Posts

Posted on

Gonna try this post again…

I’m wondering if I should get together with a few of my retired friends and create a recruiting company.

We’ve all got computers, management skills, we’ve all been hiring managers, and perhaps we could bring some much needed clarity and professionalism to recruiting.

Based on the recruiters and recruiting agencies I’ve interacted with over the past five years I’m of a mind that we could bring value to an industry that honestly feels like dealing with a bunch of used car salesmen. Dealing with recruiting firms shouldn’t make you feel like you’ve been slimed.

The latest interaction with a recruiter is a real winner. I went to the trouble of creating an interview scheduling template a few weeks ago. It’s worked fairly well although there have been a couple of bumps along the way. (Just a little fine tuning here and there plus sending a couple of feature requests to improve the product.)

For the latest winner, I forwarded the link when they sent the inevitable “What times are good for you for a phone call,” message. My schedule is generally open but there are some things that pop up in my calendar that make me unavailable.

The recruiter, sent back an email saying they couldn’t commit to a particular time and instead picked Monday from 8am to 3pm. Really?

Now we’ve got recruiters that think they’re cable repair people? Super unprofessional!

Why did they send me the question in the first place? If their schedule is so full they have to pick a range of times (essentially their entire workday,) then why didn’t they just say from the outset, “I’ll call you on Monday,”?

Were I to create a company, I think I’d call it “No BS recruiters” maybe “Naked Recruiting” with a tag line “We strip your Job Search process to the essentials“.

I’d structure the process with no cute pictures, no goofball psych testing, no DEI, and automatically choose “Decline to answer,” on all Race, Gender, or National origin questions. The only valid question is “Are you authorized to work in the United States, Will you require sponsorship in the future?”

I’ll bet between the people I know, we could stand up a recruiting business in less than a month. The long poles would be settling on some kind of CRM software and setting up secondary phone numbers on our phones. I’m pretty sure we could have phone numbers up & running in less than 4 hours. The CRM software might be a little more difficult. That’s just because we’d want something that didn’t cost an arm & a leg and that wasn’t providing features we didn’t want or need. In other words, something that worked and didn’t require a whole staff to maintain.

One thing I’d add would be AI evaluation of resumes to catch people who’ve lifted sections from other people’s resumes, then determine who really did what.

I’m talking about a process that would be totally merit based. Something that connected hiring folks, to folks needing to be hired, bypassing all the stupid shit.

Maybe just present resume images instead of forcing the prospective employee to redundantly fill out dumb boxes on a site, then fill out those same dumb boxes on the prospective employer’s site, (because why would there be any data transfer,) in addition to putting in all the work on their resume in the first place.

You know, OLD SCHOOL!

The job search process at this point is more complex than applying for a freaking security clearance. It’s easier to apply to run for Congress than to get through some of the job applications.

I’m talking about applications for simple jobs. Even retail an application these days is often a multipage form. In my first retail positions the test was essentially does the person have a pulse?

I’m curious about this phone interview on Monday. Based on the initial contact email I think this “recruiting” firm is really trying to sell me something and it’s not a job, it’s training to enter the IT field. 

If that’s the case, I’m just pissed off enough to send letters to the initial website that I applied on, better business bureau, Ken Paxton AG of Texas (the company is based in TX), and possibly to President Trump.

If a company is posting a job, then that’s it. They shouldn’t be trying to run some kind of bait and switch. That’s dishonest and begs the question; “Are these folks just trying to steal my identity?“

Why Trump? Because as a businessman who’s trying to get this country’s economy really rolling again, he might see the threat.

What threat? That’s easy. If people are frustrated to the point that they give up entirely, and filling out a welfare form is easier than filling out a job application. America won’t have a roaring economy based on American workers, companies will be able to legitimately say they need foreign workers because all the Americans are on the dole.

For more than 25 years, I’ve said outright the abuse of the H1B1 system by Corporate America is tantamount to Treason.

And don’t even get me started on Presidents Bush.

