Thank you for visiting bizzia Careers again. I appreciate your passion around this topic. Thank you for your insights. I believe that we see the world differently. I am not attempting to sway you to my point of view and you obviously have lots of passion around yours. That’s great.

For the record, I have been laid off in the past. It had absolutely nothing to do with my performance and everything to do with the climate in the market at that time. My time to experience being laid off was shortly after 9/11. So I have been in the market when it wasn’t my choice, based on the decision of others. As I have said on my blog in the past, it was not an easy time for me, however once I moved past my initial anger, frustration and despair about losing an AWESOME job, I began to reassess what my next steps should be. I made some decisions, went back to school and today I enjoy a new career path. The transition has been exciting. I believe that same excitement is available for job seekers today. Whether a job seeker has lost their job because of a choice they made or a choice made for them, the option about how to view that decision or choice is completely up to the job seeker.

In the world that you live in, it may not be exciting, and I appreciate that, but I don’t believe that job seekers have to be victimized by the economy, the employment market, the hiring and/or interview process. Job seekers have much more control over their future than many of them believe. That is the world I live in. My lens. Right or wrong that is how I see it.

My column here at bizzia is an open forum for debate, discussion and information sharing. I am not attempting to change everyones view to mine. I just freely share mine. And you are welcome to do the same. If my writing helps one person get a job, or move from anger, frustration and despair to feeling empowered to go get the jobs they want, or start a new business, than I have accomplished my purpose here.

Again, I appreciate your view. Feel free to stop by bizzia Careers any time.

Darlene

Thanks for your response and for the invitation to return. I understand you have a different viewpoint, but I feel the need to comment on a few things.

First, the challenging employment market is NOT an exciting time for job seekers. Under different circumstances, it could be. It could be exciting if YOU made the choice to change jobs or careers, not someone else making it for you. It could be exciting if there were NOT 200 qualified candidates for every job you were interested in. It could be exciting if it didn’t take 5-10 months to get hired. It could be exciting if you had money saved up that would pay the bills to support your family and go back to school and get “creative.”

Second, getting creative, sharpening your skills and networking are not the issue. We all know about Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging – I happen to do all of that and it’s still has nothing to do with whether an employer is asking job candidates to work for free. In fact, groups like JobAngels wouldn’t have been created had it not been for the unexciting, difficult job market.

Third, it’s a little offensive to say, “Feeling sorry for yourself will not get you a job.” and “ Despair will not get you a job.” Who said anything about feeling sorry or despair. No one is asking for pity. A day didn’t go by in the 5 laborious months I searched for a job that I felt sorry for myself or felt desperate. I’m talking about employers playing fair in this economic time and job market.

Let’s keep this on the topic…IF an employer knows that job candidates feel asking them to do an exercise that addresses the company’s real-life issues WHEN there are alternatives to evaluating skills, is that fair? IF employers know it isn’t fair and that they can get away with it because of the precarious situation a job candidate is in, isn’t that exploitation?

I say it isn’t fair and it is exploitation.

Thank you for stopping by bizzia Careers today. I apologize for taking so long to get to your comment today. Very busy day. I appreciate your perspective on this topic which is one of the reasons I wrote my post.

I see the world differently. I don’t believe you can be exploited in this particular situation. I understand that you do. I even understand the despair that many job seekers are feeling because of the struggle to get a job. However, from my lens, the challenging employment market can be exciting times for job seekers. Wny? Because if no one else will hire you, you can get very creative. Entrepreneurs are birthed every day in this market. People are coming up with creative business ideas that are working. Job seekers are networking, and sharpening their skills, going back to school, and the list goes on. If it wasn’t for this crazy market, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter would not be nearly as popular as they are today. Job Angels would never have been established. And the list goes on. It can look unfortunate for job seekers, but what I challenge my clients to do is to get creative. Feeling sorry for yourself will not get you a job. Despair will not get you a job. If you are good at what you do and you can communicate what you can bring to an organization, you will eventually get a job. How long will it take? I have no idea, but get in the game and create a demand for you, your skills and your abilities.

Please feel free to stop by bizzia Careers any time!

Darlene

There are two points of view…one from a person who is employed and one from a person who is unemployed. These two different viewpoints fuel emotions. My opinion is from the latter and now that I’m employed, I still feel the same.

I agree with you that it is fair to evaluate the skills and abilities of a job candidate, but there are other ways besides asking a candidate to solve the company’s real-life issue, not hire her/him and then use the candidate’s intellectual property to their benefit.

If the candidates feel this is unfair (and many do), why not choose the other options to evaluate skill sets. I offer a few alternatives in my post at http://www.workingnetwork.blogspot.com.

Candidates are unfortunate in these tough times because there are hundreds of candidates per one job opening. There are candidates that are loosing their homes and worried about their families. This is not an exaggeration or the few. This is happening all over. Though I was not in this severe of a situation, I certainly felt the stress, pain and worry of being unemployed for 5 months before I found work. An unfortunate situation for the unemployed.

You say, “…whether you get the job or not, you WIN if the solution you gave is real, and it works. It demonstrates your ability to solve problems and if that organization will not hire you another one will.” Sorry, but you don’t win and you don’t feel like you did. Feeling like you demonstrated your ability doesn’t make you feel good. Getting the job does. And you don’t know if another organization will hire you and, if one does, you don’t know when that is and that can be scary.

If after this topic is well documented and employers realize what they’re doing – which is asking a candidate to do something they think is unfair and free consulting – and do it anyway, then it is exploitation.