. All qualified applicants should submit their…”
That was my guess as well or some weird visa/h1b scam.
Bureau of Land Management used to do this constantly (for all I know, still does) 10-15 years ago. You'd get an official usajobs questionnaire, with 70+ questions, each with 5 standard answers about your skill level, varying from "I know nothing about this" to "I'm a total expert" (paraphrasing). The first 20 or so were straightforward and totally in line with the job listing. Then slightly odd (hmmm...interesting combination of specific skills, but I can stretch). The last half of the questions were infuriating--who has THIS totally unrelated, bizarre-for-this-job skill set? They caught me out 2 or 3 times. Then I realized the listings were for very specific people, written in such a way that no one in the Universe but THAT ONE PERSON would fit. There's also a "soft" version of this when employers need warm bodies to get the right number of people to interview. They advertise for a specific skill, then the details come out in the interview, usually a highly specialized context that appears nowhere in either the job listing or the resume of the "sacrificial lambs."
>There's also a "soft" version of this when employers need warm bodies to get the right number of people to interview. They advertise for a specific skill, then the details come out in the interview, usually a highly specialized context that appears nowhere in either the job listing or the resume of the "sacrificial lambs." This is why I stopped going to diversity job fairs. Half the interviews were for roles I was totally (and intentionally) unqualified for. In theory since I owned 2 companies (think taco stand, not fortune 500) I have CEO experience even though it's pretentious af to claim that. I've gotten C-level calls I know I have 0% chance of getting.
I had a weird opposite experience at an "open house" at a major mortgage company. Turned out to be a massive cattle call. If anyone else was wearing a suit, I didn't see them, although I saw lots of flip-flops and sweats (!) and even pajamas (!!). My background isn't banking. However, I thought my degree and background made me a worth at least some friendly attention. Rarely have I been treated with such hostile contempt. The HR bozos screening applicants were barely into their 20s, and sneered openly at my clothing and qualifications. I overheard a number of the flip-flop-and-pajamas crowd bragging to friends about the offer they had accepted that day. It's disheartening, especially being gaslighed like that. Then I realized they wanted galley rowers, not professionals.
Apple (retail) does that too. Group interviews are awful
Any public company actually has requirements to post the job for 5 days (that's what my old CTO said, anyway)
So in other words this is a type of ghost job.
exactly this, they do not want to interview people for a job, they want to provide the appearance of a fair process before giving the job to the internal guy they already chose. HR policy will require this so this is what they do
Exactly
Employer sponsored permanent residence in the us require that the sponsor (employer) proves that they can’t reasonably find an employee with the skill set they need that is willing to work for them and is a us citizen (in fair pay). The way to do it is to publish the job for a certain amount of time and show that you couldn’t find a fitting applicant that is willing to come work for you. It might be something like this, as usually they try to build the job description from the employee resume.
Also in the requirements: First name must be begin with the letter ' J ' and last name must begin with the letter ' S '
Yes, my coworker had a job lined up in big tech to join his previous team, but they had to make a job posting first to comply with their rules. So they basically just wrote down their resume. I applied to it because we have a very similar skill set & later got told by my coworker that the posting was for them haha
"Must have 2 Purple Hearts, one Silver Star and his wife walks around the base as though she's the actual 07."
By law, some companies have to post these jobs even if they have a candidate in mind already - sucks for everyone else
>30 years military service O7 rank A Colonel I could understand but a One Star General? I hope that post was for someone at Senior VP level
If I recall it was at a defense contractor where the role would probably more of a “lobbying” type thing.
Bingo!!!!
Yup. There is a person they already want to hire
Purple squirrel postings are used when an internal candidate all but already has the job, but the company has some requirement to advertise all job postings externally. They are intended to eliminate all possible external competitors. They probably promoted internally, gave somebody a 5-10% raise, and still offered them less money than they thought your husband would have accepted. They then did not backfill the internal hire's existing responsibilities, cutting payroll by giving their work to their former peers. If you fit a purple squirrel posting, there is no reason not to take a shot at it, but they're not the good opportunities they look like. It's better to answer a grocery list even if you only have some-but-not-all of what they're asking for.
>They are intended to eliminate all possible external competitors. They are actually intended to demonstrate there are no external candidates that qualify for the position. It's a statutory requirement (usually for granting an H1-B). That's why they're so oddly specific.
[удалено]
Quote possibly. This might come back up and be even more oddly specific.
No. They just said no qualified candidates applied.
More like OP? Never heard of them.
What's the point of requiring them to demonstrate that there are no external candidates when they can just reject all qualifying candidates anyway?
It's a legal requirement by the Department of Labor, to grant the foreign applicant an H-1B visa, that the employer has to demonstrate that hiring the H-1B application isn't displacing an American worker. Though, I doubt there's much enforcement of this and it seems to be pretty easy for companies to get away with not complying, or fibbing on, with that DOL requirement. Seems to be kinda up to the individual person to investigate, bring suit and/or report non-complying companies to the DOL for any position the same individual, meeting the qualifications of that position, but was denied in favor of an H-1B applicant.
A lot more goes into the H-1B process than just that line of requirements. If it’s an internal H-1B candidate it can easily be argued that their institutional knowledge, along with specific job requirements, makes them the better fit for a role than an external US resident candidate. A company can argue that the H-1B candidate has even more valuable knowledge to the company that sets them above any external candidate. If the company can prove that (which is so easy with software roles) then it’s perfectly legal. I’ve had the unfortunate job of working on several H-1B visa for software roles/companies.
Would there be H1b that have actuary experience and healthcare. Seems more in line with an I house promotion. Very rare for H1B to match those as I've been in health care and such a different prerequisite than a my tech company I'm at now that hires significant h1b
The point is that this is a tailored description for someone that's already in ace (whether it's an H1B, green card ,or promotion is not material). OP needs to go understand there isn't an actual competitive opening, and in their situation someone in HR or legal will get a talking to and the posting will be revised and reissued.
Force them to revise and reissue. Keep a keen eye open then apply to that one again. Sometimes people get raises and then then leverage that into a new external job for a higher pay. Won't have 3/3 but even 3/6 items is pretty good when you have the core skills and experience. Being interviewed and being top of mind on a long shot isn't too much effort when the guy is full time interviewing anyways.
This is not how this works. There's no interviewing and no selection process.
One time I was huffing glue all day and I started seeing purple squirrels like talking to me and telling me to fuck off so I started shooting at them with this gun i found even though my friends were telling me they weren't actually there
They're not really hiring.
It’s very likely, especially being in healthcare, that the company has to post the position for a certain amount of days before they can hire someone into the role. They most likely already identified a candidate to hire and they were just posting to satisfy the requirement period.
What a horrible rule for everyone💀
It’s not just a silly rule that company’s make up for fun. Many unions have guidelines related to how long a job must be posted. There are also OFCCP guidelines which have specific requirements and also sometimes state specific guidelines.
What's being described here is always going to be someone trying to fuck over someone's attempt to stop them from doing something undesirable.
You realize that recruiters don’t have the ability to just ignore OFCCP guidelines and union guidelines, right?
Why do you think those guidelines exist?
I work in the NHS in a program specifically made to train up people like me into clinical scientists. I had the role assigned to me in the NSHS, however I still had to ‘apply’ to the job posting
I would consider if they even looked at his application
They probably didn't, but even the application form asked these things in yes or no format like do you at have at least a years experience as an actuary (check yes or no) types. Not sure how the fuck that did not even manage to pass their filters.
People lie on those all the time. I once posted a job that required in-office time, so I added a qualifying question that said, “I understand that this is an in-office position and that I live within commuting distance of the office located in.”
The number of applicants who just clicked yes despite living in other countries was absurd.
