Linda Smith, a resident of Menifee, California, wants to help her daughter land a job.

Lisa Smith, 36, has been out of the job market for almost 20 years.

Not that she hasn’t spent those years working.  She has–as a caregiver for her mother.

In 1996, Linda, now 61, was hit by a drunk driver and left with mild dementia.  She couldn’t remember names or safely travel by herself.  Holding down a steady job was impossible.

So Lisa quit her job as a full-time commercial model to care for her mother.  They lived off of Lisa’s part-time jobs, a government caregiver stipend, and Linda’s disability money.

But in June, 2012, a doctor found that Linda was well enough to live alone.

That was the good news.  The bad news was: There would be no more caregiver funds.

As Lisa’s applications for full-time work went unanswered, Linda wanted to help. So, in late February, she began standing on the side of the road, holding a sign.

Linda Smith

And offering $500 cash to any employer willing to hire her daughter at at least $15 an hour or more for an office job, such as an executive assistant.

This will be no easy task.  California has an unemployment rate of 9.8%–one of the worst in the nation.  And it’s a truism that if you’ve been out of the workforce more than six months, employers don’t want to know you.

You might have won the Medal of Honor or be the next Einstein or Steve Jobs.  But it doesn’t matter.

The basic employer mentality goes: “If someone else wasn’t responsible enough to hire you, why should I be?”

An article in the March, 2011 issue of Reader’s Digest gives the lie to the excuses so many employers use for refusing to hire.

Entitled “22 Secrets HR Won’t Tell You About Getting a Job,” it lays bare many of the reasons why America needs to legally force employers to demonstrate as much responsibility for hiring as job-seekers are expected to show toward searching for work.

Click here: 22 Secrets HR Won’t Tell You About Getting a Job | HT Staffing

Among the truths it reveals:

TRUTH NO: 1: Once you’re unemployed more than six months, you’re considered unemployable.

TRUTH NO. 2: As you’ve always suspected: It’s not what but who you know that counts.

TRUTH NO. 3: If you can, avoid HR entirely and seek out someone in the company you know. If you don’t know anyone, go straight to the hiring manager.

TRUTH NO. 4: Don’t assume that someone will read your cover letter. Many of them go straight into the garbage can.

TRUTH NO. 5: You will be judged on the basis of your email address–especially if it’s something like “Igetwasted@aol.com.”

TRUTH NO. 6: Don’t assume you’re protected against age discrimination just because it’s against the law. If you’re in your 50s or 60s, leave your year of graduation off your resume.

TRUTH NO: 7: Don’t assume you’re protected from unemployment just because it’s illegal to discriminate against applicants who have children. Many managers don’t want to hire people with children, and will go to illegal lengths to find out their parental status–like checking an applicant’s car for child safety seats.

TRUTH NO. 8: It’s harder to get a job if you’re fat. Hiring managers make quick judgments based on stereotypes.

TRUTH NO. 9: Many managers will assume you’re a loser if you give them a weak handshake.

TRUTH NO. 10: Encourage the interviewer to talk–especially about himself. Ego-driven interviewers love hearing the sound of their own voices and will assume you’re better-qualified than someone who doesn’t want to listen to them prattle.

The United States has reached the depths of shame when a willing-to-work American must bribe fat-pockets employers to show a sense of hiring responsibility.

Millions of Americans continue to blame President Barack Obama for the nation’s high unemployment rate. But no President can hope to resolve this problem until employers are legally required to act like patriots instead of predators.

Their responsibilities should encompass more than simply fattening their own pocketbooks and/or egos at the expense of their fellow Americans.

Such behavior used to be called treason.

It’s past time to recognize that a country can be betrayed for other than political reasons.  It can be sold out for economic ones, too:

• Employers who enrich themselves by weakening their country—by throwing millions of qualified workers into the street and moving their plants to other countries—are traitors.
• Employers who set up offshore accounts to claim their American companies are foreign-owned—and thus exempt from taxes—are traitors.
• Employers who systematically violate Federal immigration laws—to hire illegal aliens instead of willing-to-work Americans—are traitors.

And with a new definition of treason should go new penalties–heavy fines and/or prison terms–for those who sell out their country to enrich themselves.

It is time, in short, to put a long-overdue end to the Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.