Thoughts (October 11, 2011) Employment

I just would like to put this post about employment. I hope you'll find this helpful. This is what I have learned over the years.

We all know that most Filipinos complain that there is not enough jobs in the Philippines and always complain about the unemployment rate. What do we always think? We always believe that it is the fault of the government that's why there are not much jobs in the Philippines. However, with my several years of experience in recruitment, I have found out that that is not 100% correct.

Let me take it from the start.

When I was 18 years old, I had my first job, coming from Iloilo to Manila and work, I immediately applied for the position of a call center agent with one of the best and pioneer call centers in the Philippines. One day process only and I was hired within the day. I stayed there for almost a year and I have only submitted my NBI clearance after 7 months being employed there.

Now, many of you would ask, why is it that I have not submitted my TIN, SSS number, PAG-IBIG number, Philhealth number, etc. I would answer, I didn't know. Our Human Resource didn't even inform me that I need those. There is no list of requirements, considering that this is a big company. Later have I known that I have been deducted my tax, SSS, etc. without them being remitted. I verified this and I have no contribution for almost a year that I have been employed.

Now, who do you think is at fault here: (1) Me, because I did not check but I didn't know. (2) the government, I don't know, (3) The company, of course, they did not ask me these numbers.

Right now, I am still in the process of debating with that company for my contributions for almost a year that was not remitted.

Second company, I was employed as a copywriter. Not for news or books but for an immigration consultancy. I was employed there and every 3 months or less, I was promoted. For less than 2 years that I stayed there, I was promoted 6 times. Until such a time that I became a senior immigration documentation officer.

Being in an immigration consultancy, I have come to know what are the jobs that usually say that they don't have a job here in the Philippines. Let's say out of 100 applicants each week, 60% of those are nurses, both registered and not, 20% HRM/Tourism graduates, 8%teachers, 8%Business courses (Accounting, Bus. Ad, Bus. Mgt., Secretarial, Marketing, Finance, etc.), 7% IT graduates, remaining 3% (other courses).

As you can see, these are the applicants that we have that applied because they said that it is hard for them to look for a job. But my question is, did they just knew about this after they graduated? Did no one inform them that this is the current status of employment in the country? Don't schools (High Schools and College Schools) have a career advisor to tell them: "Hey, it's hard to look for a job if you will have this course?" or "Don't you know that this course is not really profitable at this time?"

When I was in college we took an exam which would allow us to know which course we would certainly excel in. This would really maximize our potential in a career we should be in. However, as I remember, we indeed were not informed of the current status of employment as to what skills have the hardest possibility to be employed.

Although I certainly believe that we should let people choose what they want to be, but should we as well guide them and inform these students that even if they like that course and profession, they will still find a hard time applying what they have learned and be in that profession since there are millions who are as well rooting for it?

These schools as I can see it don't really care about what's going to happen with their students after studying. These schools only care about what they will get from students, especially the tuition. But then what? They should also see to it that these students will not end up as bystanders or bums. A college graduate but is unemployed.

Also, interviewing our applicants, most of them would say: "I really didn't want to be a ******, my parents just forced me to it. I just took the course for them." Believe it or not, 60% of our applicants said that. I mean, how can this happen? Do most parents don't care about the future of their children but care about what course they need to take without even assessing the possibility of their children being employed? Are they okay to have a doctor of a son but is unemployed for 8 years (I know 2 people)? Than to have their child take a course which would give them the opportunity to be employed?

I do know that most people say, parents know what's best for their children. However, they need to be updated as well. Most parents know about things that are 20 years ago. Most parents would even smirk at IT courses but they don't know that a 3 year experience PHP programmer earns more than a 5 year experience lawyer. Yes, they are only knowledgeable based on experience and I doubt that most parents are updated about the current employment trend.

After a while, I became a trainer for a call center. Being a trainer (not trainor) for a call center, you would know a lot about incoming employees since you will be training them. There, I had been emerged into a lot of people who think that call center is their final option since they can't find a job. I'm sorry to say but I can totally agree to them. Has anyone of us even thought when high school that we want to study in college to become a call center agent? I doubt it. Maybe a few but hey, there are only few schools who provide call center courses and most of them honestly are those who think that they cannot pass the call center's interview. Sorry if I would hurt some of your ego but we have to face the reality.

