Coloradoan -local teen has trouble proving himself

[MorningGlory]

Anyway, maybe in America things are different. Could someone enlighten me.

Well, bts, here in the U.S. an employer wants to know who you are, where you went to school, degrees you may have, positions you have held before, military status, credit history (I don't agree with this one), and criminal history. How else would one know if you really had 10 years experience, clean criminal history, good credit, an MBA from Baylor, and weren't AWOL from the military? One won't get a good job without showing I.D. I won't rent to anyone who can't prove who they are and their status in the U.S. and most others won't either. Yes, the illegals get driver's licenses but they still have to show I.D.; fake, but still I.D. Are you saying in N.Z. you can do all these things without proving who you are?? What employer doesn't check job history? I'm confused.

[sheya joie]

My 18 yo had no trouble getting a photo ID down here in Texas.

What's up with Colorado???

[buckthesystem]

Anyway, maybe in America things are different. Could someone enlighten me.

Well, bts, here in the U.S. an employer wants to know who you are, where you went to school, degrees you may have, positions you have held before, military status, credit history (I don't agree with this one), and criminal history. How else would one know if you really had 10 years experience, clean criminal history, good credit, an MBA from Baylor, and weren't AWOL from the military? One won't get a good job without showing I.D. I won't rent to anyone who can't prove who they are and their status in the U.S. and most others won't either. Yes, the illegals get driver's licenses but they still have to show I.D.; fake, but still I.D. Are you saying in N.Z. you can do all these things without proving who you are?? What employer doesn't check job history? I'm confused.

As you know Glory NZ is a much smaller country than America. I grew up with an expectation of trust. Things are changing, but hopefully won't change too much in my lifetime. I can see how as the population increases, peoples obsession with "verification" would also increase. When I applied for my first job - now about 37 years ago - we had 3.4 million people in the country. There are now just on four million but still common sense is usually exercised.

When you apply for a job, your CV will normally list previous job experience (where you went to school and credit history are irrelevant to an employer). Where you went to school would only come up if you had left school within the last few years and your credit history should never come up as no employer would ever need to know that!!!!!

As for "checking the veracity of qualifications, experience etc. the employer will usually ring up to your last employer and ask them and if qualifications are relevant they can/would ring up or write to the university or training institution. What I just don't get is how would an id card tell an employer what they need to know about a prospective employee?

I don't think it would come up much that someone would tell outrageous lies on their CV, and if they did it would either be obvious at the time or it would soon be found out.

If you were going for a job such that a security check would be necessary (this is most certainly not true of all jobs) then if you are AWOL from the military, that would be the first thing to come up.

Four years ago or so I worked in a computer shop and part of my work was to write CVs for people who weren't sure how to do it themselves. I attended a short course on how to do this, and they told me of the "15 year rule" - i.e. anything that you did or were 15 years ago or more is irrelevant to anything and no employer would want to waste their time reading about it.

When I first applied for the job I have now (I am only a factory worker) all they wanted to know was "name and address, and are you physically capable of doing the job". They had a "grip test" to see how tightly you could squeeze something, a lung capacity test and a hearing test (which I did really badly at and found out that my hearing is not very good at all). But then with the hearing the boss said "well the factory is pretty noisy anyway and we usually communciate with sign language (if the boss wants to tell us something there is a whiteboard at the end of the factory and he writes on that, and if it is something private he will write it on a bit of paper and hold it up to you). We are supposed to wear earmuffs all the time and with them on I can't hear anything but the dull roar of the factory anyway.

Oh, I forgot, one of the questions was: Do you have a drivers' licence and if so what type is it. However, they didn't require proof. When I had worked there for a few months I was talking to the boss about kids and school holidays - I said "mine are way past school holidays now as my youngest is (he was at the time) 19, the boss looked puzzled and said "how old are you" and then it occurred to me that he'd never asked when I applied for the job and I thought it was obvious that I was pretty old, but I guess it isn't to everybody.

My husband works on the airforce base as an electrician. When he went for the job, he had to have a "security clearance". That normally takes about a week, but they just "tapped into" his old navy records (even though it was more than 30 years since he was discharged) and it was pretty instant.

Anyway I digress. The point is that I always thought the American SSN was supposed to be a "key" to things like "military records", "university records" and just about anything else. So why the ID card (mentioned in the article)?

You said yourself "the illegals get driver's licenses but they still have to show I.D.; fake, but still I.D." So does that mean that if a prospective employee shows a (well faked) id card/driving licence (what ever) it is totally believed and never checked?

And what do the "illegals" do, make up an SSN?

The only time I thought it might be awkward for us to refuse to produce ID was when the lawyer said (jokingly it turned out as he knew how we both felt about it) that he would require ID from both of us to file the mortgage documents. But he didn't really need or even desire us to produce ID.

[MorningGlory]

Anyway I digress. The point is that I always thought the American SSN was supposed to be a "key" to things like "military records", "university records" and just about anything else. So why the ID card (mentioned in the article)?

You said yourself "the illegals get driver's licenses but they still have to show I.D.; fake, but still I.D." So does that mean that if a prospective employee shows a (well faked) id card/driving licence (what ever) it is totally believed and never checked?

And what do the "illegals" do, make up an SSN?

