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Wolfgang Puck can’t find waiters because of labor shortage


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On 9/23/2021 at 10:58 AM, Bevo said:

Nivek and Captainant, please re-read. No one is bitching at employees and no one is bitching at the S&P. I've read tons on the subject with a bunch of biases in them with conservative and liberal slants that distort the issues. Then I read several articles that were specifically industry related which BTW had minimal bias. And then, I've spoken with a bunch of applicants, potential applicants, friends, experts, headhunters and providers and consolidated the info. You are welcome.

It sounds exactly like you are bitching at employees.   You assume that people do not like going to work.  I disagree.  I worked jobs which I would do for free because I think the work is interesting.   I consulted for free to help a friend and their company grow, simply because it gave me an excuse to refresh my skills in a certain area of hydrology.  

On 9/22/2021 at 11:01 AM, Bevo said:

Look at the numbers and get back with me. 13% of people like going to work. And of those 13% most work because they have to provide for their families and/or themselves not because it fulfills some intrinsic need. It is called work for a reason. Volunteering is called volunteering for a reason. I know very few volunteers who work over 40hrs per week. Volunteers on average work 2.6hrs per week. Most people would prefer volunteering over work. They would not volunteer very much though as evidence shows.

You keep repeating this.  Since I fucked up the order  I address this below from one of your own links.  But the underlined portion is really simplistic thinking.   I Go to Work by Kool Moe Dee is a song that celebrates that term that you use see negatively.  

 

22 hours ago, Captainant said:

It sure would seem like in a free market in which supply and demand is what governs prices, that labor prices should he going up and not remaining stagnant. 

OK

10 hours ago, Bevo said:

 

That is basic economics. It isn't supply side theory. If salaries of the poor rise, costs for the business rise. Companies have the choice to absorb the cost through increasing efficiency or having worse profitability or raising prices and passing along the prices to consumers. When prices are passed along, it means higher prices for goods. This means expenses for everyone goes up. However, the price increases disproportionately affect the poor and middle class. So it turns out that the increased wages didn't help them live better lives. Not saying I am for or against raising wages for everyone - All I am saying is that for the people that you are trying to help, it doesn't do a whole lot.

This is a common statement by people who do not understand economics, economic models, and their boundary conditions.  In a perfect market, where the prices have been driven to nearly rock bottom, all the actors are rational, and margins are tight, this is very true.   But since we do not live in that condition this is not a valid way of understanding economics.   If the margins are greater, than expenses can be absorbed and/or the structure where the CEO gets 2 private jets and has solid gold toilets as a perk needs to be re-examined.   

I have an anecdote on this, I worked in the oil field and our CEO was interested in cost cutting in 2015, but that cost cutting really meant for others not him.  A frustrating part was that some of the cost cutting was theater and not actually a reduction in total expenses.   I am pretty sure his CEO qualification amounted to  being tall.    

On 9/22/2021 at 6:44 AM, Bevo said:

Well, I'll be more succinct then. You're wrong.

Work fucking sucks. Bosses suck. Managing sucks. Dealing with customers sucks. Dealing with vendors sucks. Not being with your family sucks.

I do not feel like this and never really have.  I have had to work with difficult people before and instead of seeing it as a shitty situation, I saw it as a challenge.  Hell, I worked with a guy who bad mouthed me and disliked me simply because I wasn't the person he wanted to be hired (and he had zero say in the matter, and the other guy wasn't looking for the job).  Since his kids worked at the company they would sometimes be hostile to me.  I would just ignore it, show up in the field with fresh coffee and some donuts sometimes and by the middle of the project we were all good.  The next job there would be ice and I would rinse and repeat.   Eventually the kids of the man stopped buying into it, and even he stopped seeing me as an adversary.  

On 9/22/2021 at 6:35 AM, Bevo said:

Bullshit - most people don't want to work - just like me. They work because they have to work. Ask everyone on this board if they would rather be in Maui or Bocas del Toro or Madera, or Bali or Kodiak, AK right now. You know the fucking answer. Don't come here and bullshit or try to make philosophical arguments or play devil's advocate or obfuscate. Say what you want to say or get the fuck out. We're all too busy and have too little patience for that nonsense.

 

On 9/22/2021 at 8:05 AM, Bevo said:

If you want to be mocked all day by everyone on this board, keep up with the charade that you started that "most people want to work". I don't even know why you are on this board instead of working. It makes no sense if it is taking away from what really makes you happy, work. People work because they have to work. Most don't forgo their paycheck because of the joy of working and their lack of time and desire to be able to spend it. Sure, there are some miserable fucks who live to work, but they are few and far between. And I guess there are people out there like yourself who can't enjoy fishing and hiking and camping and driving Lambos and flying Gulfstreams and enjoying museums and the arts. However, most people would rather have hobbies and families to keep busy as opposed to say getting up at 6am to go to work and dealing with traffic for the enjoyment of great bosses and co-workers and vendors and customers.

