A rant abut recruitment process

AlexMac

I share OP's frustration; as an insider in the past!

My first proper management job, in the baby boomer days at the age of 30, was as deputy Chief Librarian in decentalised department of a London borough with antique, and highly centralised, HR processes.

My sideline (as well as leading a team of 14 or so branch librarians) was to act as departmental personnel manager.

Recruitment, (admittedly in the days before Police-checks) was remotely controlled by the old farts in the Town-Hall; who placed the ads, sent out offer letters, drew up contacts... blah, blah, all at snails' pace so that the average job took months to fill.

So, with turnover running at over 25% (people leaving evry 3-4 years) - so up to 100 vacancies a year in a thinly staffed, borough-wide front-line service, staff were quite reasonably miffed at vacancy drag and impact on customers and their workload.

So, with the arrogance of (relative) youth, I simply bent all the rules; sucked up to the droids in HR mission control, sent draft local paper adverts through them every week for them to place in the local newspapers for entry level jobs and took a sausage machine approach to these clerical and counter appointments. Continuous piles of applications. Interviewees called in by phone or our own letters (not the remote Town Hall's). Our own local reference checks reluctantly agreed by the centre. Cautiously worded letters from my typist (pre-computer & email!) welcoming successful candidates to their posts weeks before the "official" offer and contract from on high. Perfectly legal, as you can start on an oral contract and an employer only has to issue written contracts WITHIN X weeks of a job-start, albeit that the bureaurats (sic) preferred em signed and sealed before the 1st day.

I even subverted more senior level appointment processes; sending draft ads to the professional journals at the same time as to my masters in the Town Hall, and telling the trade mag editor to ignore the official versions as they came through weeks later (and to trust me that they'd get paid eventually).

We got appointments down to 4-6 weeks from someone handing in their 4-weeks' notice; which meant that often the replacement arrived the monday after someone's Saturday's last day or leaving do. Staff loved it! The droids at the centre never caught on either.

And, as a bunch of arrogant young libertines with "progressive" ideals , we were a sight more PC (in the days before equalities policies and slavish box-ticking exercises) and practical in demolishing barriers and ensuring the intake matched the local class, age, gender and ethic make-up of what was then styled "Britain's Blackest Borough".

Overturned the previous old fart's seeming pre-deliction to appoint over-qualified, tasty white female graduates for shelf-stacking/book stamping jobs that really only required GCSE's and social/ communication skills.

Them were the days! Got me back in the end, though, as my own subsequent experience as I rose through the ranks was often more horrendous than the OP's. Including not even ever getting a phone call back from one Council after I'd go down to the final two for a Director level post... obviously unsuccessfully.

Then Thatcher really knocked it on the head with outsourcing, privatisation, and a wind of culture change which led to lower wages, a famine on training, zero hours contracts, a widening gap between top and bottom salaries and fiascos like the G4S approach to the Olympics security staff (they had to bring in the Army) and last week at Birmingham Jail (bring in the Home office!!!)

So put up, shut up, or... change the situation as "Minder" memorably said!

stclair

I work in recruitment in the rail industry and the whole process from application to Onboarding can take 4-6 months depending on the role.

asajj

yahoo09 wrote: »

Hello,

The recruitment process in government/health seriously need looking at and the length of time it takes. I am a regular user but i wish to remain seperate from my other username.

1. Application for job
2. Attend interview
3. Await outcome 1-2 weeks
4. Apply for DBS - anytime up to 3 month (yes i'm aware of update service, but you need an inital DBS first)
5. Await references to come back 1-2 weeks
6. Meet with employer to provide evidence of qualifications/scannig etc. - Anytime
7. Await all to be signed off and varified - Anytime
8. Await a start date.

Anyone ele have experience of witing 2,3,4,5 month to start a job after being offered a role?? It is absurd.

Financial services - it can be as lenghty with all background checks. Yes frustrating for anyone involved, including hiring manager/teams