Yes, for those who have no call center experience, being a call center agent is a very great experience, especially when you're practical. However, don't you want to have career growth. I know that being a call center agent can be promoted to team leads, support positions, managers, etc., but trust me, it requires so much hard work and great competition, because there will be thousands of you rooting for that position. Also, sorry to hurt you guys but politics is very rampant in call centers. For those call center agents who think otherwise, do a survey in your office, I would stop blogging if this would turn out false.

Again, as a trainer, I noticed the same thing, most call center agents are Nursing graduates. And if you ask them why they ended up being a call center agent, they would say, they have hard time looking for a job since there are a lot of nurses right now. True. I agree to that. But my question still repeats, why did they take this course. Still, their answers are the ones above.

One thing I also learned that time is that most nurses cannot look for a job since most hospitals have a backer system. WHAT THE..! Until now, we have this? Before, I knew this happens in schools for them to get higher grades and even graduate and even get to great schools but in employment especially in hospitals? This is so redundant. Schools and employers are somewhat the same.

I think that every employers should check their recruitment processes. They have to make sure that they get the best, not the ones with the best backer.

Also, they complained that most employers want those with experience. How can these students have experience if you don't employ them? Also, then what is the On-the-Job Training (OJT) for if you won't accept it anyway? A waste of money for companies to get cheap or free labor from students? Yup, it's obvious, it's a way for companies to have cheap and free labor. Also, there are a lot of hospitals that would have nurses pay for them to get experience. This is really pissing me off. These nurses have years of OJTs and then after graduation you will still consider them as inexperienced? These hospitals should be sued for all their unfair policies. Why would these nurses pay and then you get the service? They are EXPERIENCED NURSES already, okay? You keep telling yourself that they are not so you can get cheap and free labor. This is outright slavery.

Yes, this is not a hoax, nurses cannot do anything about it anyway because they need experience and they can only get it if they pay these greedy hospitals. They feel as if it's an opportunity for you to be having your training there and learn a lot from their organization. Convince yourself that way, but you know yourself that that is a lie. I hope they burn in hell with their money. May I ask, do you guys issue receipt when you receive the payment from these students? Seriously?

The government should know this by years now and yet nothing has been done to resolve this. These hospitals are seriously taking advantage of these unemployed and fresh-graduates to earn from them and get service from them. GOVERNMENT, WAKE UP!

Going back to my employment, I was then offered a job as a teacher for college students and I was so happy to be offered that position so I resigned from my job and worked as a teacher... for college students. Nice. I only stayed for 2 semesters because for me it's really boring to teach. Sorry for teachers but I really felt that way. Teaching 3 classes same thing for the whole day, it's not my type of job. I don't have patience for that. At least being a trainer before was better since I only have to repeat my topic every 2 months.

Being a teacher I learned a lot of things.
1) It's not good to always sit, stand as much as possible.
2) It's better if you make use of the whole room and walk as much as possible when talking.
3) Never read from a book
4) Never read from the book and not understand it before teaching it.
5) When you are asked a difficult question, don't check your book, just excuse yourself for a minute, say you wanna take a leak, and ask you colleagues. But don't let your students know that you don't know
6) Have an activity once in a while
7) Letting your students report more than 50% of your whole semester is outright laziness.
8) Most teachers don't know what they are talking about.
9) Most math, science and history teachers have poor pronunciation skills
10) Never go out with your students even after school hours or weekends.

Then I returned to being an immigration consultant in a new company. Sad to say, I have been emerged with more number of unemployed graduates.

I stayed there for almost 3 years and then after that I decided to resign since the company is not doing well. Luckily I was employed right away as a Head of a BPO Recruitment Team. This is where I knew a lot of things as to why most graduates are unemployed.

Continuation on my RESUME, INTERVIEW and EMPLOYMENT BLOOPERS

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This is an opinionated post, but what I said are 100% true. If I hit you, I'm not sorry for what I said but sorry that I hit you. But I did not put this to hit you, but to hit everyone and for them to wake up.