And just because you bore me, https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/more-than-half-of-working-moms-would-prefer-to-be-at-home-survey-finds.html

From your own article: “Three-fourths of women say they enjoy the work they do, and two-thirds say they enjoy the social aspect of working.”

While you are in the health care industry you see that positions previously filled are not getting filled.  But there is a barrier to entry in many fields including health care where the barrier can cost significantly higher and in many other sectors in addition to the lag time between the demand for employees and the training of future workers.  Doctors not being able to afford to absorb cost, kind of sounds like to me, "my salary needs to be $300k, so I cannot possibly take $200k, and hire 1.5 more nurses."    Also this is one sector where insurance companies dictate pricing for doctors who take insurance.  Are docs who do not take insurance in the same position?  Captain Ant and I were interested in other sectors as well. 

While HEB tries to hire more cashiers, they are not incentivizing people to become cashiers (Mandate masks to keep employees happy, increase pay enough to offset their risk, etc.).  Maybe the fat they need to trim is at the top.   We have all seen charts over the years about executive compensation.  I added a write up about it below*, as this has occurred while the middle class has disappeared. 

As restaurants had issues as well, they stopped paying their workers who may have found other jobs.  Why should they quit their new job and return to an industry which laid them off at the drop of a hat (or any employee).   Furthermore, there is a uptick in shitty passengers due to their concentration increase (as some of us are not willing to take unnecessary risk and dilute that pool), so even if they return to the job, their job is immediately more difficult and riskier.   If they were incentivised to return to the workforce they might just do that or new workers would show up.  Hell, we convinced 7 people to fly into the earth, upside down, backwards, with a plus/minus 2 degree error otherwise they will burn to death.   

 

*https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-in-2019-to-21-3-million-ceos-now-earn-320-times-as-much-as-a-typical-worker/

Quote

In 2019, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 320-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 293-to-1 in 2018 and a big increase from 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989. CEOs are even making a lot more—about six times as much—as other very high earners (wage earners in the top 0.1%). From 1978 to 2019, CEO pay based on realized compensation grew by 1,167%, far outstripping S&P stock market growth (741%) and top 0.1% earnings growth (which was 337% between 1978 and 2018, the latest data year available). In contrast, compensation of the typical worker grew by just 13.7% from 1978 to 2019.

You mentioned earlier that you used to see 150 applications for a given job and are now seeing about 2.   Why is that not your company's fault?  Why doesn't the company hire and train them for the job or sponsor their educational or licensing needs?   During my lifetime, I have noticed the organizations used to hire good people and then train them for the work and now, we expect you to have experience in the job first before we consider hiring you.  

Lastly when you look to hire someone are you looking to fill the role or are you expecting to find your variant?  So many times I have come across people looking to hire themselves.   I fell into this category too once.   

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10 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Sock. He accounts for about 80% of my negs. 

Figured. The guy called me out by basically calling me a liar so I posted one of the articles that he said I didn't have. Why would someone other than a sock white knight for a guy acting like that?

 

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On 9/22/2021 at 5:22 PM, Eastwood said:

Apparently outing all the Gen Xers. No wonder there was so much hostility earlier in the thread. People were getting to quit jobs they felt trapped in and found greener pastures. Buncha green-eyed monsters showed up after. I have a good friend who is a Gen Xer and he has been absolutely miserable in his work life the entire time I've known him. He laments about how he wishes he could do something else, about how it's too late for him, about how he has too many liabilities now and that too many people rely on him financially. A prison of his own making, to be honest. In this day and age, with the technology and resources available to anyone willing to learn, there is zero reason to work a job that you don't enjoy with people you don't get along with. I've only worked one job after college that I didn't enjoy and I moved on after 18 months of trying to make it work.

The rat race really is over for a lot of millenials, but especially for the generations after. The workplace is changing. People aren't chained to their desks or really have any co-workers they interact with on a daily basis. The internet lets you monetize literally anything you can imagine. It's a whole new world out there if you're willing to break out of your comfort zone. If you're miserable, out there, I promise that you can find a solution if you really sit down and problem solve it. It won't be immediate, but it takes some of that hard work, consistency, and grit that some of you claim us younger generations don't have.

A lot of truth here.  I am about to semi retire due to a combination of luck and hard work, but mostly being in the right place at the right time.  But once I retire I plan to work full time, just a lot less stressful job in a lot nicer place.  I’m under 50.  It’ll be fantastic to cash out and focus on work without worrying about retirement or how to pay for the kids college.

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  • 1 month later...