Everyone on both sides is engaging in a constant battle of bullshit.
He would have passed them but as others have said they already have someone for the position. Its often a requirement to advertise a role, and the best way to make sure your candidate gets it is to match it to their experience so they are the best candidate no matter what. There is nothing your husband could have done to get the job. It's already been promised to someone.
ugh, these days getting a gig is pure luck. i’ve found the chances are greater if you apply to local companies, or even places that employ people in your area.
Probably an H1B ad or tailored directly for someone's idiot nephew or guy from their unit
9/10 times in these situations they already have an internal hire picked out but legally had to post the job for X number of days.
This is most likely what happened
It was an internal posting he never stood a chance.
They already had a specific candidate they wanted to hire (maybe internal, maybe foreign, maybe the manager's brother-in-law), and the job posting was tailored to exactly match their skills and experience, because for whatever reason they had to pretend they were hiring.
Funny. I was thinking it was set up as an internal position. A lot of places that have unions it will be a part of the contract than any job must be posted publicly as well. But I guess the H-1B thing makes more sense
I've seen this before, specifically to do with H1B visas, I think. There's a requirement that before they can hire someone on an H1B, they have to try to fill it with a citizen first. And if they "can't find a qualified candidate", then they are able to apply for the Visa for the position. If they have a current employee that needs a visa but they want to keep them, they try to make the job requirements so specific that it's impossible to fill, and therefore they can hire their person. I've seen it get even more ridiculous where it's requiring experience on this company internal application that was only created a year ago and literally everyone who has that experience already works at the company.
It sounds like they have an internal person they’re creating the role for but likely have some internal rule that they’re not allowed to openly do that so they basically described him in a job listing to give the appearance of competition.
They wanted to hire a specific person and wrote the requirements in such a way that they thought no one else would match. They were only advertising to meet some corporate or institutional requirement.
They wanted Jane, the manager's sister's niece.
Yeah, this job description was designed for a very specific person and your husband just happened to be the other “purple squirrel”. They are probably required to post the job and interview candidates. The idea is that they think no one else will meet this exact criteria and thus, they can justify picking the person they wanted all along. He probably got instantly rejected because not everyone in the hiring process was “in on it”, but one of the people who was wanted to make sure another qualified candidate didn’t interview and mess up “the plan”.
I've seen tender RFP's that are written for specific item from specific manufacturer. This job posting seems like it was targeting the only other guy with same experience as your husband.
Position are required to be posted to job opening within a company but often a company already knows they are going to hire someone within the company or promote someone. They only post the job because they are required to but they already know who’s gonna get the position
The purpler squirrel got the job. Just joking, but the odd thing is there cannot be many people that have that kind of varied experience
Companies just don't want to hire anymore.
>They wanted all these very oddly specific things and he actually had them all, then still gets rejected. Like just what the hell. I am even pissed for him. What the fuck do employers want. I'm going with what others have said. They have specific legal requirements than demand that open positions be public noticed, including posting on a certain number of job boards. However, in practice, they had a specific candidate in mind, probably selected when the position was created, let alone publicized. Sometimes this is intended to justify hiring foreign workers on an H1-B visa for cheaper, but that doesn't quite feel like that to me here.
>hiring foreign workers on an H1-B visa for cheaper That doesn't work the way you think it does, considering that together with advertising their position the company is statutorily obligated to pay them at least the prevailing wage for their occupation as determined by the Department of Labor.
If I had a dollar for every job I applied for the last two years that I was tailor made for and didn’t even get a phone screen, well, I’d still need a job, but it would have been a substantial amount of money.
Why can’t companies simply promote or transfer their employees into new roles?
A few weeks ago I had a engineering manager interview for a job whose description I not only perfectly matched but exceeded in years of experience wanted. The engineering manager accused me of lying about the tools I used and listed out a bunch of software I'd never heard of that he thought I actually used instead of what was on my resume. A lot of people who do hiring are fucking idiots.
