I worked as a contractor at Fidelity from 2008 to 2012. I had naively expected the job to go permanent at some point, but I've learned that just doesn't happen in America anymore. In January 2015, having given up on the American job market, I had received an offer to teach English in South Korea and was about to sign the contract when a CIO from Fidelity contacted me. He said he remembered what great work I did during that earlier stint and he wanted to
hire me for the new team he’s putting together. I said okay, great, count me in. I declined the teaching gig in Korea, and started working there in February on a
six-month contract with the promise that it would go permanent. Unfortunately,
that CIO left the firm abruptly two months later. As soon as I learned I was
going to be unemployed again come August, I began applying for internal
positions. I pointed out to the incompetent HR department that I turned a job down (the gig in Korea) in order to accept this one, I would NEVER have done that had I known I'd be facing unemployment again, and “what the hell are you going to do to right
this wrong?” Absolutely nothing, "Go back to your desk, visit our job page, and start applying online." So, I applied to five design jobs for which I was 100% qualified, and
was automatically rejected for all of them. One rejection
email said I was not eligible because I had not yet worked there for one year. This
rule only applies to permanent workers, contractors only need to work there for
six months. In other words, their ATS screwed up. I complained to the idiots in HR
who, out of embarrassment, scampered for the rest of the day to schedule me for
an interview for that job, which they did.
The interview was over the telephone with two women, one was the hiring
manager and the other was an HR rep. Never have I experienced two people more
disinterested in talking to me. It began with the HR rep pointing out the most
important thing is for me to explain the one-year gap on my resume, "We
definitely want to hear more about that!" Really? I should have ended the
call right there.
Let me break here and say something about an “unemployment
gap” on a resume. If there’s a “gap” on my resume, it means I did something
that is of no relevance to my career or to the job for which I am applying. And
what I did during that gap is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. I really would like to
know where people come off thinking they can be this intrusive into our lives
in this age. If I chose to take a year off for whatever reason, be it to climb
Mt. Everest or to take care of a sick parent or learn how to play
chess, that’s MY business and NOT YOURS. I do not exist on this planet
exclusively to fulfill a line item work history entry on a corporate applicant tracking system. Deal
with it. To steal a quote from another discussion group, If your name does not appear on my birth certificate, marriage certificate, or in my
will AND you don’t pay my salary then I don’t have a responsibility to
"account" to you for anything. I have two things to do in this life: Live my life, and die. Everything else is an opt-in and if you’re
seriously more concerned with hearing explanations about six months that
weren’t job-related than 20 years that were, then you can go fuck yourself right off a cliff.
After explaining my gap (I had to have some surgery -- I was tempted to
ask her if she’d like to know that the surgery was to have uterine fibroids
removed, if she’ like to know that the sizes of the fibroids were 8cm and 5cm,
and whether she’d like to see pictures of the surgery), the hiring managed heckled me about my education. I had taken courses in design at Northeastern fifteen years earlier, and this was the first time in fifteen years that my education came up in an interview! Next,
the hiring manager sternly explained to me that this job requires all artwork
to be created exclusively in InDesign – Photoshop and Illustrator are strictly
forbidden (!!!) and she asked me if I would be “comfortable with this.” I have never heard of anything so ludicrous. The job description
demanded the candidate be completely up to date on every design package, yet
this person clearly hasn’t updated their own skill set in over a decade, meaning the
job applicant must “dumb themselves down” to work with her. I did my best to
say, “Yeah, sure, fine,” but this was a serious turnoff. Again, I
should have realized this whole thing was rotten and ended the call.
Moving on to reviewing my portfolio, I was ready with a ton of samples
of the work I had previously created at Fidelity (I was sharing my screen with them).
Because I had quite a few pieces and we were only scheduled to talk for 45
minutes (another red flag, this interview wasn’t even worthy of a whole hour of
their time?) I asked were there any specific pieces they wanted me to talk
about first, i.e., anything they particularly liked, anything we can skip…? The hiring
manager did what she did thru the majority of the call which was to say absolutely
nothing, and the HR rep said she HADN'T EVEN LOOKED at my portfolio. I said,
oh, I thought I sent you the link with the login info (I keep it protected
under a password), and she said, "Yeah, but I couldn't be bothered.” Whoa. I
really should have hung up the phone here.
I proceeded to talk thru every piece whilst neither of them said one
word, save for one detailed 3D graphic I created using Cinema 4D, about which
the hiring manager pointed out there’s no way I could expect to be given Cinema
4D so “could you create that in
Photoshop?” Again, what a ludicrous thing to ask! I said sure, that 3D graphic
can be done in Photoshop, but it would take a thousand hours, and why spend
that time when there’s a tool that will do it in a fraction of the time?
At the end, I asked about the “video/motion design is a plus” in the
job description and pulled up some 3D videos I created...neither of them knew
what to say to me, finally the hiring manager mumbled "oh we just need
someone to know how to upload a video to our website."
In summary, this was a horrible, demeaning and downright offensive
experience, one of the worst in my life.
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