An interesting article looking at the other side of the coin. People that really want to work that are finding nothing, with focus on the following:

1. Age

2. Either too experienced or not experienced enough.

3. Been unemployed too long, application software spits out their resume without anyone ever looking at it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/11/08/job-search-not-getting-hired/

Some notable excerpts:

Quote

 

Even as the United States has a near-record number of job openings and companies complain they can’t find enough workers, some job seekers remain frustrated that they have not been able to get a job despite filling out dozens of applications daily on popular job sites like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, LinkedIn and Craigslist.

“I send out so many applications a day and nobody gets back to me. In the past eight months, I’ve only had three telephone interviews,” she said. “It’s affected my mental health greatly. I cry all the time. I’ve never been on unemployment before.”

Hampton is among 2.3 million Americans — about a third of the unemployed ― who have been out of work more than six months. The Labor Department refers to them as “long-term unemployed.” The nation has only had this many long-term unemployed twice before — during the Great Recession and during the early 1980s downturn.

 

Complicating the job search for the long-term unemployed is the explosion of companies using robots to sort through job applicants, at least in the first round. This highly automated process excludes anyone who is not a near perfect fit on paper for a job. Nearly half of employers say they quickly reject candidates who haven’t worked in more than six months, according to a recent Harvard Business School study.

Despite having a college degree and decades of experience in executive roles in sales, marketing and strategy, Avital Shimshowitz gets rejected within hours for anything she applies to online. She used her network to get some interviews, but many tell her she’s overqualified for the roles they have open.

“Even if I’m willing to take a pay cut, I can’t get back into the workforce,” said Shimshowitz, who lives in Manhattan, N.Y. “I was successful. I’m 52 and I’m thinking: Am I over the hill?”

Shimshowitz has plenty of company in New York. The state has seen a disproportionate increase in long-term unemployment since the pandemic began. New York had the third highest long-term unemployment rate in the nation in the 12 months ending in September, and was exceeded only by the tourist hubs of Hawaii and Nevada

Many economists hoped that the pandemic had created such an unusual situation that employers would waive their normal requirements and change their screening techniques, especially since they are currently trying to hire so many workers. But so far, little of that has occurred. The main response from employers has been to raise starting pay in an effort to lure the best talent.

 
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^^^^

I posted something on this topic a few weeks back in the "things that make you surly thread." Felt worth repeating. 

Quote

 

Not sure this is the best thread, as it's not exactly trivial, and not applicable to me personally, but I know several people currently on the job hunt (including my wife), and it seems like every single professional accounting/finance/fp&a job that gets posted wants somebody with 3-7 years of experience, no more or less, unless it's an executive-level position that requires 15-20 years in a similar role. Basically, they want someone they're not going to have to train, but not anyone too experienced b/c they'll cost too much. Oh, and they also want CPA and/or MBA, prior Big 4 experience, and several years in their specific industry.

I guess it's a good market out there for the 26-31 crowd, but I know a lot of folks 35-45 that keep striking out repeatedly despite having stellar credentials. When they even get interviews it's like "wow, this is really impressive, why do you wan't to do this job again?" Clearly "because I need to work and make money and I can definitely handle this job" is not an acceptable answer. 

Also, I've seen numerous positions that get re-posted multiple times over the course of 6+ months and each time it has upwards of 100+ applicants. You're telling me they haven't found one single hire-worthy individual that whole time?

 

 

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5 hours ago, Storm the Field said:

^^^^

I posted something on this topic a few weeks back in the "things that make you surly thread." Felt worth repeating. 

 

Yep.  I have seen that as well.   HR and management should consider taking people whom are unemployed and even long term unemployed.  Or maybe tell McKinsey to fuck itself and offer training.    But they don't because well, HR is where brain cells go to die.   I have met 2 smart HR people in more than 20+ years.   The rest were somewhere between single-celled organism and dinosaur level intelligence.  

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If you’re looking and haven’t had your resume reviewed, it’s really worth it just for the pointers in getting it past the automated resume scanners. I noticed a decent uptick in follow ups after doing that when I was looking for a new gig in 2020.

 

 But yeah, companies can’t find employees, restaurants can’t hire waiters, they’ve tried changing nothing and they’re all out of ideas

Salt Bae trying to pay $16/hr for a chef

https://thetakeout.com/salt-bae-london-restaurant-hiring-chef-16-dollars-an-ho-1847989646

 

Edited by Celery Man
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I’ve only heard anecdotal random shit about this ‘Salt Bae’ over the years, none of which positively changed my initial impression that the name ‘Salt Bae’ was chosen by someone who is distilled, Grade A douche canoe material.  So paying the same hourly wage for a chef as  I earned back in 2003 as an L1 phone tech doesn’t surprise me.  