Posted on

Off the rails…

I was going to write a long post about how the job search is going. 

The post went completely off the rails and now sits in the “Drafts” bin with other similar posts.

Every once in a while, I’ll go back and dust one of these off, clean it up and post it.

The interesting thing is that some of these posts are still relevant sometimes years after I initially started them.

What does that say about my opinions? Does it say more about the repetitive nature of human behavior, or the cyclic nature of the latest trends?

Maybe it’s me telling myself, don’t get spun up over shit that’s just going to repeat, and that my problem is being impatient with humanity not learning a damn thing no matter how many times the lesson is repeated.

I’m in a mood!

Posted on

Now that’s slick…

The question is, will people I need to use it, actually use it?

I’ve been using an application called FantastiCal for many years. Generally speaking I try to use the applications supplied in on my iPhone, Computer, and iPad. 

This application is different. When Apple. in their infinite wisdom de-coupled To-Dos from Calendar, I went looking for something different. Apple has since re-coupled To-Dos and Calendar.

FantastiCal did the job and exceeded my needs then, as the years have progressed, they’ve added features that are really slick.

They’ve always had “Natural Language” processing. In FantastiCal you can say something like “Dr. Appointment @ 3pm on July 25th” and FantastiCal will add that to your calendar. Moving appointments is also drag & drop. Being able to duplicate appointments is really handy if you’re having to do a follow-up visit.

For about the past year or two, FantastiCal has provided a method to allow people to request appointments with you. I’ve not used this ability until recently.

In the near future, I’m going to be working on a number of things that will require scheduling and I thought, “Why should I be entering appointments and details manually?”

So a few weeks ago I enabled that part of the system. Now, instead of say, a job recruiter asking me what my availability is for an interview, I can send them a link in a cover letter, and they can pick a time themselves. Hopefully they’ll use the link and help keep me on schedule.

After I’d set up the interview link, I thought why not use the same system for more general meetings?

The cool thing is that the system looks at all my calendars, the private ones, and those that involve more public facing things like interviews, then automatically blocks out times when there is a conflict. It doesn’t disclose what I’m doing, it simply doesn’t list time blocks that are otherwise allocated.

No-one needs to know I’m at the Doctor’s office, they only need to know that I’m not available.

There are a range of ways I can see using this. For example: You have to arrange some kind of home maintenance and the provider asks you use their web site to make the request. So I’m thinking, I’ll include a link showing my availability and allow the provider to just pick a time that works for them, then it will pop up in my calendar. It’s also possible to select times that you’re generally unavailable in the template, so if you’re habitual about walking the dog, or you’re always at a community center on a particular day, you can eliminate that block of time entirely from selection.

FantastiCal has matured this part of their system to the point that you can make a template that requires information when the other person is making the appointment request. “Do you have to be there?”, “Estimated cost”, “ Will the dog have to be inside or outside” etc. Then you can approve the appointment or propose something different if need be.

I’m going to try this out & see where it goes.

FantastiCal has a small learning curve. It took me a while to get things set up in a way that works for me.

Another cool thing is that it can store the information in a way that Apple Reminders and Apple Calendar is also updated. So that information isn’t lost in the event you lose your phone. It’s still available via iCloud.

Recently they’ve introduced a Windows version of the FantastiCal application. 

I haven’t used it, but it might provide an elegant bridge between Windows and iPhone / iPad so that you’re not having to look at multiple systems if you’re making appointments.

I like the FantastiCal method of displaying scheduling information better than the Apple Calendar & Reminders app too.

That being said, I like Apple Reminders for shopping lists. FantastiCal doesn’t do that quite as well.

Hope your day is productive.

Posted on

Didn’t see that coming, apparently neither did Iran.

Trump took out Iran’s uranium refineries. 

Good! The last people on the planet that should have nuclear weapons, or even nuclear materials is a bunch of 12th century religious zealots.

Since the days of Carter, I’ve suggested that we give Iran nuclear weapons – Pointy end first. Then erect a huge monument to stupidity that could be seen from orbit on the foot thick slab of glass that used to be Iran.

