Frustrated.tv

Ahhh…the government matrix.

Dunno what other countries/provinces/cities are like, but here if you want to consult with or work for the federal or provincial, and in many times private  sectors you need to fill out a matrix.   What is a matrix?   To quote one of the recruiters I work with “They are the tools of the devil”.

Basically a set of mandatory and desireable skills/experience the client is looking for.  You know, that stuff they put in the job description when they post it.  Well now – mostly because organizations cant afford an HR person who actually does hiring.  That’s mostly because HR people now know very little about the company for which they work.  As a result, they couldn’t tell the CEO if the person being hired was qualified.  Nor could they read a CV and tell the difference between Oracle and SQL database experience, let alone tell you what a “squirly database” was (an HR director at my last job uttered those famous words)…thus, the birth of the matrix.

The matrix has user-friendly instructions:

• Number each project in your resume in descending order (ie Project 20 being the most recent.) – HR people can’t count apparently…nor can the hiring managers…
• In the matrix, provide the project number, organization, your position, start date and end date and the cross-reference to the page in your resume where that project appears – heaven forbid they actually read your resume and learn a bit about you..if they could ask for digital numbered tabs that read the referenced entry for them they would.  These tabs which would then have to be attached the the page at the paragraph and the exact line referenced and read to them the entry in dulcet tones.
• Your resume must address everything that the question asks - this means that if the job requirement states “Must have experience digifying knobulators in unyielding conditions”, those words have to appear in your resume in exactly that order.
• Please tailor your resume to best represent your skills for this requirement. – you need to TELL people this?!
• Experience gained during formal education is not to be considered work experience. – So even though you managed the university network while taking computer science, that doesn’t count as actual “experience”.  That was just a waste of time.And they wonder why the university educated can’t get jobs that require experience….

The matrix also has hundreds of little boxes like these that you have to fill out with the following directions above each box

Please provide bullets below describing your >ten (10) + years experience working in the IT field and in a LAN/WAN environment<. Please be sure to use these words and ADD to the description with an explanation.  Please in order to make the evaluation process a bit easier, copy the bullets you place below for substantiation to your CV and please place the criteria number ie. {XX} in bold/brackets BEFORE the bullet describing how you meet the criteria.

So…basically you start yourself off with a blank resume, add job titles and years experience based on what the job needs, copy and paste descriptive text from the matrix into the resume and vice versa and tada!!  You’re done…and you have a document that describes absolutely nothing you’ve done for the past 22 years.  But at least it meets the client requirements and then you have the remotest possibility of actually getting an interview…..where you can tell them what you actually did…..because this document is never seen again once the hiring process starts (shaking head slowly).

Welcome to the world of contracting in Ontario you say?  No…this one’s for a permanent position.  Now you can’t escape it no matter what you’re applying for.  I’m certain MacDonalds will adopt one soon.

Oh – here’s your chuckle for today.   Mostly cuz I can’t imagine PMSing and filling one of these out…

Happy Tuesday!