No Work Lists

A few years ago, this story was posted about a "no work list" where if you were on the government's crap list for criticizing their policies, you would be put on a secret list where you wouldn't be able to find work.

www.infowars.com...

I'm an engineer with two years experience and a Master's degree and I've gotten a few phone interviews recently, but now I try to call back and I either get voicemails or the middleman recruiter tells me they haven't heard anything from the company at all. I've called five companies back every two weeks, for the past six or eight weeks, but it's always the same story.

There's a shortage of engineers - I should have no problem finding a job, but yet these conditions (along with my strong criticism of the government on FB) suggest to me I am on a no-work list. The article states that a no work list was being implemented in NJ and NY for secure construction sites, port workers, and truck drivers, but does anyone know any updated information on no work lists, especially with the looming E-Verify changes in the immigration bill?

reply to post by apcbm4


Have you tried networking on sites like LinkedIn?

reply to post by apcbm4
I don't know about any "no work list" but I know of at least two engineers that have been out of work for an extended period of time, one a mechanical engineer and the other a chemical engineer. Neither of them are anti-government types. The problem is that it's an employers market and they have their pick from the cream of the crop, many of which are willing to work far below scale.

It could just be that the employers are checking to see if the applicant has a facebook page. Upon finding yours and seeing your views, they consider you a poor (in their minds) employment prospect. A lot of employers now run credit checks on prospective employees. If the employer has government contracts there may well be a "no work" list based on how much of a security risk you are viewed as. I bet the company that Snowden worked for wishes he had been on a list before they hired him!

I'm no engineer but I was in an electrical cad class a few months back and one of the other people in the class offered me a job with him designing oilfield equipment.
I told him I wasn't an engineer and he said he didn't care. He needed someone who knew what he was doing and didn't have time to teach critical thinking.
From my experience, engineers with hands on field experience are better paid and more in demand.
Maybe you could get into some parallel work that will give you some experience that would be attractive in hiring fields.

I know a few people that had the same problem, and yes many employers can check your FB, credit score etc,.

But there are ways around it. Here are a few suggestions.

You can change a few letters in social network account like Mr. X "likes Big Butts" Jones. So if they look for you they will not find your main page, start a new one, a lovely, beautiful I love gov/jobs/corporations page this is the one that they will see.

Horrible credit?

If you challenge your credit report (and this is only while you are looking for work) they have to remove it till it is settled and confirmed, this will take a bit of time, but it can be done.

These are just a few suggestions, when a few friends and I tried to figure out what was wrong, 5 of them changed it, and 3 got calls and interviews within 2 weeks, and that was more than they had in a year.

Good luck, NRE.

reply to post by apcbm4


I seriously doubt you are on a secret No Work list, that somehow every single employer knows about, yet it's a secret. That's unreasonable.

It's your Facebook page. Delete the account, I bet you start getting calls back. I would never hire you if your page is as full of criticism as you lead us to believe it is, even if I happened to agree with you.

I don't know about a no work list. Nearly everyone I know is anti Obama/Government around here and I honestly don't know a soul who doesn't have a job now. A couple of years ago, no one did, but that doesn't seem to be a problem around here at the moment.

I agree with the above, fix your Facebook page. Either fix it, or hide it from view. Also, Google yourself and see what comes up. If I was hiring someone, the first thing I would do is Google them. A resume is all nice and everything but a Google search will show the truth.

I wish you the best of luck!

Thank you for the feedback everyone. I know it is somewhat farfetched to have a secret no work list, but that article sticks out in my mind and it is almost 3 years later, and I couldn't find any more current information than found in that article.

I am on LinkedIn and have tried several different methods of finding a job from posting on Craigslist (which actually got me one interview) to traditional job search sites, through job postings on my university's career center, and word of mouth through friends and family. These are tough times and I know that it costs a tremendous amount to hire someone on, so an employee has to be profitable from day one and many companies can't afford the time to train someone. Because of this, many engineering job postings require five years experience in a specific field, so I believe this is a big part of the difficulty.

I do have a pretty good credit score as I've been able to stay afloat so far, so I am extremely fortunate to not have to worry about that aspect.

I actually have been rather strict with my privacy settings for a few years now where only "Friends" (not "Friends of Friends") can see my posts. I did not find my Facebook page through a Google search, so I'm fairly certain that companies have not been reading my posts.

I have read that some employers find the lack of a Facebook page suspicious, so maybe I am just too restrictive with who can see basic information on my profile. I'll try changing my settings so companies can see my profile page and know that I have a FB account; I didn't think about this before and maybe that's part of the problem.

With that article bringing up the possibility of a no work list, E-Verify keeps popping up in my mind because it is so ubiquitous with every employer mandated to use it. Right now, it is used to check for illegal immigrants, but I could easily see it being expanded to include not allowing "terrorists" to work. There is a greatly expanded definition of who is involved with terrorist activity including disagreeing with the government, paying in cash, liking online privacy, or having more than 7 days of food.

www.washingtonsblog.com...

I thought I would throw this out there and see what people thought. Thanks again for the comments as I have been trying anything I can think for a year now to become employed again as an engineer and pay off my student loans.

It might relate to a security check list related to companies doing government-funded research projects. So if DARPA or DoD is funding a project at that company, well the big security department officer is going to be paying money for background checks and if a person is considered questionable to security then they don't get hired.

If it's not a list from government investments, it is from the lists related to the Board of Directors and their circles of friends plus the investors and their interests. In the bigger companies, if you aren't asked to join from fresh talent pools like universities and headhunter agencies, and your own personal friends or fortune or fame, you don't get in.

There is actually a phenomenon of a smear campaign against certain individuals. So it appears that the opportunity is there but someone already went ahead, played a security consultant, went to the bosses of all the big companies and said don't hire this guy, we think he's bad news, he might be a terrorist, whatever. It makes me believe that sometimes that sort of effort runs along Mason or Infragard lines or some other secret society lines. Where they put a photo up, say this one is a nutcase, this one has been found on woowoo conspiracy sites, don't hire him. Well it's expertized biased opinion but already the offensive lines have been used against a person.

Then not only is someone looking for work and the doors are closed, but it takes a detective agency and a lawsuit of libel/slander to make things level again. Maybe it's part of the asymmetrical cyber war on conspiracy theory websites these days.

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