Unemployed Need Not Apply- A New, Frightening Trend In Hiring

It's a new trend for employers, and a slap in the face to unemployed job seekers. What is it? It is a new group of companies, hiring recruiting companies to keep unemployed people out of their job applicant pool.

In fact, a recent report by an Orlando News site, discusses the situation with Sony Ericsson, a large company who is moving their corporate headquarters to a suburb of Atlanta, GA. The community was excited about the 180 new jobs the company would bring to the area. In fact, the company was lured there by a $4 million state tax credit.

Imagine the surprise of the applicants when they read the company's job post. In all capital letters it read “No Unemployed Candidates will be considered at all”. The community is upset, and they feel that if the company is refusing to hire the unemployed, then they shouldn't be receiving the tax break because the tax cut was to encourage new jobs.

When they asked the recruiting company responsible, no specific information was given, but the reporter was told that this is part of a larger trend among employers. It seems that many companies feel like the people who were laid off from their last job were the worst employees. The reasoning goes that the employees who were left after lay offs would be the best of the best, and those are the people they want to hire. Also, companies fear that employees who have been out of work for a while would take longer to get back into the swing of work and would require more training than those who hadn't left the work force.

While it isn't illegal to rule out unemployed people from being considered for a job, it is bad practice. An article at CNNMoney says that even when a job description doesn't specifically say that unemployed people won't be considered, it is still a fairly new but common practice. In fact, a recruiter they spoke to said that when she proposes candidates for job openings, the first question asked is, “Do they have a job?”. If the answer is no, they won't consider the applicant.

There is this persistent myth that if you are unemployed that you must not be a good employee. And that is rarely ever the truth. There are many factors at play when companies decide who to lay off and who to keep. They main thing they look for is, who they can live without. That means less senior staff, people who work in a department that could be outsourced and other reasons. Likewise, just because someone wasn't laid off, doesn't mean they are more valuable to their company. It just means that the company wanted to keep that job.

On the other hand, employers and recruiters are being swamped with hundreds of applications for just a small number of job openings. There is no way that they could review so many resumes, so they look for ways to narrow down the field, and this is an easy way to do it. The simple math is that if they receive 200 resumes for 4 job openings, and 20 of those applicants were currently employed in the industry, it is easier to choose 4 of the 20 rather than sort through all 200 resumes.

Still, it seems unfair and discriminatory to me. In this sort of economy, the unemployed don't need more discouragement.

Have you been turned down for a job because you are out of work? Tell me your story in the comments.

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