The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Last week I applied for a position I'm underqualified for via LinkedIn. I applied on a whim for two reasons:
EasyApply means it took all of 30 seconds to send in. Low barrier to entry + plus alcohol = wtf not?
Ten seconds on Google told me the company's primary business was well-afield of what they'd be hiring me for. I'm in a niche field that a lot of HR types don't really understand and make up wild job requirements for, i.e. 5 years of experience using a toolkit that was only invented 6 months ago. Because you have to get through the HR gremlins to deal with the people who actually do the technical interviews, I generally don't feel bad checking "yes" for non-cert requirements I don't have. Everyone's trying to buy a Bentley at Kia prices and we'll all settle on an upmarket Honda in the end.
Fast forward to this morning and I get the initial screening interview email. Turns out the company I applied to is a start-up with an almost identical name to the one that popped up on Google. Aforesaid start-up is also being run by someone with some actual pull/clout/influence/whatever in my field. And that individual is the one conducting the initial screening call. (I did a little more digging and called around to confirm this isn't a scam and it isn't.) I'm not sure how to feel about this.
Point: I got the interview through misrepresentation. This isn't an interview with an HR gremlin who's ticking boxes, this is a screening with someone who knows their shit and very likely knew exactly what they were looking for. Is it ethical for me to burn 30 minutes of this person's time?
Counterpoint: On the other hand, if this person is doing the interview, it's fair to think they have read my resume, right? Some of the easiest flags to screen for, namely years of experience, is pretty easy to derive just glancing over my resume. So if this person read my resume and is still wants to do a quick phone call, that must mean they must see something worth at least exploring, right?
Counter-Counterpoint: This start-up probably doesn't have any organic HR gremlins but that doesn't mean the CEO isn't using some other HR gremlins to screen everything. There's a good chance the CEO just aid "Find me X" and the out-sourced HR gremlins said "Post the template for X on LinkedIn."
Counter-Counter-Counterpoint: This person probably going to interview dozens of candidates for this position. 30 minutes of his time really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.
There really isn't a point to any of this, I'm just posting this here to keep from spinning out too badly.
Please let us know how this goes!
Remind me on the next Wellness Wednesday.
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