Well another day past and another post written. This time I have decided to shift my focus slightly without detracting from my overall message regarding the UK care system and so today’s (rather late) discussion surrounds a recent application of mine to McDonald’s.
It so happened that I was needing additional funds to help me survive as the JSA money I was receiving from social services was just not enough to live off of and so I decided to apply to almost every basic job that was going in the surrounding area. This eventually led me to the McDonald’s website whereabouts I found a convenient position in a local restaurant that I felt I could fill comfortably. As an individual my GCSE grades had been very high and so I was confident in being able to apply for such a simplistic role named only as ‘Crew Member’. Once I had progressed through the first fifteen minutes of creating an account for the website I finally faced the first proper hurdle and was quite taken aback to find that there was a series of scenario based questions I was required to answer to be able to progress any further.
I was literally laughing inside. How on earth could this be any more complicated than it needed to be? But as requested of me I began to fill in the questionnaire that was about ten sections long but looked at first glance as if it could take the best part of half an hour. Unfortunately my predictions were correct and with appropriate effort applied I had finished the ‘test’ as it seemed dead on the passing of a half hour. Once I then clicked continue I was sure that there would be nothing more for me to do except upload my prepared CV, but no, instead I was greeted with a CV builder on the website and no other option but to use this so that I could progress forward. This actually made me quite angry as if felt as though all the effort I had already used in creating a CV was not needed as I was only going to have to type it out again onto the template before me but with no other options I decided to continue and so I did as I was instructed and began to type what I had already written.
Another fifteen minutes passed and I finally completed (with speed typing) the template that was about four pages long, a ridiculous length for a CV that was probably going to be used by youngsters with minimal experience and so probably had no need for so much space. It wasn’t as if we were applying for a directing role in the company itself was it?
So by this point I had spent a long, painful hour completing the assessment and CV for sending off and this time I had finally reached the end. Clicking send felt like an achievement in itself, as if getting a job was actually more difficult than retaining that same position. Once logged out I began to reflect on the process until a thought came into my mind regarding those that might’ve applied prior to me and who were perhaps unsuccessful due to poor digital communication skills. I though and pondered over this until I began to paint a clearer picture of those that companies such as McDonald’s were probably turning away on a daily basis. People such as that nice girl next door who hasn’t the foggiest about higher maths but has the best interpersonal skills anyone could possess and was very much suited to a customer based role behind a till. Instead these people, due to their abilities in other areas aside from form filling, were being turned down when they could probably fulfil the role better than many current employees who managed to blag their way into the job through carefully written sentences and a well rehearsed interview. All of this for a fast food restaurant that pays minimum wage?
It was at this point that I turned my attention to those in care. Those who were having another nail hammered into their coffin by society as they were not provided with the correct skills to fulfil such trying tasks such as the McDonald’s questionnaire that I had to fill out. It was these people who could probably fill the position even better than I that were being given little or no chance to succeed and were thus ending up on the streets or in gangs due to a lack of income. It was these people who needed the job I was applying for as they might never otherwise begin to climb the ladder of life, rung by rung, from the bottom where they found themselves.
I would like to see a reform, an up-haul if you will, in the rigid testing prior an interview for basic jobs such as McDonald’s. This is disallowing many perfectly capable candidates such as some of my friends in the care system from earning a solid wage and beginning to get some sort of certainty in their otherwise uncertain life. I want to see this happen not only for the welfare of this people but for their children and many generations after them.
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Thanks,
Barnaby.
Sect20 