I looked at it as a twofer, maybe a threefer. We’d get rid of the crazy mullahs, combat climate change with the dust the blast would kick into the atmosphere, and send a very clear concise message to terrorists that their unending violence would not be tolerated.

Most people told me my suggestion was extreme. Maybe…

I’ve mellowed over the years, largely due to my other half being such a just and kind person. I’m still in favor of terrorists being shot on sight. I’m not particularly interested in trials or appeals for them.

Which is why I have no pity for Gaza. The Palestinians were given the land, allowed to create their own governance, and chose a terrorist organization to be their government. What they’ve done over the years, and in particular on Oct 7 deserves no mercy, no pity, and no survivors.

It’s not hatred that I feel, it’s exhaustion. The entire Middle East has exhausted me.

Send all their “immigrants” back from Western countries, quarantine the area, then let them murder each other at will. Wait 50 or 100 years then check on them to see if any of them had evolved beyond the 12th century.

This morning Iran is crying to the UN about not being able to make “Mostly Peaceful” Nuclear weapons. At the same time they’re still lobbing “Mostly Peaceful” ballistic missiles at Israel. I’d laugh if I didn’t know that the UN will of course condemn the US for burying a shit ton of uranium in the desert.

To be clear, I disagree with Israel launching the first missiles at Iran. I think it might not have been that great an idea.

I guess they had their reasons, and I don’t know enough to really assess what the motivation was. In general I’m in favor of destroying Iranian ability to sponsor global terrorist networks, piracy on the high seas, and God knows what other shenanigans they’re behind on the global stage.

Iran should be glad people with Western values are choosing tactical targets. I suspect that if someone were motivated, almost every city in Iran could be leveled in less than 24 hours.

I’m reasonably sure that as long as the oil production sites weren’t significantly damaged, no-one would give a shit. Perhaps it could be sold to the rest of the world as, “For the Greater Good”. That seems to carry weight with a lot of people these days.

It would do my evil little heart good to see tons of Americans out on the streets shouting “Death to Iran” or “Murder a Mullah for God”. Burning effigies, Iranian flags, and such.

I’m just sick and tired of being extorted by Iran (how many billions have been given to them to “buy” peace?) Maybe I’m sick of having to be “Nice”. Maybe I’m just tired of chaos.

I don’t want any American boots on the ground in the Middle East ever again. But I wouldn’t be opposed to making an example of the primary ringleaders of chaos from the air.

I’m glad Trump bombed the shit out of their facilities. Now let Israel finish the job.

Rumor has it, Iran has ordered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Even though it would mean escalation of hostilities, I’m not opposed to the US Navy hunting down and sinking every Iranian warship. While we’re at it, destroy every single Iranian military aircraft.

I’m also for isolating them from the internet, and seizing all their foreign assets, including bank accounts, then returning that money to the American Taxpayer as reparations for PTSD.

If you deny the Mullahs the ability to make war, then you won’t have war.

Hey, at least I’m not advocating burning their fields and villages then plowing salt into the ground.

Posted on

WHY? Wednesday evening my phone offered to suspend my alarm for Juneteenth.

Really? 

Why would my phone offer to disable my alarm for that? It’s never offered to suspend any other alarms for other holidays.

Martin Luther King’s birthday – Jan 20, 2025 was on a Monday
Presidents Day – February 17, 2025 another Monday
St Patrick’s Day – March 17th 2025 another Monday
Easter – April 20th 2025 a Sunday
Memorial Day – May 26, 2025 a Monday

But, I get a notification to modify my daily alarm about Juneteenth on a Thursday? What the hell?

I’ll be interested to see if a notification appears for Independence Day July 4th 2025, that’s on a Friday. How about Labor Day September 1st 2025? That’s a Monday

I like the idea of my phone offering to turn off the alarm on a Federal holiday to allow me to sleep in, but wonder if this is just pandering on the part of Apple.