My experience of recruiting new staff

poorlittlefish

I have recently had to advertise for a new member of staff and was shocked at the applications that I received:


- One-word answers to competency-based questions
- Spelling mistakes in almost every application ("proffesional" being a favourite)
- Sentences that made no sense whatsoever
- Lowercase letters used throughout
- Words abbreviated as if they were being used in a text message rather than a job application
- "Glamour" photos on CVs
- Failing to apply by the stated method


I could go on. When there are so many candidates fighting for each vacancy I can't understand why anyone would put so little care into their application unless they are actively trying to avoid getting shortlisted.


When it came to interviewing there were candidates who were dressed very casually, who'd done absolutely no research about the company and hadn't thought to have any examples ready in relation to the competencies they knew we were looking for.


A good number of the applicants were unemployed, some for two or more years and frankly, I'm not surprised when they make such little effort. Is my experience of being a recruiter being repeated all over the country or was I just unlucky?!

Opinion

I know your pain. Had this the other day.

http://imgur.com/8ywwej9

Takeaway_Addict

Opinion wrote: »

I know your pain. Had this the other day.

http://imgur.com/8ywwej9

I would have put on the end of the list

'Elf and safety coordinator'

PenguinYeltz

I can't believe reading that that some people want the job they apply for!

I've recently found a new job. The first thing I did when I was offered the interview was go out and buy £100 plus worth of clothes to look smarter than usual - a lot of money for me.

Then I researched the company, in fact they asked me if I knew anything about the company, I then reeled off a list of awards which I said made me want to work there - the awards were along the lines of 'best place to work in the area' and so on. As well as showing knowledge of the areas of which they work in.

Not sure about my C.V, I hope it fits and is grammatically correct. I received another job interview shortly after I received this job offer so it must be ok to be offered two interviews in the space of a matter of weeks!

getmore4less

What job level are you recruiting for.

InsideInsurance

poorlittlefish wrote: »

I could go on. When there are so many candidates fighting for each vacancy I can't understand why anyone would put so little care into their application unless they are actively trying to avoid getting shortlisted.


When it came to interviewing there were candidates who were dressed very casually, who'd done absolutely no research about the company and hadn't thought to have any examples ready in relation to the competencies they knew we were looking for.


A good number of the applicants were unemployed, some for two or more years and frankly, I'm not surprised when they make such little effort. Is my experience of being a recruiter being repeated all over the country or was I just unlucky?!

Last time I was involved in recruiting a Perm without use of an agency we had over 1,000 applicants. The job spec was for a £75-£100k position, wanting 7-10 years senior management experience and ideally a MBA or ACCA type qualification. We had at least half a dozen cleaners apply, a retired police sergeant from Zimbabwe who wanted us to sponsor a visa for him to come for the interview and many more totally irrelevant applications and spelling on CVs was the least of the issues.

I suspect some people simply apply to every job they find. Despite there being a lot of competition for jobs there are a lot of jobs out there, just even more job seekers. They may well find it easier/ quicker to blunderbuss the same thing blindly to every job than spend time reading the job spec, deciding what chance they have, revise their CV and covering letter etc.

My personal favourite that I have seen several time is people going on about their "attention to detale"

Jitterbug123

My younger brother went for an interview for a graduate scheme recently. He was the only person who wore a suit. I think it's very odd that you would turn up for an interview not in smart dress.

PenguinYeltz

Do people seriously turn up to interviews in casual wear? I class casual wear as t-shirts, jeans etc?

I even wore a tie to my interview, that's a rarity! I didn't wear a suit, it was far too hot! Just had a smart shirt, grey trousers and shoes. Looked smart enough through my eyes!

Jitterbug123

I think they were wearing slacks or chinos... which I would definitely think of as casual, not smart enough for interview.

Errata

they are actively trying to avoid getting shortlisted.

That's your answer.

Flyonthewall

For a short while I was with a work programme that told you you must apply for anything and everything. I asked if that included, say, lorry driving despite not having a licence to do so (nor ever planning on getting one). The answer was yes. Everything.

I managed to find enough jobs to apply for without applying for anything stupidly unsuitable. Had I been forced to apply for such a job my application would have been short and unrelated to the job. I couldn't send an application with mistakes or badly written, but it certainly wouldn't be a well thought out application. Had I somehow got an interview I wouldn't have dressed up really smart because there's no point. It's a waste of everyones time.

It's stupid, but a lot of applications are probably from those forced to apply for unsuitable jobs or trying to reach an unrealistic number of applications a week.

Obviously not always the case, but may explain why there is quite so many bad applications.

As for failing to apply by the correct method. Is everything correct for them to do so? I've seen adverts saying email here or go to this site but the job sites have removed the address so the only option is to apply through the site you're on and there's not always the information to find their own site or another advert for the job. Also some sites where they say fill in an application form and then you spend half your life trying to find where they're hiding the application form. In which case some may give up and apply in another way.