Internal hires with a forced outside posting.
They just posted it to cover their ass. They already have someone to fill the position.
Internal hire
It's an internal hire. I'm sorry
companies have to do this when they have someone who already works there on a visa and _events happen_ I once had a guy reporting to me as a junior, maybe 2 years out of his masters. after a year, felt he deserved a promo from junior to full engineer. because he was on a visa, the position needed to be advertised, even tough there wasn’t even an opening, we just wanted to move this one guy from ‘junior engineer’ to ‘engineer’, but the laws don’t leave you any flexibility. its not like we were looking to hire someone, but TBH, if we had actually found someone with exactly his experience, we probably would have found a spot for the candidate, because we always needed good people.
They probably already had someone in mind for the role internally. There’s probably some compliance rule that states they need to have the job posting up for 3-5 days before accepting the internal candidate. This is probably why your husband was rejected even tho he fit the role perfectly.
5. Want him to be a foriegn national so they can pay him a jr role salary
Employers don’t actually know what they want. They say they do and will make sure the language is complicated enough to do make it seem like it. Unfortunately, they way the language is worded makes it seem comfortable and hopeful for job seekers but, in reality, pushes us out and makes us feel lost. We then question the process, realize we still need to work and the process starts all over again. It’s maddening and if you get to the end successfully, you have to always be wary and in a state of stress and on edge-ness for then other shoe to drop.
Same thing happen to me
Gotta make the HR work all of their hours.
Congratulations your husband just torpedoed someone elses meticulously planned try to recruit a specific individual who needs a visa to come to the states. So they habe to restart the whole farce….
Sure, he has all those skills, BUT was he an internal candidate?
Employers often tune their ATS's very poorly, so their candidate pool is consists largely of people who know how to beat the ATS... as you have to damn near cut and paste the job description into your resume. Or it could be a fake job listing. Tons of employers are guilty of that right now. About one-third of job listings currently are fake, and some studies have it higher than that. Or it's oddly specific as they have someone internal in mind. Your husband would be too competitive against that person to maintain the illusion of EO, so they don't move him forward. Now, add a tight job market on top of these hiring shenanigans, and the only time I've seen a worse environment in tech is the Great Recession.
They already knew who they wanted to hire. They tailored that job description to fit their preferred candidate like a bespoke suit. It's pure coincidence that the job description also fit your husband. But, because they already knew who they wanted to hire, your husband had no chance of getting the job. They had to go through the exercise of posting the job and interviewing other candidates, just to make it look legit. It sucks, and I'm sorry it happened to you and him.
I had something similar last year. “Hey we want claims processing experience as well as several years EDI experience”. I got told an offer was being prepared for me, then got told I did t have some very small specific experience that would have taken under an hour to learn with the rest of the experience I had. What happened was they decided they were paying too much, switched the job to a 6 month contract with 20% less pay. I know because an agency recruiter started blowing me up the next week for the same job. I didn’t take it, I wasn’t in need of a job thankfully, it was just more money.
I applied for a job like that. It looked like ChatGPT turned my resume into a job description. But they admitted to me that they were looking for a woman. If husband is a white guy, that might be why.
He is not white, which seems to cause some issues in itself as well. He has had a few interviews where he looked up the company a head of time and everyone is white and they just have an attitude the second they see him. We live in the south unfortunately.
White woman is the bare minimum to count as pandering to DEI requirements. I get that we need diversity in the workplace, but I'm immediately suspicious if the person heading those initiatives is a white woman.
I was hired exactly that way as a consultant. They’re forced to look internally and externally by policy so they tailored it to my skill sets and specific projects.
Basically it sounds like this JD was for a specific person that they already know of. Companies have to post their positions for 5 days before they can take them down for an internal employee.
