Job application hell

You know without that circle I would never have known where to read

I kept rereading the time stamp and view count for a solid 20 minutes trying to figure out the point of the post until I finally saw the tiny red circle buried in all of that white background. Damn near impossible to see.
- Yes thank you so much

In the age of deepfakes, no way I'd make that video and submit it with all the other personal details I'd be putting into the application forms. That's a recipe for ID theft.

Obvious -plot-twist: the entire thing is a phishing scam.

I hate this so much.

If you want to do a video interview, sure. But I'm not going to willingly give you a recording of myself without clear use terms.

How long are these files retained? Is this video subject to data privacy laws? Since they're requesting it be uploaded elsewhere, how many 3rd parties am I involving myself with by the end of this interview process?

Not to mention, we live in the era of deepfakes for voice and video. Do I have any gaurentee that this won't be used to train some AI model somewhere?

This level of hoop-jumping pre-employment should be made illegal on par with hazing laws. Not everyone can afford to be picky about potential employment.

It's not just about what they can use the video for. This also lets them screen for a lot of protected classes without actually asking about them. Your name and resume don't convey your skin color, your accent doesn't come out in your work history, nobody can make guesses about your sexuality based on your work email address, but these all become much more easy to discriminate against with a video. All under the pretext of "We didn't like their answer to the question."
And you don't even get the context of an interview to defend yourself.
- All excellent points.
- Your name and resume don't convey your skin color
  Your name is (usually) a pretty big giveaway for your ethnicity, and in most countries it's the norm to have a picture of yourself on your resume
We recommend using loom.com for this
Loom is an AI company. You have a guarantee that it will be used to train an AI model.
Doesn't actually say the video has to be of you; just to submit a video response.
3 min loop of the "this is fine" dog redone as a gif would be my response.
Not everyone can afford to be picky about potential employment.
I was talking to a friend about a company that treats its employees poorly and he said "Well, they chose to work there," and I wanted to give him a lecture about how sometimes people have to choose between a shitty job and the streets.

Assuming this in America, I love how illegal this request is.

I've been asked illegal questions, like "what is your current salary" in job applications before. I like to respond by calling it out and leaving a link to a source. I've never gotten a response from those applications though...
- They probably use that to filter out people who know their rights.
  Sounds like an employer that needs investigated by several departments.
- I've been asked illegal questions, like "what is your current salary" in job applications before. I like to respond by calling it out and leaving a link to a source.
  Ok, where is said source?
It's the perfect crime. Most people don't realize it's illegal and those that do either don't have the resources to fight it or don't want the exposure.
Right to Work State, baby! We can do whatever we want good luck getting the Federalist Society Judge who fields your case to agree anything untoward happened.
My job application will demand a pair of your used underwear for me to evaluate with my nostrils and you will do it or you will not get the job.
- You're thinking of employment at will. Right to work laws prevent making payment of union dues a requirement for employment.
- I mean uploading an image of yourself and not getting a job is pretty solid evidence of discrimination that no corporation wants the media to hear.
- "Since our corporation maintains an office in Texas, we've had your case moved to a Texas court district with exactly one judge who just so happened to be appointed by trump to rule for corporations, enjoy running it up to the SCOTUS judges I take on cruises with me"
Time to pick a random minority one can pass as, record the most stereotypical video ever, and then get an employment attorney on speed dial
- Nobody's going to take that case unless you have enough money to fund this as a vanity project. The conservative stacked courts will dismiss it out of hand and you'll be fighting your way uphill through a sea of increasingly hostile appellates.
  You'd have better luck posting this shit to social media and trying to name/shame the business at hand. But even that is likely a dead-end, given how inundated with corporate flaks and civility police the modern social media ecosystem has become.
How is it illegal?
- I couldn’t find any legal cases about “uploading an image or video of yourself”. But Google is awful so getting any sort of results is a massive pain. That doesn’t mean a case exists but employers do discriminate based on applicant names. Uploading an image would allow employers to filter out people they don’t want to hire based on income, disability, race, etc. That’s what’s illegal. Unfortunately, American laws related to technology are nonexistent.
  https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices

NoBoDy WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe

Almost certainly the video will be fed into a platform that determines “worker quality via microexpressions”. I know because I’ve worked closely with the software provider before. It’s obviously all pseudoscientific bullshit, but employers love that kind of stuff.

Which is really just a system you can use to discriminate with plausible deniability: We didn't not hire people because of X protected characteristic; the "scientific" computer program never selected them as a quality worker.
I do love some computerized eugenics though
- Then do I know the city for you!
Yeah I think if I would get this question I'm going to ask chatgpt to come up with a skit with how my life has been rainbows and peaches and see how the bots compete

On top of the protected class bypass a required video provides, we all know where that fucked up question is going in our American corpo language.