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If someone is constantly hearing that they've overqualified, they need to dumb down their resume and stop talking about their past successes. If you were a rock star as a director at a former company, a potential manager at a new role isn't going to hire you. And it's not that they're worried that you're going to surpass them, but instead they want you to listen to orders and not think you're leading the group.

CSB alert. When I was ~37 I had to hire a junior business analyst. I had all of these very senior people applying for the job. I recall a couple very experienced 55-60 year olds interviewing for the job. Perhaps they were willing to do the job and take the lower salary but I didn't want the potential hassle of dealing with them. I also remember being sympathetic towards their predicament because few jobs want them.

My advice is that if you're that age, be upfront that you want to wind down the final 5 years of your career. You want to work, be productive and earn a salary. Ask if there are opportunities to mentor younger employees. It's about you giving back.

 

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If someone is constantly hearing that they've overqualified, they need to dumb down their resume and stop talking about their past successes. If you were a rock star as a director at a former company, a potential manager at a new role isn't going to hire you. And it's not that they're worried that you're going to surpass them, but instead they want you to listen to orders and not think you're leading the group.
CSB alert. When I was ~37 I had to hire a junior business analyst. I had all of these very senior people applying for the job. I recall a couple very experienced 55-60 year olds interviewing for the job. Perhaps they were willing to do the job and take the lower salary but I didn't want the potential hassle of dealing with them. I also remember being sympathetic towards their predicament because few jobs want them.
My advice is that if you're that age, be upfront that you want to wind down the final 5 years of your career. You want to work, be productive and earn a salary. Ask if there are opportunities to mentor younger employees. It's about you giving back.
 

Then they will hear about how they don’t have enough experience.

I had an interview where they asked me about dealing with difficult people, I provided 3 examples. In the end they said I didn’t have enough experience dealing with challenging people because I didn’t spend my interview bitching about it.

It was just an excuse.
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15 hours ago, Celery Man said:

If you’re looking and haven’t had your resume reviewed, it’s really worth it just for the pointers in getting it past the automated resume scanners. I noticed a decent uptick in follow ups after doing that when I was looking for a new gig in 2020.

 

 But yeah, companies can’t find employees, restaurants can’t hire waiters, they’ve tried changing nothing and they’re all out of ideas

Salt Bae trying to pay $16/hr for a chef

https://thetakeout.com/salt-bae-london-restaurant-hiring-chef-16-dollars-an-ho-1847989646

 

who did you use for the review service? thanks.

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13 minutes ago, Nivek said:


Then they will hear about how they don’t have enough experience.

I had an interview where they asked me about dealing with difficult people, I provided 3 examples. In the end they said I didn’t have enough experience dealing with challenging people because I didn’t spend my interview bitching about it.

It was just an excuse.

Sometimes people and a job just don't match.  Why do you want to work for someone that rejected you because you didn't bitch about difficult people, during an interview? You should be happy that they rejected you and instead you should view that experience as a positive.

A friend of a friend is a former IT director/VP for a large corp. He was laid off and spent the better part of 2 years trying to find a replacement level job. No success. He then tried to find lower level IT jobs for which he hadn't worked at in over a decade. He also came across to me that he wanted the lower job only to work his way up to mgmt again.  He's been an Lyft driver for 5 years now. When applying down, you have to humble and accept you're ok going backwards.

When something isn't working for any of us, we need to have the courage to look in the mirror and realize we are the problem.

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46 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

A friend of a friend is a former IT director/VP for a large corp. He was laid off and spent the better part of 2 years trying to find a replacement level job. No success. He then tried to find lower level IT jobs for which he hadn't worked at in over a decade. He also came across to me that he wanted the lower job only to work his way up to mgmt again.  He's been an Lyft driver for 5 years now. When applying down, you have to humble and accept you're ok going backwards.

This scenario doesn't make a lot of sense and seems like a catch-22.

"Man, I've had no luck trying to find something on par with my old job."

 "You should consider swallowing your pride and accepting a lower-level position."

 "OK, I'm willing to take a step backwards and jump back in at a less senior level."

 "Yeah, but if we hire you at this lower level, then you'll just want to work your way back up. No dice."

What exactly is the solution here? Promise hiring managers you'll stick in the lower level position and have no ambition to advance?

Edited by Storm the Field
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2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

CSB alert. When I was ~37 I had to hire a junior business analyst. I had all of these very senior people applying for the job. I recall a couple very experienced 55-60 year olds interviewing for the job. Perhaps they were willing to do the job and take the lower salary but I didn't want the potential hassle of dealing with them. I also remember being sympathetic towards their predicament because few jobs want them.

What kind of hassles were you worried about? Just curious. fwiw, I've seen the overqualified person come into a company and spend all his time talking about how they did it at his previous stops. Were you concerned that they would make up their own rules, or that they would spend all their time in the boss's office lobbying for changes?

