Why is it so painfully difficult to apply for minimum wage jobs?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Why is it so painfully difficult to apply for minimum wage jobs?

Whistling Asshole: Nov 18, 2005

Mistikman posted:

A little backstory: due to crippling depression combined with the recession, my career completely disintegrated in 2009/2010. Since then I have had to move back in with my parents and have spent the last 5 years mostly out of work, with 1 1/2 years spent working at Walmart and another 2 years spent on a failed attempt to go back to school for a degree. The return to school was unfortunately ruined again by my depression, and now I have basically nothing to show for it except lots of student loan debt.

Now I am trying once again to get back into the workforce, but having been out of work for so much time in the last 6 years, and having lost contact with everyone I knew professionally due to my tendency to isolate, I have very little going for me, so I am applying mostly to minimum wage jobs.

The application process to get into these jobs feels utterly ridiculous. I am applying for temporary, part time, minimum wage jobs, and the applications tend to take 1 1/2 to 2 hours each to submit, and they require me to upload a resume and cover letter, then re-input all the information from my resume, often along with additional information like requiring the names of my supervisors at my previous jobs, many of which I cant remember the names of. They also almost always require me to provide 3 professional references, of which I have none. I have also had one of these jobs require me to submit a Letter of Introduction, which I had no idea how to procure since I didn't know anyone who worked there.

After taking over an hour to do this, I often then have to complete an online assessment presenting me with ~50-100 questions and I have to mark my responses.

And after I do all of that, I never hear from the companies in question.

How the loving poo poo do people actually find jobs, and how am I supposed to be able to put my life back together when the most menial of work has such ridiculous hurdles placed in front of it?

every job is like this now. they all use some resume processing middleware that was probably user experience tested by two 11 year olds in Bangalore. the other night I couldn't continue on an application because the minimum education field was a drop down list of universities -- none of them was the school I went to and it wouldn't let me proceed to the next page without picking one of them. there was no "other" or "input your own" or whatever. your depression's about to get a lot worse :unsmith:

# ¿ Dec 5, 2015 01:25

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 14:50

Whistling Asshole: Nov 18, 2005

RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:

Why didn't you just pick one and continue? It's not like a job like that is going to ask for a transcript and if it ever comes up you can just explain it. As long as you didn't go to community college and pick Harvard or something it's not like it looks like you're trying to inflate your credentials.

because it's absurd?? what kind of hosed up Kafka-esque society do we live in where I *have to* lie to proceed on a job application

# ¿ Dec 5, 2015 22:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Why is it so painfully difficult to apply for minimum wage jobs?