Job hunting

[Steve Owens <uso01 -at- EAGLE -dot- UNIDATA -dot- COM>]

> A colleague of mine has been job hunting for a technical writing >
> position. [...] Twice she has been well suited for a job, but learned
> that someone inside the company received the position.

> IBM calls it a Box Job; that is, a person in the company needs a new
> position and a description is made around that person.  After a wide job
> search, only one candidate is found to match the description--the original
> employee.

> The whole thing is frustrating for the outside applicant.  Has anyone else
> had experience with this kind of thing?

        I haven't had direct experience, but I've heard of this, and I've
seen signs of it.  Sometimes places (like universities) MUST advertise for
new positions, for some legal reason, but they really want to hire from
within.

        Frankly, while I think it's frustrating and underhanded, far
worse in my opinion are those ads that describe the perfect job - so
you call and they're a job search service, they have *one* job
available that fits that ad and they want you to pay several hundred
dollars for their service, and they'll search for a job for you.

Steven J. Owens
uso01 -at- unidata -dot- com