Gatekeepers
Kendra pulls into the Black Mountain Central Library parking lot with a frantic eye on her dashboard clock.
“Crap,crap,crap,crap,crap,crap,crap,crap,crap,crap,crap,crap.” as if chanting her frustration will get this over with any faster.
“Stupid, frickin, Dr. Seuss-looking, street cleaner!” Of course, she had to get stuck behind the meandering driverless vehicle for the last half-mile. If luck and timing were one and the same, Kendra was pretty unlucky for most of her life.
Kendra glances at her phone to double-check the time. She’s cutting it close. Her reserved room is scheduled for 30 minutes, and it barely gives her enough time to get through all of the pre-screening required of job applicants who use free interview accounts.
Half-running to the front door, Kendra swipes her access card and says hello to the librarian she’s known all of her life. “Kendra! You’d better hurry! Your interview is scheduled to start at 3 PM, right? Ms. Rosen shakes her head and waves Kendra through the door.
These one-way video interviews are nerve-wracking under the best of circumstances, and Kendra wonders if any amount of extra time or care would make a difference for someone like her. Someone who was never not going to use a free version of the software. Someone who was competing with every other person in her county for one of the rare openings at the only remaining warehouse to employ actual people.
She pulls out the small pocket mirror that was part of a fancy makeup kit she received years ago. She checked to make sure that her glass skin foundation was still glossy and not greasy. Still glossy. “Just like your favorite filter!” thinks Kendra.
Kendra also takes a quick peek at her teeth, which are three shades past acceptable. When Jill said that the Dollar Supply whitening kit tasted how asphalt smelled on a hot day, Kendra learned to smile and talk without showing her teeth. All of this would be so much easier if she could do this with filters like the paid accounts, but you got what you paid for or didn’t pay for.
She logs into her account and sees that they have added the new feature of a countdown clock on the upper left of the screen. “Great.” she thinks. “Nothing like knowing your time is running out to help you present your best self.”
The first of a series of ads pop up. Thank god for Jill figuring out that these ads were also part of the screening process. “It was like they scanned my purchases for the last month or something. I guess it’s some kind of verification process?” Jill shrugged. “It was pretty easy to get through.”
Kendra recognizes the first three ads as something she purchased or looked up recently. The system asks to have the ads checked off as something she would want to buy before moving to the next one. She quickly looks at the clock and sees that she’s still making good time.
The next ad causes her to freeze. A photo of the Black Mountain Planned Parenthood pops up. She’s never been to Planned Parenthood. It’s at this moment that Kendra realizes that this screening process isn’t just a way for the company to sell ad space or to provide data to marketers to justify the gift of free software. This was some kind of Yelp meets St. Peter’s final reckoning at the pearly gates of heaven behavioral test. Each purchase or term searched was a test of who she was as a person. Was this a good use of your time? Was this money well spent? What kind of person would need something like this garment, this food item, or this health service? Tell me by choosing or not choosing this ad how you are the right person for the job.
As Kendra sits there frozen before the screen, she feels her foundation slip from glossy to greasy. “There’s always just one more gate,” she thinks, watching her countdown clock run down the time.
Brio Career is trying something new with our content. We’re writing fictional accounts of future work stories to bring awareness to the extensive changes in the 21st-century workplace. Many of these changes are already underway, even if they are stranger-than-fiction to a majority of workers.
While Kendra’s story is fictional, consumer data used in hiring has been a long topic of debate. We’re just starting to see changes occur around privacy and transparency. For more information about consumer data in hiring, please check out the resources listed below.
https://www.ere.net/the-last-strategic-recruiting-frontier-sourcing-using-consumer-data/
https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/washington/privacypolicy
https://resources.workable.com/tutorial/gdpr-compliance-guide-recruiting
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/gdpr-usa-new-state-legislation-making-closer-to-reality
https://www.icims.com/blog/the-first-consumer-privacy-law-in-the-u-s-is-coming-are-you-ready/
https://distantjob.com/blog/data-privacy-remote-hiring/
https://beamery.com/resources/blogs/ccpa-for-recruiters-what-you-need-to-know
