Day 10 - Can you Bill for How Long it Flipping Takes to Submit Applications?

Fresh out of college, my job application process looked something like this:

• Scour job ads in the papers, circling the especially juicy ones
• Spruce up my resume and cover letter and print them out
• Fax or mail as requested
• If a phone call is requested (usually not) I'd follow up that way as well
• Wait, wait and then wait some more for a response, which often did not happen as my information was probably shackled and left in the dungeon with the other dying resumes.

Not the most effective means of applying for jobs, but usually the least time constrictive - maybe an hour or so. And that includes a post office run for stamps.

NOW however, in this great day and age of the Internet, the process to apply ravages the common sentiment that the WWW is much more efficient. For example, today I:

• Located a good job opportunity through an online search
• Hopped over to the Web site to apply
• Registered to be able to apply  (name, contact info, user name, password, etc.)
• Begin the application process by re-entering (as prompted by the system) all the contact information I just entered
• Entered my education into each requested window
• Entered my job experience into each requested window
• Uploaded my resume as requested, a lovely redundancy of what I just entered
• Reviewed resume upload to make sure it is the right file and that the system did not mutate my information to reflect Tom Bundy's. 
• Answered mandatory employment questions such as legal status, etc.
• Answered profiling questions including gender and race
• Reviewed entire submission again
• Clicked submit

Ah! Success! I am done. But ... no ... no ... nooooooo! 

The position you are applying for requires an assessment test. Please answer the following 79 questions. (I kid you not. I am not making this up. I'm not even exaggerating.)

By this point, I'm ready to submit an invoice to the company for taking up a couple of hours of my time. Billed at $X an hour x 2 hours = Give me back my life, you devilish Web site!

After another 35 minutes of answering gibberish such as, "If my supervisor were to rate my abilities, they would rate them as ... " and "True or false: I find cannibalism a fascinating and relaxing hobby," I finally get the glee-inducing answer of "Submitted" back from the site. Followed immediately by, "Oh crap, I can no longer see because I have been squinting at this computer screen for three hours straight." (And don't get me started on the assessment tests. That's five other posts right there.) 

Now, the real question is this: Will this submission go to the virtual dungeon too, perhaps hang out with my resumes from 10 years ago, have some feeble laughs, slowly starve to death?

UPDATE, 2-1-10: On the night of this post (a Sunday no less) I got a message that disproved my theory of resume dungeons. I doubt any pair of human eyes ever saw my submission, but Big Brother, aka the corporate HR automated system, was kind enough to tell me that I wasn't a good fit for the posted job. Ah well, even if they're terminator eyes, at least my resume got in front of someone's eyes.