Now This!

Remember when you went to apply for a job and all you really needed was your work history? Did that work for you? That was back in the 1970's. It works when you're fresh out of high school, but not for older workers who were previously laid off.

For a while you only needed three references that you could turn over after the first interview. Then potential employers expect you to turn over your references in advance, even though they may be scam artists or psychotic individuals who might be out to ruin someone's life for the fun of it.

Then, get this, some employers expect you to have other people take time out of their busy schedules to write letters of recommendation to them before they consider an interview.

I'm not going to have my associates write hundreds of letters of recommendations if I apply for hundreds of jobs.

And Now This! Employers are expecting you to spend $40 to get yourself finger printed, then spend over $100 to go to the State's Office of Professional Development and get a "Permanent Employee Registration Card (PERC) card.

I was told by my potential employer (who when asked, told me he worked for some security agency I never heard of) that it would take a couple of weeks for the prints to get through the system, then I would have to go down to the Department of Professional Regulation and apply for a PERC Card.

I never received specific instructions for this process or given the name of someone to contact. I called the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation and the recorded message repeatedly told me to visit their website to apply for a license, but there was no link for license applications to be found on their main page for a PERC card, so I called them back and listened intently through the entire recording until it told me to press '2' for other license inquiries, and it was busy.