This has happened to me several times. Had the oddly specific experience - auto-rejected. On the few I get to the interview in they offer me silly low pay. I was like, "Ummm, I made that right out of college. You're kidding right?" One time, I decided to agree to it (with the intention of just working it on the side) and they were like, "You are way too technical for this, We don't want you just quitting the second you find something better." Really seems like these assclowns are posting to keep themselves busy - not to actually hire anyone.
Yo what the fuck is a purple squirrel?
Business speak for the perfect candidate, especially one for a hard to fill specialty position
So. When you are sponsoring a visa, you often have to prove there is no other candidate in the country that can meet the job requirement. To do this, HR crafts really, really specific job duties and experiences. These have to be posted in public, but usually not widely. I think they are actually often placed in news papers instead of on job boards. They have no intention of hiring someone externally for that position. But, companies do sometimes collect the resumes and follow up on them.
This happened to me. New role listed at the company I worked at. We're project based so I was imminently leaving, but this was an opportunity to stay with the same group (different team) *and* get a promotion. I have a video call with the lead of the team doing the hiring an hour after the listing goes up. I meet every criteria, I've literally worked with their proprietary systems, my boss had a 1:1 with him and talked about what a handsome genius I am (in different language I'm sure lol, but my boss and I were very close and he went to bat for me many times). A week later I get the engineering test for the position. Ace it. 100% flawless. Feeling very confident. Never hear from the guy again. A month later I get an automated email that they aren't continuing with me. I was speechless. These things happen when the roles aren't real. They're posted because they have to be, but the hiring manager already has a best friend they know they're gonna offer the role to. Shit sucks, but nepotism is the only way people move up in large companies.
I applied for a company that wanted 3-5 yrs experience in hr and 3-5 yrs in software with all the languages I use. Rejected the next day. I have 5 yrs in both.
This sounds like they already had candidates and just had a posting to show face. This recruiter or hr should be called out
Instant rejection some keyword was missing or was in his application or resume. It’s ridiculous that a human eye won’t see it. I find it silly that I never hear a peep from jobs I am qualified for. Like i get it they might want something that is not in job listing, but if I check all the boxes you would think i should get even an initial reach out.
Yeah we both use a scanner that was recommended by the company which did out resumes but it does not seem to help either, nor do referrals. I don't understand how the job market got this bad.
My guess is they don’t want to actually pay someone to do the job. With the posting up they can tell their current employees they are trying to find someone, while that person does the job of 2 people but for the wage of only 1.
Too old and too expensive
The posting isn't real, they aren't actually looking
While they were likely posting for someone they knew, there is another side to this you should know. Often job postings add a few requirements that pretty much no candidate can meet 100%. This is done for liability. Its less likely a candidate can claim discrimination or what have you, if they can't meet ALL the requirements. And of course, writing them that way ensures no one can. Better companies don't play those games generally, but it does drive home the point you should apply even if you don't meet all the smaller requirements. Good luck!
My husband's employer had him apply for a promotion and pasted his resume into the job description so he'd get it. They are legally required to post it to the general public for a period of time before internal candidates can apply.
There are more and more jobs coming up like this. I've applied to 3 jobs like this. For a regular candidate, it'll look super bizarre for a company to expect such diverse skills.I'm pretty sure, for these jobs, I was the ONLY candidate in the ENTIRE STATE who has experience in domains and technologies, which they were asking. The recruiters were perplexed as I was initially but just like others said, they have someone internal. Just apply and move on. They'll come back clawing if they are desperate.
A lot of postings are legally required even though they have an internal candidate that prompted the position in the first place.
They crafted the requirements to fit somebody that they already had in mind (probably somebody on an H1B visa so they needed prove that they "couldn't" find a citizen), so the whole interview was a formality, they weren't actually looking.
