Machka 

I-Like-To-Bike

Note that the individual with the complaint does not even have the status of an employee, but rather is an employee-wannabe (but only on his own terms.)

tandempower

This is an LCF forum, so assuming people who have an interest in LCF also have an interest in getting local jobs, then it's relevant.

tandempower

If there is a job location you want to apply to, but that location is being taken by internal transfers who got hired by commuting to remote locations, that is the issue.

tandempower

You call it 'venting.' I call it turning a negative situation into a problem-solving project. If you want to LCF and you want the broadest possible range of job opportunities to apply to, this is an issue.

Sal Bandini

Move to where the internal transfers used to work and get their now-vacant job.

Easy peasy

tandempower

It is not always easy to change residences, and besides you might not want to.

Mobile 155

Still don't you wonder if your situation is uniquely a LCF issue or is it an issue for most people? My question about the OP was the very close to the same. Is in an LCF issue or is it an issue employer and employees without a connection to LCF. I don't see LCF as a special condition that grants special consideration for employment. So I find the OP self serving. My opinion anyway.

Machka 

Sometimes that is the sacrifice you have to make if you want the job. It's all about priorities.

I-Like-To-Bike

The official soundtrack for this thread:

Rowan

No, the issue is that you are bellyaching about someone who was better equipped or qualified for the job than you were. The problem-solving is within you, yourself, and is of no real concern to anyone else except for entertainment value.

tandempower

True, but when the local economy where you live and want to live LCF is being controlled by businesses manipulating you to drive and/or move, the question is what other options you have or what other options you can create, and how.

tandempower

Why would you assume they are better qualified? If a local job has no driving required to do the job, but someone is able to get the job by first driving to a remote location, then the person driving could be less qualified but still effectively bribe their way into the position by driving to the remote location.

It would be the same thing as passing over a qualified applicant for a job to hire someone into an entry-level position, because you can't find entry level people otherwise. In this way, qualified people would have to apply for the entry-level jobs even though they are more qualified than others getting promotions within the organization. I'm not arguing about whether this is legitimate or not, but it would be a lie to say someone is more qualified than someone else just because they get a promotion, if in fact they aren't, wouldn't it? Or do you just change the definition of qualified to describe whomever management wants to promote for whatever reason?

Machka 

I don't understand what the problem is ... you're not explaining it very well ... but my guess is this:

A company HQ (located near you) advertised a job.

Now here's where I'm not clear.

A) You applied for the job, and maybe even got an interview, and then discovered that they want someone at a remote location at first with the possibility of moving to HQ later.

This is a relatively common practice because they need people at the remote location, but the remote location is less desirable for one reason or another, or because they want new employees trained up at the remote location for one reason or another.


B) You heard about this job, tried to apply for it, and were informed that it is internal applicant only.

This is also a common practice because the internal applicant only thing is a win-win for both employees and employer. However, as Mobile155 mentioned, if you are very well qualified, you might be able to out-do the internal applicants.


Whichever situation is true ... neither one of them has anything to do with LCF! This is not an LCF topic. This might be a Foo topic or a P&R topic, but it is not an LCF topic.

tandempower

I'm leaving out the details of my experience because I want to avoid doing what you're accusing me of, which is to make this a personal venting thread for my specific situation.

I was talking with someone who seemed to have insights into hiring practices and the topic came up that it was hard to get applicants who want to work at remote locations, and so applying to those locations would be a good way to get into the system, and that internal transfers got priority. So based on that, it occurred to me that there might be other ways of gaining access to local jobs than to apply to go to these remote locations, and that thinking of such ways would be beneficial to LCFers because we have more of an interest in getting jobs close to home than people who drive.

It seems like you, M155, Rowan, etc. are more interested in defending what you see as established business prerogatives than in thinking about ways to improve LCF accessibility to jobs. You say this internal transfer practice is mutually beneficial to employers and workers, but of course it depends on who you ask. Just as some job-seekers might appreciate other avenues to gaining access to jobs besides applying to remote locations, some employers might also appreciate other methods for filling remote jobs.

E.g. if a local LCF applicant bids to take a lower wage than a driving applicant, who has driving expenses to pay, then the employer can save money, which can be used to pay a bonus to someone to drive out to the remote work location. So, in that sense, allowing people to bid lower wage costs to get a local job could be in everyone's benefit, including the employer and someone who wants to earn a bonus by driving to a remote location.

You say this whenever a certain LCF topic conflicts with your politics. For some reason it bothers you to think that LCFers might be able to negotiate local jobs if we put our minds to it, so you go on a rampage slamming anything besides accepting whatever current business practices privilege drivers over LCFers. I don't see how you can think of yourself as anything besides anti-LCF when you think that way.

Machka 

One person's remote is another person's local ... one person's local is another person's remote.

As I said before, it is all about priorities. If "not driving" is a priority for you ... you have to do whatever it takes to accomplish that.


I'm sure employers can make that decision themselves.


NO THANK YOU. Nope. Absolutely not.

And we've mentioned the reasons why not earlier in the thread.



If the situation is a tender, or one of the online 'bid for small jobs' things, which Rowan mentioned earlier, that's different, and quite often the lowest bid does not win ... the person/company offering the most skills, ability, knowledge, experience all at a reasonable rate often wins. If you want to participate in a bidding situation, there are a few options out there for you to do that ... but you'd better be really well qualified.

However, there is absolutely no way I would want to be in a bidding situation for most employment, and I certainly would absolutely not ever want to be in a situation where my transportation was a negative factor in my wage.