"I just see a lifetime of adversity as an opportunity to work even harder for my economic betters, herp derp!"

The same shit universities have been doing for ages, for the same reasons.
- Same reason the opinion of virtually every prominent US economist is antethetical to the interests of most Americans.

This is to keep people from actually applying, right?

Upload something where the first 5 seconds is someone apparently doing that, then instantly cut into hardcore porn with extra loud noise

Unless this is for some kind of public speaking position, I would instantly drop the application and not apply to the company again

Nah. You find this in the wild you gotta troll em a bit. Just do the Carlton for 3 minute with Never Gonna Let You Down playing in the background.
Yeah this reeks of discrimination and exploitation.
Or upload some kinda freaky shit.
This is on the state unemployment departments website in order to be eligible for unemployment cheques
I saw something similar on a customer service job

What’s that? A website is asking for public randos to upload meatspin and any other videos found from the internet to their servers for review where HR will need to watch them. I give this form 3 months to live if you share the url

Ironically, a well known video hosting site (not necessarily loom, never heard of it) probably has better data retention policies than a random company's WorkDay site.

Here's a video capture of scrolling down my resume and cover letter very slowly.

This is almost guaranteed to be used to deny minorities a position.

"Hi, we detected high levels of melanin in this video. This is illegal, and we are sending around trained professionals to subdue you. Please listen to this soothing music as you wait."
- "The police have been dispatched. Please lay on the floor in the ass beating receiving position and avoid any sudden movements such as sitting in your recliner or taking a nap."

Post to pornhub, copy, paste.

Obvious Rickroll opportunity.

Gee why are we not getting any new applications? Damn millennials don’t want to work!

I just failed a job 'interview' because I kept freezing up on the video. I hate this shit so fucking much. This people should rot in hell. Not kidding, these companies are evil and probably do have that child sex ring the Q freaks talk about. I want to fucking die now.

There's a very good way of gauging how much of a dystopian shithole our world has become, and that's by simply watching quiz shows on daytime TV.

Compare Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to The Chase. In its original run, WWTBAM had two milestones for answering 5 (£1,000) and 10 (£32,000) questions correct respectively. This meant that failing after one of these checkpoints guaranteed you that prize. The Chase on the other hand is a series of quick-fire pub quiz rounds with some notoriously difficult questions where you're up against a professional quizzer and have to survive multiple rounds, before all the remaining contestants have to beat the 'Chaser' in a two-minute quick-fire round of pub quiz questions. Fail at any point? "You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!"

The Chase is legitimately a much harder show where it is exponentially harder to actually win a cash prize as a contestant and that is one of the main reasons I fucking hate that show.

Where am I going with this? With the way the economy, automation, AI, scarcity, human population growth, etc is going, we are one day going to reach a point where we'll have to compete in game shows just to get a fucking job! If recruiters are making you record 2 to 5 minute video responses on a fucking job application, then we're already part-way there.

There was a game show in Russia in 2000s where high schoolers had to answer ridiculously hard questions about Ancient Greece in order to enroll into MGIMO, a prestigious state university of foreign affairs, which was near-impossible to enroll in any other way (e.g. entrance exams) if you weren't a child of a top-level government official.
The contestants had to sit as the audience first and answer some pop-up questions before even having a chance to actually participate in the game show, and then win in a series of games (like quarter-finals, semifinals, finals...)
It really does look like modern job application process where you have to participate in a series of never-ending interviews and test tasks
- It sounds like something out of a YA novel. If that theme continues, the nepo babies that got in through enrollment have a derogatory term for the kids who got in through the game show.
I had the same thought when I was watching "Alone". They pay them about 1000 bucks a week to document themselves struggling to live in the woods. Some of them are pulled out for medical reasons, some quit. But for some, this is probably the only way they can afford a vacation.
The challenge is part of the appeal. Perhaps Tipping Point is more your speed.
- Reminds me too much of those penny arcade machines.

They really should name the company.

It's not a person, it's a company behaving badly.

Paste in the link for Rick Astley. You know the one.

I was thinking some third wave ska. Five Iron Frenzy maybe.
- A lot of good options. You can also do a link to something that comments about how distopian work can be, and/or how mundane/monotonous it all is....
  I think an example of this is "every day is exactly the same" (NIN), or maybe gratitude by VNV Nation..... IDK.

2 -3 minutes of me saying "SHIT!" over and over*

2-5 minutes of skibidi toilet

Just sing "everyone else is an asshole" by Reel Big Fish. You're welcome.
Hired

"Nevermind, I don't work with people who use idiotic interview processes. I can only imagine how dysfunctional and adversarial your company is, based on this idiocy".

"Thanks for the red flag right away."

"Thank you for uploading your video submission. Our AI system will review your video shortly."