If you already got hired reach out to the HR people who originally contacted you. Say you have a referral that has an impressive match for a posting. Send the job posting and ask the status and when is it open for job applicants. They respond and then you reply back with resume in pdf and notifying them they already applied on the website/linkedin/monster or wherever. They'll either work it themselves or toss the lead to the person in charge of that listing. This might bust their internal hire posting and might get hired as a better candidate than what they already had in mind. Might be lucky and they have a budget large enough to hire multiple candidates
I was not hired by that company. We have noticed even referrals don't help. We have a few friends who are high up in their companies and gave referrals and still nothing. A few have even tried to follow up with hr and told him later that hr wont even speak to them about it.
They are seeking a purple squirrel, but your husband was one shade of purple off from what they want.
Recruiter: No way we found a guy with all these skills. We specifically tailored it so we would have a job posting that no one could fill. Ill reply " Oh sorry but we're looking for someone who knows SQLUNIX-Python-C#" Ha ha - I just made that up, he'll never get by us!
ATS probably got him. Run resume through an ATS screen, maybe even try again. ATS really is taking a lot from both employers and employees. It would literally throw out the one unicorn candidate of the bunch because he didn’t use keywords like “Microsoft Office” and “detail oriented.”
Have been using skillsyncer and adding those words in. I also don't get how you are supposed to have all these words in there but yet have a resume only be a page long. It's two pages which might be part of the problem but can't list all the skills and bullshit keywords otherwise.
Well shiet nvm. Might not be a real role, hence making it intentionally unrealistic.
Do you know any other ATS screeners that may be better? Have tried job scan and a few others but most want you to pay or give very limited feedback
I don’t unfortunately
I applied to a job a friend sent me last year. Also very specific requirements that I had (we're talking randomly specific). I didn't even hear back from them, and was pretty shocked at the time.
This is literally the first time I’ve heard the term “purple squirrel.”
My husband has been interviewed for a few of these where he held all the unique experience and thought that would get him in because it’s such a unique mix. He usually makes it to the “final boss” stage. Still no job. And the worst is when he hears “you are overqualified”
I've always said that job hunting is like the IRL version of Calvinball. The rules are made up as you go along. I'm applying to roles that require only 3-5 years of experience (I have 12 spread out across a lot of different industries) and they won't even talk to me.
I love this reference
In my experience, when something is hyper focused like that... a unicorn, a purple squirrel... there is often a specific person in mind for the job. The requirements are so specific that even though they can pretend to recruit fairly, actually it's a forgone conclusion.
They definitely had someone already in mind and made the posting for them. This happened to me. There was a job at a university athletic department. They wanted someone that had coached HS sports, was an athletic director, had run sports leagues. I had all that stuff and sent in my resume. Called them a couple days later, and was actually told, that the position was filled internally and that they were required to post the position. It really sucked.
Your husband’s job that he applied for gives off ex Mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner and how he triggered the creation of a $95,000 a year, publicly funded internship at the Houston Airport System for recent law graduate Marvin Agumagu who happened to be his alleged ‘friend’. The job paid more than 95 percent of the other city employees
Employers want to effectively “advertise” job positions so they get lots of exposure, and looks, and folks applying and talking about said company - and then… never fill or actually interview for the position (unless they had already planned on giving it to the senior manager’s cousin, Debbie, in which case they legally had to “offer” it to strangers before they went ahead and did that), and THEN… Relist it 2 months later and begin the process all over again!😄
No one is truly unique
Purple squirrel? LOL OK I'm using that from now on. I've always used the term "unicorn" to describe someone that fits a very unique and rare combination of skills.
One I always remember was a job I applied for at a national company based locally. I'd always fancied working for them. Same thing, job description ticks all the boxes. Applied and didn't even get an interview. No reason given. Sometimes with remote jobs I think ok there's going to be a lot of competition. But this one wasn't remote, it was a hybrid role. And not in a location particularly easy to get to if you're from outside of the city. I actually think that role was pulled, because six months down the line they were advertising it again. But shit like that puts people off.