Edited by retread
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1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

who did you use for the review service? thanks.

I had a whole outplacement package thing (provided to everyone caught up in the first several COVID RIFs at my old company) with Lee Hecht Harrison which included resume review. That was basically the one useful part of it. I'm not sure if they're worth looking at as an individual or if they offer resume services as a standalone thing, but spending some time talking with someone (and even having them take your resume and rewrite it) who understands the scanning stuff and how to take the job description and jam it into your resume was incredibly useful to me.

 

As a manager of IT operations I interviewed an older guy for a mid level position at some point. I tried really hard to not have an age bias, but the guy just couldn't help but talk about how it used to be, nowadays things are, you guys probably don't remember, etc etc and he didn't have a shot. I was actually relieved he made an off color joke that probably would have made me disqualify him anyways. I think being crotchety, having an aversion to new technology, and not wanting to be bossed around by 30 year olds is a perfectly bona fide occupational disqualification but it would have been bullshit to say that his age wasn't a factor.

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25 minutes ago, retread said:

What kind of hassles were you worried about? Just curious. fwiw, I've seen the overqualified person come into a company and spend all his time talking about how they did it at his previous stops. Were you concerned that they would make up their own rules, or that they would spend all their time in the boss's office lobbying for changes?

Good question. I don't recall fully since this was 15 years ago. My memory was that I had an imagine of who I would hire, which was someone right out of school. The role was that I was directing them exactly how to do a task(s) that I didn't have time to do myself. It wasn't a job where we were necessarily looking for someone to improve it. We ended up hiring a 23 year old recent grad who worked out really well. I had no regrets with the hire.

Two of the more experienced candidates came across as desperate which is never a good look.

I do distinctly remember that I didn't want to ever be the person that was near the latter part of their career but desperate for any work/paycheck. It's another topic but those two interviewees in this situation made me reevaluate how I was saving for retirement. I promised myself that I would have the ability to retire at 55. 

 

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There are many “available jobs” for qualified people in their 30s - but nobody is hiring them. This is a real problem overshadowed by the focus on the lack of employees willing to work service industry jobs. These are two separate issues being lumped together.

Employers are hesitant to hire older people willing to take lower level jobs because it looks like a red flag. A seasoned 35 year old with the same educational credentials as a green 22 year old is at a serious disadvantage in today’s job market.

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Sometimes people and a job just don't match.  Why do you want to work for someone that rejected you because you didn't bitch about difficult people, during an interview? You should be happy that they rejected you and instead you should view that experience as a positive.
A friend of a friend is a former IT director/VP for a large corp. He was laid off and spent the better part of 2 years trying to find a replacement level job. No success. He then tried to find lower level IT jobs for which he hadn't worked at in over a decade. He also came across to me that he wanted the lower job only to work his way up to mgmt again.  He's been an Lyft driver for 5 years now. When applying down, you have to humble and accept you're ok going backwards.
When something isn't working for any of us, we need to have the courage to look in the mirror and realize we are the problem.

I think you read that wrong. The job was a step back, but not out of the scope and I had done work like that before. I was a little bit older than others and I stood out for that reason. The interview short coming was an excuse.

Sometimes you need to realize you aren’t the problem. They are just looking for someone younger and less experienced without a track record of success. And then will complain why they can’t find people.

Some tend to see a person laid off as having been the weak component rather than just an expensive one. I am sure your friend can be something beyond a taxi driver.
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Good question. I don't recall fully since this was 15 years ago. My memory was that I had an imagine of who I would hire, which was someone right out of school. The role was that I was directing them exactly how to do a task(s) that I didn't have time to do myself. It wasn't a job where we were necessarily looking for someone to improve it. We ended up hiring a 23 year old recent grad who worked out really well. I had no regrets with the hire.
Two of the more experienced candidates came across as desperate which is never a good look.
I do distinctly remember that I didn't want to ever be the person that was near the latter part of their career but desperate for any work/paycheck. It's another topic but those two interviewees in this situation made me reevaluate how I was saving for retirement. I promised myself that I would have the ability to retire at 55. 
 

Having the ability to retire and wanting to are separate things.
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  • 7 months later...

Bump.

83% of employers report of being "ghosted" by interviewees/new employees during the hiring process. On one hand I'm thinking what the fuck, what kind of dick does that? And then I remember that this is not dissimilar to when employees show up to work only to find out that they've been laid off or when employers do not bother sending rejection letters. I think I enjoy watching this new weird dynamic. It's a giant cluster fuck of give no fucks by everyone involved. Is it temporary or is this recent dynamic permanent?

https://www.indeed.com/lead/ghosting-guide

 

Quote

Ghosting is new, but 83% of employers have already experienced it

Our report seeks to answer some of the biggest questions about ghosting. First off, is ghosting really new, or has it been happening all along?

