How Not to Get a Job: Lazy, Uneducated, Careless Persons Wanted

An old one found in my e-mail, here’s an actual job posting from Craig’s List New York from 2005. I know how the poster feels:

Growing profitable respected tech company seeks people without any sort of completed college degree (and who misspell bachelors), to arrive in the office not at scheduled times but rather when they see fit and after arrival to proceed to do as little as humanly possible and never learn anything.

We’re not picky on the completion thing here so if we ask for a university graduate, and you once attended a class or might possibly plan to at some point in time, please go right ahead and apply. Our specific needs/wants and especially our time is worthless. Only you matter.

Further, we ask that you send a totally irrelevant generic cover letter (possibly including a title for a different job or often a different company’s name) that mentions you possess a very special talent and can speak the language of the country you were born and raised in before you came here and that utterly ignores the topic you were asked to address in the cover letter.

We’ve only worked day and night for 5 years building this company to the point we need additional help, positively no need for you to waste 4 minutes of your precious time actually expressing the slightest bit of effort/interest. (In prior ridiculous ads we mentioned we were an internet firm and asked you to include a sentence of how you use the internet, roughly 90% of you couldn’t be bothered, please accept our apologies).

If you’re late, by all means blame public transportation not your failure to take an earlier subway/bus. And while we’re on the topic of your coming here, also by all means don’t dare show the initiative to locate somewhere as obscure as Wall Street all on your own (as miraculously do the thousands of tourists who don’t speak a word of English and yet somehow find their own way here daily), but instead do call us and ask repeatedly which train comes here and when.

This is important, I know you’re bored already, sorry, but ignore our URL where it shows who we are, tells what we do, our street address, etc… The mention of it in prior ads was merely more silly fodder from our prior juvenile advertisements, instead email or call us for both the address and directions, then arrive late for the hassle of an interview and halfway through ask the name of the company and what it is we do anyhow.

We don’t need programmers at the moment, this ad is for office administrators and event managers, but even if you have never opened a single “For Dummies” book much less seen a programming textbook and keeping in mind that you couldn’t be expected to type a single line of the simplest code for a million dollars, by all means include as skills on your resume a list of every programming language you’ve ever heard of or which could possibly be found on Google.

Also, we know you’re busy either being unemployed or stealing a paycheck somewhere else while you job search, so ALL CAPS, no caps, no punctuation, and spelling errors are all fine and emphasize our pointless request for detail-oriented people. It has been our lack of concern and shoddy work that has gained us so many clients, we’re happy to have them think less of us because you can’t be bothered to run spellcheck for your cover letter (if you even bothered including one and aren’t part of the horde just sending resumes alone). We know spellcheck, or worse being expected to be able to spell on your own, is a drag and once you’re here emailing documents to clients you’re sure to do better.

For event managers, when we send you to events we want you to show up late, dressed sloppily, make endless personal mobile phone calls, lose/damage/forget our equipment, elbow our hosts’ clients out of the way when they announce meals, leave the live event for as many smoke breaks as you wish, and complain about the food/entertainment to other onsite colleagues or anyone who will listen. Treat each event as your own personal social event, make dates, exchange personal phone numbers and email addresses, maybe even go out late at night and get drunk with your new “contacts.” It will provide you with something to distract your colleagues with the next day when you and they should be, ugh, working.

We begin early in the morning on event days, which are often, but you should feel free to be late and tell us we never mentioned it. We also work late and pay substantial bonuses, but nevertheless are really only seeking to exploit you. We also give healthcare after 90 days if you didn’t find a better job in the meantime. The fools who do learn and work and contribute earn more money based on, gasp, merit. But then they’re the same ones who check their grammar and who can be bothered?

Because it could easily be a virus you should certainly include your resume as an attachment if that’s easier for you and you should certainly not bring one to the interview. We’ll search through the hundreds of emails, locate yours under your AOL account, (I forget was that “alwaysawildpartyanimal @ aol” or “ilovedrugs @ msn” ?) and then print two copies, what the heck we’ll print three so you can take one to your next interview, which you actually mentioned twice that you’re runnng late for so could I please hurry it up.

We know email is not as convenient for you as instant messaging and a lot more complex than a fax, so call and ask if you can do either of those if that’s better for you.

If you’re a recruiter or jobsite, by all means do not email but instead call to tell us of candidates who aren’t available now for this immediate hire position, nor in any manner qualified, but who might be considering moving to NYC or better yet, just spam us.

None of the above was imagined or created but rather are all accurate specific repeated examples of what we’ve received. This is an ad of frustration, we have a great, respected, and growing tech company and we need good smart dedicated people to work hard for long hours at events around the country or in the office supporting those client events. We pay well and have generous bonuses.