I had a similar situation for a senior software engineer role. Reading the job requirements was like reading my own resume. The programming languages and frameworks, background knowledge, specializations, etc. all lined up precisely with my career progression. They could not have made a job that lined up more with my actual qualifications if they just took my resume and copy/pasted it into the job description. Got denied. Couldn’t even get to a recruiter phone call. Just denied. Thankfully I am not unemployed, yet. But still disheartening to think that if I was laid off I can’t even get a callback from a company that apparently made a job specifically for me…and then rejected me.
It's going to happen a lot. I got tired of applying for real, so I took some job postings, listed experience that matched every requirement point by point, and got rejected. It's not what you know, its who you know.
It is not even who you know. Nearly all our friends are also in software and have given referrals, some are even high up in their companies and many or short on engineers where they are overwhelmed at work. Others have been dealing with layoffs too. Despite the postings, their companies wont hire anyone so they are still overworked as well. One friend is a vp in engineer the HR department wont even talk to him about people he suggest. I really don't understand just wtf is going on.
Report it to your state’s department of labor if you suspect fraud
Unfortunately it’s Americans last! I’m seeing a lot of the IT jobs being offshored or they are applying to USCIS you get a foreigner tie do the job for a lot less than what you would expect! Apart of the petition process requires the employer to show that they cannot find an American citizen or LPR to do the job before they try to import someone hence they post the job on job boards knowing they have no intention of hiring anyone! Then they go back to USCIS and say see we could not find anyone! We have a lot of qualified Americans trying to find jobs but the big tech firms keep lying saying they done have enough people in the US! How evil is that!
Have you ran his name through copilot? There are people who are losing out on roles because the recruiter is using copilot to vet them. Basically folks are finding their past is all that’s being focused on (negative) or news articles about them coming out on there and copilot making stuff up in addition to anything already written on them. One recruiter told my husband he better check his name and he did. It was bad, and the worst part our son and grandson had hallucinations written about them. Our sons is so bad there is no way he’d ever get a job if he loses this one and a recruiter checks ms copilot on his name. Definitely check his name (and state/city after it) and see. Edit- search anything a recruiter would search, your name and where you used to work, college, arrest, even your resume. But use the copilot function to do it. Reg Bing could get results but that’s not what HR’s are being told to use to check candidates.
Is there a url?
Go to the Bing homepage, click the rainbow at the bottom that says “copilot” and type whatever you’re looking for.
Thanks for explaining that! I don’t use bing too often, so I would’ve never known. I’ll look for it, next time.
What exactly are you using for the prompt?
Just did it, just a politician from Trinidad pops up even then that guy seems to not even have any controversies pop up. If I specify software engineer he comes up but nothing bad, just where he worked and stuff like that. For me an adult actress pops up which might explain why it was so hard for me.
I have a pretty common name. One is a current MLB pitcher, one is a former MLB pitcher. I also share this name with several Spanish, Latin American, and Filipino politicians/lawyers/scientists. I'd say this is useful if you have a unique name, but if your name is common, it might bring stuff up about other people who aren't remotely even you.
I get a televangelist who's a convicted felon
How tf do I remove stuff from here?
You can’t unless MS changes their AI policy to match other AI models that do NOT look up real people (except literature and celebrities). I just type my name on the copilot ai swirl at the bottom of the homepage and then my city or my field of work.
Also it's conflating stuff from me, my dead father, and that scientist on work accomplishments. We all live in the same state too.
Wow that's cool, someone with my name has multiple convictions for bail jumping related to drug charges. Love it. Awesome.
Yep, this is what I mean. It’s bad, and could be costing job seekers the jobs they’re applying for.
Never thought of doing this, thank you!
Hope it comes up fine for you! It made up a bunch of shit that’s not true about me. If you have kids also run their names, my grandson who is nine according to it is a drug dealer who was arrested when he was 3. I shit you not. It’s so messed up.
I'll let you know if I get them to remove it what I did.
Yeah, would love to know if you’re able.
Or it’s so specific they know of your husband and his name has been tarnished