Indeed data cites that 69% of employers say ghosting started in the last two years.According to Indeed data, 69% of employers say ghosting started in the last two years.

Employers who’ve been ghosted overwhelmingly report that it’s a recent phenomenon, and 69% say it started in the last two years. What’s more, a whopping 83% of employers report being ghosted.

Does this mean we’re in the midst of a ghosting epidemic? The answer is more complex than it seems. Yes, ghosting is widespread. But is everybody doing it? No. Among our sample of over 4,000 job seekers, only 18% say they have ghosted an employer at some point during the hiring process. But with nearly a fifth of job seekers admitting to doing it, the actions of this sizeable minority are having a major impact on over four fifths of employers.

Indeed data cites that 18% of job seekers say they have ghosted during the hiring process and 83% of employers say they have been ghosted.When it comes to ghosting, 18% of job seekers say they have ghosted during the hiring process and 83% of employers say they have been ghosted, according to Indeed data.

Once we identified the 18% of job seekers who have ghosted and the 83% of employers who have experienced it, we dug deeper into the ins and outs of ghosting with these groups. The rest of the data in this report will refer only to these respondents.

A bar graph showing when job seekers ghost employers in the hiring process.This bar graph illustrates four reasons job seekers share when they ghost employers in the hiring process, showing that job seekers ghost at different stages in the hiring process. According to the data, 50% of job seekers ghost employers when they fail to attend a scheduled job interview. 46% ghost employers when they stop replying to recruiters or hiring managers. 22% ghost when they have accepted a job offer but do not show up for the first day of work. Finally, 19% of job seekers ghost when they have accepted a verbal job offer but never signing the paperwork.

Job seekers ghost at different stages in the hiring process: 50% have skipped on a scheduled job interview, and 46% say they stopped responding to calls and emails from potential employers. Others ditch when they’re farther along: 19% have accepted a verbal offer and disappeared before signing the paperwork, and 22% have not shown up for their first day of work at least once. 

In turn, employers are getting ghosted at every stage of the hiring process, leaving them scrambling to respond. The vast majority (84%) have had candidates not show up for interviews, and 64% say they stopped communicating with no explanation. Nearly 60% report candidates accepting a verbal offer only to disappear. And a stunning 65% of employers report no-shows on their first day of work.

 

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16 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Bump.

83% of employers report of being "ghosted" by interviewees/new employees during the hiring process. On one hand I'm thinking what the fuck, what kind of dick does that? And then I remember that this is not dissimilar to when employees show up to work only to find out that they've been laid off or when employers do not bother sending rejection letters. I think I enjoy watching this new weird dynamic. It's a giant cluster fuck of give no fucks by everyone involved. Is it temporary or is this recent dynamic permanent?

https://www.indeed.com/lead/ghosting-guide

 

 

Definitely a reap/sow situation going in this case.  

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10 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

Definitely a reap/sow situation going in this case.  

Right? How many times are applicants ghosted by employers?  Interview and they suddenly don't return phone calls/emails. 

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Yeah, before this was happening there was the period of time where you would apply but not hear anything back from the employers.  I went though this in the 2016 time frame so about 6 years ago.  Many employers have systems to make it much easier to get people to apply but they just leave them open without dispositioning them.  Those same systems could easily send a response that you did not make it though the first wave of reviews.  I only got not interested notifications from 10% of the jobs I did not make the cut on.  I even had a couple that I  interviewed for but they never updated status after the interview.  Filling in surveys on Glass door is the only remedy.

In the last year I our org has had candidates ghost the interview, never sign the offer letter or just not show up to the first day of work.

 

May daughter (no pics, you pervs) applied for lifeguard through their official process and never heard back.  A friend of hers got a position and said they still need more but apparently you have to call and catch them on the phone to get a job.  I can excuse this a little more at that type of org but if they need people why not call the ones that applied?

Edited by TexasEd
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34 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

46% say they stopped responding to calls and emails from potential employers.

I would never ghost on an interview, etc. But I did have to start ignoring a guys calls after I repeatedly told him not interested,  several times, over several days.  In hindsight, I probably should have taken it.  I got his wage way up during those calls, roughly 33% from where we started.   A friend ended up taking the position a few months later, and I wish he would have mentioned it. Could have gotten a considerably higher rate. This is all O&G consulting, ymmv. 

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I'm kinda old school. I would at least contact my employer to tell them I changed my mind and do not accept the job. But I think it's shitty and funny the employees are now doing this. Employer leverage is waning. No loyalty in either direction. Companies see workers are as necessary costs and not as assets. Employees are now seeing jobs as that absolute shitty thing people need to do in order to buy shit.