Just because I take the bus and walk every day (and I do), that is no reason for me to be paid less than others at my band level.

Mobile 155

It would not be to the benefit of the real employee that wanted the transfer and knew internal transfers were offered when they got the job in the first place. To be clear, LCF, is not a protected classification of person. An applicant does not have a bearing in the process till that application is accepted. There is no law or practice by any legitimate company that does or should give preference to people off of the street over people already in the personnel system. This is not anti LCF it is reality. LCF has no preferential status in society nor should it. Just how would someone negotiate such a practice as bypassing full time employees with benefits and an option for more pay for someone unknown off of the street that best qualification is to work for less. With your example a person with a car living close to the other site could just as easily offer to work for 10 percent less than whatever you offered to do it for. But I don't know why a company would even consider such a practice. the chances of getting sub caliber employees is far greater when they have no prior work history with the company.

The only time I have seen this practice is with some unscrupulous companies that would hire undocumented employees rather than pay overtime only to terminate them when the job was done. or even worse call INS the day before pay day.

No you suggestion sounds pretty dangerous and really not an LCF or even LCL issue. It sounds more anti fair labor practice than anything else.

Mobile 155

I am in total agreement. I cannot see why someone that walks to work should be paid less than someone that drives or uses a helicopter to land on the roof of the building.

I did have an online job I applied for as I mentioned. The reason was it was half the distance to work from my home at the time. The internal employees got preference but I had 17 year experience in the exact opening that was posted. All in all I checked all of the boxes they were looking for including successfully working through a system to automate part of a logistics and delivery system. It still came down to the final interview and the fact that I had a pretty good grasp of the concepts of Arthur Deming's 14 points for systems. Number 4 deals with part of what is being suggested here. "Without adequate measures of quality, business drifts to the lowest bidder, therefore the result is low quality and high cost." I still believe that. Also Deming said, "A trained worker has more productivity and quality than an untrained one, so giving training sessions will drastically improve the quality of the person, and also directly helps in better performance with regard to product quality." Those two things are as true today as when they were written I believe. And they cove two of the points suggested about low bidding and untrained outside workers.

Rowan

Truth!

Rowan

Because you did not get the job. That automatically means they were better qualified in one way or another. Whether that is skills for the job, experience within the company/business/institution structure, having something more to offer now and into the future, and the willingness to work at a remote location for whatever time. And just so you know, reputation in the work marketplace can influence hiring. If you've had a less-than-stellar record, say, being asked to leave (fired) or slacking, it doesn't take much to phone or email contacts within an industry to find out what a person is really like.

You should seek some feedback about your application from the people who were in charge of hiring for this position. It is the only way that you are going to understand where you were deficient. Although I'd suspect you wouldn't like what you would hear.

Rowan

I talked briefly with someone today about training. I have just come out of period of employment where my boss was almost secretive. Really it was down to lack of communication and interpersonal skills, and in the end, it meant training to do the job I was doing was severely deficient to the point where I had to teach myself a lot of the stuff.

I love passing on skills and knowledge to people. Especially young people. I successfully designed and delivered bicycle training courses. Now I am assembling training manuals for orchard operations... which will ease my burden, make employees better skilled at what they do, and also help them feel empowered because of those skills and knowledge.

Machka 

If you want to bid for jobs, get onto a freelance work site like freelancer, upwork, guru or any number of others.


I don't know much about this style of work, but I do know that my brother, who is a skilled editor in several languages, picks up jobs now and then, whenever he'd like a bit of extra work.


So if bidding is what you want to do ... and if you've got the skills ... go for it!

tandempower

This is all irrelevant. All you are doing is reacting against a simple LCF issue, which is how to gain access to more local job opportunities.

Economic activity involves trade between buyers and sellers. When you are selling your services as an employee, you have various means available for making yourself more appealing as a commodity. Lowering your price is one of those.

On the contrary, employers are more likely to take a chance with less qualified/experienced applicants if the financial risk of hiring them is less.

It's not that you're getting paid less because you bike/walk; it's that you have the opportunity to bid lower rather than go to a remote site to get the job. The only 'negative factor' in your wage would be the amount of applicants competing for the job you want, and how low they are willing to bid. That is the same in any market, though, provided the market isn't regulated to prevent price competition.

Why would someone pay another applicant more because they drive? What you're implying is that employers would automatically pay drivers more than LCFers for some reason other than their willingness to take positions at remote locations. Why would you think that?

tandempower

The question is whether there is some law preventing employers from considering applicants who bid more competitive wages. There may be some laws requiring employers to observe certain wage standards for certain positions but not others, etc. If so, these would prevent you from approaching an employer with an offer to take a certain wage in exchange for a certain position at a certain location.

You could offer to work with a trial period where there is no liability in failing to extend the contract at the end of the trial. This is common practice in many jobs already anyway. Offering yourself at a discount to an employer frees up money for the employer to invest in other things, so I'm sure any employer would appreciate any applicant who bids lower, whether it's because they are LCF or because they're able to take a lower wage for some other reason.

You don't have to be a non-citizen to want to invest in your own lifestyle preferences. If you prefer to LCF and you want to invest in getting a job close to home by accepting lower pay, why should anyone or any law/policy stop you?

You are making it into that, but for LCFers, it's just a question of how to gain access to more local job opportunities if you want to live more locally.

I-Like-To-Bike

This entire thread, as well as many others on this list, is based on the premise that "LCFers" = Tandempower, Tandempower = "LCFers"; no more, no less.