I try to keep my work-related activities and political views and activities separated. It's long been recommended to avoid talking about politics in corporate America these days. Not if you want to avoid getting on the wrong side of management. So I try to keep my (left-leaning) political views to myself.
After having a job outsourced some years ago (in the early, ugly days of the most recent recession) and having to live via contract work since, I've had a front row seat to the crazy demands being made by employers these days. Requiring two-to-five years experience with expert-level competence in a couple dozen technologies is not an unusual requirement in job ads. But read on to see a new one that I find particularly nasty.
Like I mentioned above, it's not unusual to see job ads with a laundry list of requirements, sometimes dozens of them. Systems-level experience (with several vendors' technologies), network administration (again with several vendors' technologies), software development experience, database management experience, and project management experience... the "successful candidate" will have expertise in all of those. Industry-recognized certifications (obtained on the candidate's dime, of course) are strongly preferred. So, essentially, you'll be doing the work of five people. To top it all off, you'll be receiving compensation that was typical for one of those positions in the 1980's. (The 1990's if you're lucky.)
But I noticed one job ad the other day that contained a new wrinkle that I find really offensive. (I've "X"ed out the company name just out of courtesy -- I am currently in a job search and don't want to jeopardize my prospects such as they are for an older IT guy -- but will pass along that it's a financial institution.
"This positon (sic) may be subject to XXXXXXX’s Political Contribution Policy. An offer of employment may be contingent upon disclosing to XXXXXXX the details of certain political contributions. XXXXXXX may decline to extend an offer or terminate employment for this role if it determines political contributions made could have an adverse impact on XXXXXXX’s current or future business interests, misrepresentations were made, or for failure to fully disclose applicable political contributions and or fundraising activities.
We've long been told that the First Amendment only protects your political speech from interference by the government. And with the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision, corporations' money is now protected political speech. My money, er, speech, is not protected from interference by an employer. Sure, it probably never has been but I haven't seen such an in-your-face expression of that until that ad.