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44 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

I'm kinda old school. I would at least contact my employer to tell them I changed my mind and do not accept the job. But I think it's shitty and funny the employees are now doing this. Employer leverage is waning. No loyalty in either direction. Companies see workers are as necessary costs and not as assets. Employees are now seeing jobs as that absolute shitty thing people need to do in order to buy shit.

have seen similar articles citing that Millennials see jobs as purely a necessary funding mechanism for their lifestyle.  obviously, that's a broad brush, but attitudes are certainly changing.  

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If everyone around you seems like an asshole, you're the asshole.
Actually, I don't know if he is - I know he is/was a good businessman who was a lot more interested in building a solid business than a lot of other celebrity chefs.

His 2nd wife Barbara was the business brains of the operation.
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On 6/14/2022 at 1:20 PM, gyroprotagonist said:

have seen similar articles citing that Millennials see jobs as purely a necessary funding mechanism for their lifestyle.  obviously, that's a broad brush, but attitudes are certainly changing.  

It's a pretty easy attitude to have with the economy of the past decade + govt backstops during covid (impossible to evict, foreclose, etc.).   If this flips into a recession I'll be interested to see if some of the attitudes I've seen from some in the younger generation start to change.  I "grew up" in my career during the great recession where I worked my ass off out of constant (realistic) fear of having your name on the list of the next big round of layoffs.  Anyone that has started in the last 10 years has never encountered or even considered that (at least in my profession - attorney).

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I’ve never been ghosted by an employer. That’s interesting it was so common. When I say that I mean, once I’ve spoken to someone on the phone and done a first round interview, there have been times when I didn’t impress or there wasn’t a fit and it was made known I wasn’t moving on in the process— sometimes in form email and sometimes more gracefully. There are other times when l apply to a job online through a link and by uploading a resume and just never hear anything at all. Is that what you guys mean by ghosted?

That said, I think it’s way crappier for people to ghost employers who then impact expecting customers directly. Here is a personal example— I hired some movers a few months ago, a professional outfit with great reviews. I order the 3 man crew to start at X o’clock. I get a call the day of and one of the guys is sick and so I will only have a 2 man for the first half of the move and then when another move was finished I’d be supplied with a 3rd hand. Starting talk to the two guys and they leveled with me that the guy didn’t show up to the job yesterday and had an excuse but swore he’d be good for today and he ghosted them. Had the guy just had the balls to say he didn’t want to work as hard as movers work for what the company paid them as the weather wasn’t full Texas hear yet but plenty hot, the company could have made arrangements to serve the customer (me) better instead of scrambling around. So yea I guess it’s all funny and games until the ghosting ever materially impacts something you’ve planned and contracted for and then it’s probably more annoying.

My neighbor is building a pool and has ghosting stories of the labor as well and his July 4th pool now looks like September 4th. Okay now that is kind of funny, but you have to know the guy.

All this to say, the ideal situation is people act like adults and engage in responsible and responsive communication and leave the ghosting crap to teenage lovers. But as it were I guess employees are going to take advantage of their leverage and ghost, but I don’t want to hear a peep from these same tiers of labor when the economic winds turn and they are the ones being ghosted. Apparently it’s turn about is fair play.

Edited by Vegas64
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If you fire a resume off at a job posting, that's a shot in the dark and if you hear anything back one way or the other, great. If you don't hear something firm back after talking to a person, that's some grade a horseshit. My last search (2020) I had a phone screen on like a Thursday that ended with "we'll set up an interview with the hiring manager for early next week" and that was it. No response from an e-mail on Friday asking for a time. I'm still fucking salty about that - I had been in a COVID layoff and I'm trying to replace my income before my severance ran out and I had to start dipping into savings. It's scary, and they had me in limbo over a weekend.

On 6/19/2022 at 10:47 AM, Skipper said:

It's a pretty easy attitude to have with the economy of the past decade + govt backstops during covid (impossible to evict, foreclose, etc.).   If this flips into a recession I'll be interested to see if some of the attitudes I've seen from some in the younger generation start to change.  I "grew up" in my career during the great recession where I worked my ass off out of constant (realistic) fear of having your name on the list of the next big round of layoffs.  Anyone that has started in the last 10 years has never encountered or even considered that (at least in my profession - attorney).

it sounds like you think eviction moratoriums and stimulus checks during COVID have contributed to a transactional view towards employers among millennials, who have never experienced layoffs or a bad economy - am I hearing that correctly?