DRINK VERIFICATION CAN
- There was literally a patent filed for a system that only stopped the ads when the user yells the product name aloud.
- shot-guns entire can in 2 seconds

Which of these two shapes best describes your personality and work ethic? Write a 3 paragraph explaining why.

Ok:
a 3 paragraph explaining why
Nailed it
- I’ll pretend like that was intentionally written that way as a form of satire
"I have no personality. I smell of the rotting flesh that your life will become if you don't give me a job and, in fact, you wallet, your family, and your whole life. I will lay eggs in your mouth as you sleep, and you will turn into me from the inside, and you will know nothing but the beautiful exultation of infinite pain."
"That's the exact answer we're looking for. Can you start today?"
"I know it's the exact answer you're looking for, I'm the psychometrics consultant who designed this test."
My answer:
I only see a single white rectangular shape with holes, I don't think this particular shape describe in any way my personality or work ethic. 3 paragraphs seems way too much to talk about a white shape.
We all say bouba, but it's really kiki
I would say my work ethic is mostly kiki. How you interpret that is up to you.
- "Kiki in Kiki's Delivery Service does work hard. But she's also an animated character. Do you feel like an animated character? Invent an interpretive dance to show your response to this question, but stage it in zero gravity so that your feet make no sound as they do not hit the ground."
Bouba and Kiki! I haven't seen those two in ages. I heard they had a kid. Total waste of a gender reveal party. Kid constantly subverted all expectations.

It's just gonna be me staring into the camera for 5 minutes.

don't worry! that's all is needed to make sure you aren't unqualified by "being black" or "looking vaguely foreign", hope this helps!
- ...Oh yeah, that's true.
  Fuck.
Under [Andy] Warhol's direction, subjects of the [artwork] Screen Tests attempted to sit motionless for around three minutes while being filmed, with the resulting movies projected in slow motion. The films represent a new kind of portraiture—a slowly moving, nearly still image of a person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Tests

Just record a video of yourself scream crying while making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and singing the national anthem.

Send em this:
https://youtube.com/shorts/_9bYs5iM5Tc

100% recording this under a bridge in the middle of the night with animal eyes showing up in the camera lense.

"Hi, I don't respect human society because it's observably lacking in compassion. Not only for non-human animals, but even for human animals. You guys are pathetic and I'm not interested in being part of your self-fellating club."

How I'd stretch that out into 2 minutes I don't know.

Easy... 1:30 of silence first.
That way they have to waste time to get to what you have to say. Or play a video of some kind.
Fuck em. They're being disrespectful of your time, waste theirs.
- Easy... 1:30 of silence first.
  I like it!
Attach several examples of people self-fellating?
- A nice, detailed how-to guide.

google the person reviewing this, talk about them by name, then get 5 or 6 people to do the same. wear a mask, have a voice filter and hold a medieval mace during the video.

Wouldn’t recommend life. I suggest asking for a refund.

just sends 3 minutes of my apartment with no sound

Could still be worse. They can still mandate that you post it on a paid service. That they own.

If we let the door open it will end up being used for profit and we know it.
Better to either get ahead and file several suits against the companies for discrimination based off of sex/gender/race/ early to scare them away, because if that doesnt work we'd have to start burning down their corporate headquarters. Which sounds a bit extreme.
Imagine having been forced to submit several minute long videos of you posted to online forums that will never go away at 16 until 70. Every mistake / strange life choice preserved and used against you. "Don't apply there, is what people would say at first, its your choice, your not forced to work for them" yet the number of companies asking would slowly increase and the job pools would slowly become smaller and smaller where it wasnt required until it became standard.
If we think customer facing jobs already discriminate based upon attractiveness, that would grow by a lot, and even the companies not trying to would subconsciously do it.
You realize that's the next step, right?

Me recording my voice to random video gameplay.

"Yah, so on this level the skip was a fairly contemporary tech discovered by Tyler, who goes by b0igus, during a livestream charity. I can't do it that well but I'll try."
Keep dying on a simple jump or the first enemy for 2 minutes and then end the video abruptly.
- "It should start clipping right... Now! Fuck!", "I think I'm approaching it from slightly wrong angle... Lemme see... Fuck!", "What? God damn, my controller just died. Fuck! Oh well, lemme get the cable. Hang on a minute...", "I really don't want to check the b0igus video right now. I mean I've done it before, it's just... Fuck!" and so on.
  I mean, I'd watch it.

My call

Since this screenshot of a post never disclosed what the subject of the video needs to be and simply mandates a speech 2-5 minutes long, one could record their voice over a stock film of something random

Luckily somebody circled it for us, I'm not sure I would've known what was being pointed out to use otherwise.

That's the drug test, which comes after.

I hated these. They were all from the sketchy companies, too. None of the good ones I actually wanted to work for did this.

Huh. Guess it’s time to fire up the AI script deepfake generators and put ‘em to use.