Remember this: You are being researched by
employers. The employer’s personal opinion on activities and thoughts
applicants have in life, could possibly bias the employer choosing a person who
enjoys the outdoor sports for employ.
Today I attended a workshop that was geared
toward resume building and application. This was to update my knowledge on the
new format that is now being pushed to find employment.
During the section on resume editing, I
asked the facilitator a question. My question was: Can one of your previous
jobs be offensive to a future employer?
She stared at me and said, “I don’t know.
What have you been into?”
I looked at her with a cat-eating grin and
gave a drawn out, “Well…” We both chuckled.
The particular job I would like to use as an
example is the time I worked in a wild game processing business that only
processed deer meat.
In this particular job, hunters would drop
off deer and it would be field dressed on-site and then processed into sausage,
hamburger, cube steak, etc.
Here was employment that could be frowned
down on by those who do not agree with the taking of wild game for food or
sport. I was reading some of the questions about people who support the activities
of hunting being as guilty as those doing the hunting. I thought it was because
of enabling. That complete series is for another written piece.
What if one of these people worked in human
resources at a job you wanted to apply for, but used a previous job as a reason
not to hire you because it was based around harm to animals?
Is this fair? Could it happen? Has it
happened? Is it discrimination?
Another example is this blog that I write. I
am looking at different points of interests but it is based around outdoor
sports, which now, thanks to hunters that are bad examples, this can now be
frowned upon on by a future employer who doesn’t personally or professionally
believe in hunting or fishing. My points of view have probably raised an
eyebrow or two.
I had a long conversation with the
facilitator about this. Should I leave this one job off my resume and
application? Of course, this was a job I occupied while working two other jobs
at the same time.
How much of our previous experiences should
we edit in order to get a job? Should these jobs considered unsightly, be condemned
because activities such as hunting have now gone under scrutiny by non-hunters,
animal activists, and scientists? Scientists have now gotten on the bandwagon
with the super predator narrative since the Cecil debacle. I didn’t think that
was a new concept. That information is holding hands with climate change,
habitat fragmentation, and on-coming extinction of species. Corporations dug
holes in the earth, fracked it to pieces, and polluted up the waters.
I was told to remove it from my resume and
application because it wasn’t relevant. The facilitator told me that in jobs
for which I was applying that these employers should be well informed on the
condition of hunting and outdoor sports. The employer should understand a
working function of those aspects of life that are facilitated by person
endeavor through the understanding of biological processes. What if the
scientific mind is overruled by the emotional, judgmental mind?
Randomness and the ability to deviate from
expected outcomes and thought can blow the little boat of potential employ out
of the water.
It would be different if I were applying for
a job in the hunting industry, field sports, or a place like Bass Pro Shops.
This would be a relevant place to list such an employment history.
Knowing the depth and ease in which
employers can hack your account by building business pages, to which you
solicited a friends requests toward the business on social sites such as
Facebook, can look deep into your private affairs and posts, to judge you as a
potential employee or not.
What is considered to invasive when
employers want to hack your life with every known technology at their hands to
discover the real you?
I say this, but when someone commits a crime
or is accused of one, social media sites are right there, ready to give over your
personal information to help build an unsubstantiated and circumstantial case. This evidence can be misconstrued as something it is not. Your reputation is destroyed, innocent or not.
Could some examples be illustrated to test
this possiblity?
An example would be if you friend requested
the local employment center. The employment center accepts your request then
can see everything you have posted on private and public accounts. If you have
booty shots or naked women on videos, this is your preference. Your lifestyle
and activity choices could land you in the hot seat.
Another example is a trophy hunter posting
his photography of hunted species on the internet. This hunter goes to look for
a job but is denied. What if that hunter was turned down because of his
personal activities instead of his stellar work history, experiences, passion,
and cover letter?
Should you live your life living with the
anxiety that you will be penalized because you decided to hunt and fish to feed
yourself, show your pride and happiness at doing so, or write about issues
plaguing the outdoor sports?
Is it worth the risk if there is no pay-off?
I eventually watched as she hatched away at
over twenty years of jobs and experiences to one page. I felt good about the
progress.
It still lingered on my mind; all those
things that an employer can hold against you in the hiring process, without
knowing or meeting the person you are, just the one you were trained to pretend
to be because employers have been taught to go for a certain molded employee.
The problem with this is: Once the employee is out of the mold, the individual
hired may or may not work out. The job will test the person, the worker will
emerge, and progress will be made.
Think about the present state of the outdoor
sports when it comes to hunting and fishing. Think about the negative
connotations set against hunters at this time due to bad examples and bad
publicity. The next time you apply for a job or share your life with an
employer, if not in the hunting industry, could that be held against you?
Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore
