Online Business Anonymity and The Reverse Classified

     In the past five years, craigslist has come to dominate the local job search scene in most major metropolitan areas. Kudos, to Craig Newmark! He found a way to bring (mostly) free, effective advertising to every business and person in America. He also provided a veil of secrecy for employers to hide behind when hiring help.


Let' s take a look at some of the worst offenders, these ads were all posted on my local (RI) craigslist (posting titles are bold):


SOUS CHEF AND DISHWASHER WEEKENDS AND NIGHT ARE YOURS - (Rhode Island)


Maintain standards and specifications related to food preparation and food handling on a daily basis

• Location: Rhode Island
• Compensation: Full

This one tries to suck you in with the "Holy Grail" of service employment. No night(?)  and weekends! Is it one position or two?  This is a series of words, not a job description, not even a sentence. And "Full" compensation! Yaaaaaaay!

Front of House Manager (Providence)

Independant Restaurant owner needs a FOH manager

This is not a GM spot!

Responsibilities are controlling the dining room, maximizing guest satisfaction, building business, and end of week paperwork ie payroll and scheduling.

50 hour work week. This position is perfect for someone with lots of energy who is looking to build their resume.

Please send current resume and salary history.

Thanks and have a great day

• Location: Providence
• Compensation: 45k

    This one is totally vague and confusing. It tell's you right off the bat,  the job is not a GM position, then tells you the job entails all the things the GM should be doing! Independant restaurant? Is it French? Like fondant? And not one iota of information about the restaurant. This could be an ad for any restaurant in Providence! Someone with "lots of energy", usually translates to someone we can use , burn up, and shit out!

line cook (northern r.i.)

cook part time saute a plus great working atomsphere and fellow employees saturday nite a must send resume to email address
 

• Location: northern r.i.
• Compensation: compensation to experience

     This isn't even in English, as far as I'm concerned. No caps, no punctuation, and not spellchecked. What the fuck is an ATOMSPHERE! Sounds like something out of cheesy sci- fi novel! Also, I'd prefer that my compensation was to ME, not my experience. That would be a difficult check to cash!

Catering and Event Production Cook (Rhode Island)

 General cooking experience. Baking knowledge a plus. Must have good driving record and safe driving habits. Must be willing to work weekends.

• Location: Rhode Island
• Compensation: full

     General cooking experience? How general? Boiling water? Toast? Microwave popcorn? Wouldn't having baking knowledge make your cooking experience specific, not general? Do they secretly follow you to determine your driving habits? And talk about vague, what if this ad were an interview?

        Interviewee:   What kind of compensation do you offer?

        Interviewer:    Full.

        Interviewee:   Could you be more specific?

        Interviewer:   No.

    All of these ads, like most on craigslist, had anonymous reply addresses. These are just a few of the vaguest ads I could find, but there are many more out there on websites such as craigslist. Why all the secrecy? It's like the Bush administration is staffing restaurants in RI!

    

      I understand businesses need to hire discreetly sometimes, but come on! These ads give only the foggiest idea of where they're located, don't mention their names, what types of food they serve, how long they've been in operation, starting pay, etc. The problem that I have with all the vagueness, is that, in response to these poorly worded, poorly spelled, esoteric, non- informational, unprofessional adverts, we must lay our  LIFE HISTORY, in resume form, on the doorstep of strangers! The posting guidelines on craigslist are lax, at best, and ANYONE, not just employers, can post to craigslist jobs posting. This includes less than reputable characters such as identity thieves, stalkers, government intelligence agents, corporate intelligence agents (they do exist, see the movie "The Corporation"), and plain old American weirdos! Just having your full name and geographical location is enough information to get a pretty complete picture of you from the web. Never mind having your education history, work and salary history, and contact info for friends, relatives, and former employers (references)!

     As if to add insult to potential injury, the anonymity of online hiring also removes the ability of the applicant/ job seeker to research the business to which he's applying. What if you want to work in fine dining? Why waste your time sending resumes to pubs and cafes? It also leads to sending your resume to the SAME JOB over and over again, which is wasted time for you, not to mention a pain for the unnamed employer. Although, I'm willing to bet most emailed resumes get trashed on the computer, before they make hard copy. That's what some of them are facilitating when they ask you to "copy and paste" your resume into the body of an email. No attachments means no hard disk space used!

These ads are the first contact prospective employees have with your business. If so little care and consideration is given to the procurement of willing labor, how much care and consideration will be given to the employees, new and old? If  the people who post these unintelligible ads actually speak and write like this, the future of American small business is in trouble.

Be careful out there job hunters, as one responder said, " The vaguest ads are from the employers with the most to hide." Kindly leave me your comments and recollections of bosses past . Hit "Read More" for my reverse craigslist classified! It's specifically vague from the applicants point of view!

Love, Peace, and Bacon grease!

Talented, Uninspired, Professional, Slacker, Go- getter, Young, Mature, Cook/ Chef/ Waiter/ Waitress/ Roundsman/woman/ Busboy/girl engineer seeks possible employment in a field --(East of the Mississip')

New to town, lifelong resident seeks  possible employment in a fine dining pub cafeteria hotdog truck genetic research facility. Willing to work sporadically full time and without pay in advance for many weeks. I've worked for a living and have met many people in that undisclosed amount of time. All of those people are people I've met, and with some of whom I may, or may not, continue to have contact/ drinks/ sex.  Willing to travel/ commute but only within 2 miles of my home. I would prefer to work full or part or no time, at home or on the road,  for weekly paychecks that bounce twice monthly. If you would like to work with a person that you can't tell anything about from this ad, I'm the guy/ girl/ carbogelatinous blob you may or may not be looking for. You could get back to me by email, but I forgot to include that information. And I haven't given my name or address, so the White Pages are out.I will need references from past business associates, and at least 25 signed and notarized reference affidavits from former and current employees to consider the position.
I look forward to hearing from you or not.

Signed,

The worst/ best person/ place/ or thing for the job