The only time I thought it might be awkward for us to refuse to produce ID was when the lawyer said (jokingly it turned out as he knew how we both felt about it) that he would require ID from both of us to file the mortgage documents. But he didn't really need or even desire us to produce ID.

Hmmm....I see that it would be different here...maybe just because there are 300,000,000 people in the U.S. But, yes, when we apply for jobs our criminal, educational, and employment histories are checked. There is a lot of fudging on resumes (CVs over there) and I've seen colleagues fired for that very thing. I don't know why an employer needs to know one's credit rating either; that's the stupidest and most instrusive thing I can think of. Yes, our SSNs are the key to our entire lives. The illegals use other's numbers or make one up and they are increasingly being caught at it. We are asked for photo I.D. because it could be someone else using your identity; if it's fake the employer would find out pretty quickly. We also would have to pass a physical to obtain most jobs, although office jobs are usually not included. My exhusband just went to work for a major construction company as a heavy equipment operator; he went through educational, criminal, military, and past employment checks and then had to pass the physical. I guess things are different for you guys in NZ; I envy you! All of this red tape is one big hassle! And it's evident that a lot of employers turn a blind eye to the fact that illegal workers have no employment, military, or educational histories in the U.S. Hopefully, that is changing with the new laws enacted recently.

[buckthesystem]

Anyway I digress. The point is that I always thought the American SSN was supposed to be a "key" to things like "military records", "university records" and just about anything else. So why the ID card (mentioned in the article)?

You said yourself "the illegals get driver's licenses but they still have to show I.D.; fake, but still I.D." So does that mean that if a prospective employee shows a (well faked) id card/driving licence (what ever) it is totally believed and never checked?

And what do the "illegals" do, make up an SSN?

The only time I thought it might be awkward for us to refuse to produce ID was when the lawyer said (jokingly it turned out as he knew how we both felt about it) that he would require ID from both of us to file the mortgage documents. But he didn't really need or even desire us to produce ID.

Hmmm....I see that it would be different here...maybe just because there are 300,000,000 people in the U.S. But, yes, when we apply for jobs our criminal, educational, and employment histories are checked. There is a lot of fudging on resumes (CVs over there) and I've seen colleagues fired for that very thing. I don't know why an employer needs to know one's credit rating either; that's the stupidest and most instrusive thing I can think of. Yes, our SSNs are the key to our entire lives. The illegals use other's numbers or make one up and they are increasingly being caught at it. We are asked for photo I.D. because it could be someone else using your identity; if it's fake the employer would find out pretty quickly. We also would have to pass a physical to obtain most jobs, although office jobs are usually not included. My exhusband just went to work for a major construction company as a heavy equipment operator; he went through educational, criminal, military, and past employment checks and then had to pass the physical. I guess things are different for you guys in NZ; I envy you! All of this red tape is one big hassle! And it's evident that a lot of employers turn a blind eye to the fact that illegal workers have no employment, military, or educational histories in the U.S. Hopefully, that is changing with the new laws enacted recently.

It seems to me that you have all this "red tape" because you put up with it. There is absolutely no good reason for 99% of these questions to be answered, documents to be produced or medical examinations to be passed! I'm sure that 30 years ago you didn't need to "jump through these hoops" to get a job, and then it was probably much the same as it is here now, well nothing has changed in America in that time! What is the excuse that you are being given for all these things now?

For instance what is the stated reason for having to pass a "physical" for a job as a heavy equipment operator? I can understand a drug test (illegal substances test) as it could be a dangerous situation if a heavy machine operator was a drug addict. However, no other medical information is anybody's business but that of the person applying for the job. Gee he was applying for a job, not an insurance policy!

There has got to be a certain amount of trust between an employer and an employee or nothing will get done and the employer may as well stand over the employee with a whip. Privacy has to be respected as well, I have the attitude that "if I want you to know something I will tell you, but if not ........"

It also puzzles me as to why ALL employers want to know your educational history. Surely for a job like mine, it is irrelevant whether or not I even attended school or even can read (I presume you meant "ALL jobs") and it is the usual thing (information gleaned in my CV writing course) that if a person has no tertiary qualification, if they are over (I think) 23 their school qualifications or lack thereof are irrelevant.

Completely as an aside: I realised that you have to be careful what you say. Recently I jokingly said to someone at work that I had "literacy issues" and I couldn't read. They took me seriously and the next thing I knew one of the supervisors was telling me how "the company could probably help me with a reading programme". I had some very fast talking to do.

I'm getting off track again, I'm sorry. The point is that people in America put up with this rubbish for no good reason and it is all designed to get you used to a totalitarian way of doing things. I'm thinking it would probably change pretty quickly once people started to question everything they're asked to do. And when there are no good answers .........

A quote though: "Hopefully, that is changing with the new laws enacted recently." Will these new law affect just illegal immigrants or everybody? Now this is important because this is always how draconian laws start.

[anitarose]

And what do the "illegals" do, make up an SSN?

No, actually there's quite the black market for phony SSNs. What they do is peruse the Social Security website for dead people and hijack a dead person's SSN. Therefore, someone who is obviously Hispanic and has the name of Hans Schwartz can legally work in the US. They pay quite a bit of money for it, but it's worth it for an illegal who wants to work in the US. To say nothing of all of the possible terrorists who comes in over the porous Southern US border.

It happens all the time.

Anita