Iowa Workforce Development and the State of Job-Hunting

[Phaedrus]

Well, with my first leave coming up in less than a month, I decided to test the job-market waters in Central Iowa, on the off chance that I could find something.

So, I checked all of the usual suspects, and sent in a bunch of resumes, and decided, "what the hey" might as well check out Iowa Workforce Development's websiste and do a search.

Well, shockingly, I found something that looked like it might fit my qualifications. I read through the Job Description as well as the qualifications and said to myself, "Self, this job just might be the ticket!"

So I updated my profile/resume' and pushed the submit button. To my surprise, I was taken to a webpage that said, "Sorry Charlie, you're not qualified for this job", listed a couple of cryptic reasons and then kicked me back to the search page.

Seems the morons at IWD have decided to "filter out" those applicants that don't know their version's software "buzz-words" of skill qualifications. I mean, I cannot even discover what company is advertising the job without passing the filter.

Which brings up and interesting question: How stupid ARE the people that employ these applicant filters? It seems to me, that "qualified" applicants, and "know all the correct buzz-words" applicants aren't always the same.

Have HR departments become so brain-dead that they cannot see how dumb this approach to selecting prospective employees is?

How can an employer ever expect anything but mediocre results using something like this (Hint - employers don't WANT talent. Talent might make them look bad, so mediocre results are the goal. My opinion)

Has anyone else experienced the joy of IWD/HR incompetence?

 

[Rocky2321]

By hiring mediocre talent companies can get away with paying much less per hour for the employees and with the state of the economy can keep turning them over until they are able to find someone worth hanging on to, but still paying them far less then they are worth.

 

[cyfreddy]

I have had this same problem on IWD, kind of frustrating.

 

[pulse]

When I look for candidates I have to read through a mountain of resumes which is excruciatingly tedious. I do however take a look at every single one of them without relying on filtering capabilities when I post something. Just because someone might not have listed a very specific keyword doesn't mean they aren't qualified or will do a good job.

 

[Wx4Cy]

Took me 5 weeks to get my first unemployment check. Had my next job lined up before I got any money. That was after 3 phone calls to figure out what was going on.

 

[Cyrocks]

So I updated my profile/resume' and pushed the submit button. To my surprise, I was taken to a webpage that said, "Sorry Charlie, you're not qualified for this job", listed a couple of cryptic reasons and then kicked me back to the search page.

Seems the morons at IWD have decided to "filter out" those applicants that don't know their version's software "buzz-words" of skill qualifications. I mean, I cannot even discover what company is advertising the job without passing the filter.

A friend of mine told me about this same "problem". What he ended up doing was basically lying and checking that he had experience in nearly every thing listed. That way it fooled the IWD Web site to cough up the name of the company. He then sent his resume directly to the company.

Good luck in your job search.