Edited by Celery Man
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6 hours ago, Vegas64 said:

All this to say, the ideal situation is people act like adults and engage in responsible and responsive communication and leave the ghosting crap to teenage lovers. But as it were I guess employees are going to take advantage of their leverage and ghost, but I don’t want to hear a peep from these same tiers of labor when the economic winds turn and they are the ones being ghosted.

dude these "kids" anyone 16-roughly 32 have had the majority of their semi-adult life (call it 16+) where with a virtual button where, with 2-3 clicks, they could pick their next job, find a roommate, find like minded friends, find a date, find a literal fuck buddy, discuss politics, order food, give feedback on all those, the majority of which involve some some of "overseer"* response if the interaction went badly from their point of view, that in most cases resulted in much more attentive response from either the overseer system, or the person, trying to either win back their business, their friendship, their attention....  

which if our young i-gen  liked the terms of the reponse, they would re-engage, if not, they fucking cold ghost and/or delete the offending person, place or thing from their digital repertoire

what makes you think they would act in a manner they have almost never had to act in?

Almost anytime the i-gen. have run into a difficult situation where someone disagreed with their option, were unsatisfied with their response or they didnt submit a totally acceptable school (or work) project, the i-gen almost always got another chance, to fix it, or explain their actions. 

The only place that doesnt really work is the dating arena and work arena.... and with the current dating apps mindset, if they "fucked up" one relationship, 15 mins of swiping right and 15 more mins of chatting can allow them to effectively forget/ghost, whatever you want to call the previous relationship and move on. 

I am pretty sure they see the same possible result when it comes to work....  "oh fuck those guys", they only paid me $37k a year, these new guys are paying $40k a year, I dont even need to bother telling the previous boss that I quit because that would cause me DISCOMFORT to explain. and they ghost. 

telling a boss (one you dont absolutely hate) that you quit can be a very uncomfortable conversation.  especially for a group that as a majority have not had to do much confrontation conversation. 

They probably dont like/ dread the idea of having that conversation, so they solve the problem by just not having it at all by not bothering to give anyone a heads up.....  as the Bob's said about Milton's paycheck "the problem will just work itself out naturally"

 

 

 

*in this phrase of overseer, the meaning could be anything involving a "report post", complain to management/HR, crowdsource, group gang response, cancel culture, etc

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9 hours ago, Skipper said:

It's a pretty easy attitude to have with the economy of the past decade + govt backstops during covid (impossible to evict, foreclose, etc.).   If this flips into a recession I'll be interested to see if some of the attitudes I've seen from some in the younger generation start to change.  I "grew up" in my career during the great recession where I worked my ass off out of constant (realistic) fear of having your name on the list of the next big round of layoffs.  Anyone that has started in the last 10 years has never encountered or even considered that (at least in my profession - attorney).

The same number of millennials that have a shitty work ethic is pretty similar to the amount of Gen X or Boomers that think they work hard. In my experience, the generations are the same, 20% do all the work. 80% don’t do shit.

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have seen similar articles citing that Millennials see jobs as purely a necessary funding mechanism for their lifestyle.  obviously, that's a broad brush, but attitudes are certainly changing.  

And they'll never build wealth with that attitude. Both my wife's brothers have been guys who bounce horizontally from job to job chasing the next big thing (well her older brother especially who has been in tech sales for years), but never really gaining any traction. And neither of them has shit to their names. And the older one is 60.
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The same number of millennials that have a shitty work ethic is pretty similar to the amount of Gen X or Boomers that think they work hard. In my experience, the generations are the same, 20% do all the work. 80% don’t do shit.

I do plenty of work in and between my time on surly. Work smarter not harder. Signed Gen Xer.
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48 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Also for the original story, if not responding or ceasing to respond to recruiters counts (as indicated) then guilty as charged. I swear some of those people are just data mining.

Are you meaning that you are working with a recruiter and they are trying to follow up with you and schedule the next step in the process and you find something else or lose interest and just…stop responding? That seems irresponsible for the sake of being irresponsible especially considering in some industries (not sure yours) it’s a small world with incestuous management teams and recruiters with memories. 

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56 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Has there been a study or a story indicating that, broadly, it is a trend for gen z to quit jobs without giving notice?

No clue. In my personal experience it’s less about the age and generation and more about the transience of the labor and jobs to be done— which I guess there is an overlap with millennials and transient work. And a lot of the transience is because of white hot demand where it’s better to move fast and make more money in a “do it now and ask forgiveness later” speed of business. I’m thinking of the movers in my earlier story who are scheduled 6 months out as well as stories I’m hearing of framing crews building homes and walking off the job with incomplete framing because a competitor is offering 25%-50% more to poach due to lack of skilled labor in what was a white hot housing construction boom. Coinbase offering $70k for call center warm bodies where they were used to getting $38k, etc. 

All those roosters will come home to roost in a down market (already seen with layoff of said overpaid warm bodies in crypto land, tbd with housing market). 

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