Shortlisted, No Interview

[Deleted User]

I recently applied for a remote job in customer service for a clothing / lifestyle brand.
I received an email saying "... We’re pleased to let you know that we have shortlisted your application but due to the high volume of applications we’ve received, before we proceed to final interview selection we need to establish some further details. Can you please reply to this e-mail and respond to the questions below with a YES / NO. In order to ensure we’re able to commence interviews as soon as possible, please reply by mid-day Monday 26th October."

The questions were things like "I am aware it's a work from home role" "I am available full time (40 hours per week)" etc. I answered YES to all of them and sent my reply promptly.

A week later, I have just received an email to say "We're sorry to let you know that on this occasion you haven't been successful in being shortlisted for interview."

I checked and they replied saying "The screening questions were sent as a way of getting our over 150 applications down, and not a definite that you would shortlist for an interview. Even though you answered yes to all the screening questions, so did a lot of other candidates, so we had to do another shortlist based on skills and experience."

Shortlisting twice seems very misleading. To be told you've been shortlisted, then answer the screening questions correctly, then be told you're unsuccessful seems like an unfair recruitment process. Is this common practice? 

KatrinaWaves

No it’s not unfair. Let’s say they shortlisted to 40 people, sent out those questions and 35 said no to some, fab, there’s our 5 to interview.

If all 40 say ‘yes’ to all then it doesn’t help.

You probably won’t be surprised to find out that people do go to interviews expecting the hours to change for them. We’ve had people
turn up to interview not realising the hours, not realising the set days that were outlined in the advert (or simply expecting we would be flexible on those which we couldn’t) Sending out those very clear questions was just an attempt to weed out those who perhaps applied on a whim, applied to meet job seeking benefit quotas, or just hadn’t read the application. Sadly it didn’t whittle it down enough for them. 

Comms69

It's not 'unfair'. 

It's poorly worded.

[Deleted User]

As a candidate, it read as "you've been shortlisted, we just need you to confirm that you understand the hours etc before inviting you for an interview". Perhaps it would have been clearer if they hadn't said that I'd been shortlisted in the first email. It's not something I've ever come across before. 

Sandtree

Rainey123 said:

As a candidate, it read as "you've been shortlisted, we just need you to confirm that you understand the hours etc before inviting you for an interview". Perhaps it would have been clearer if they hadn't said that I'd been shortlisted in the first email. It's not something I've ever come across before. 

There is nothing wrong with the word shortlisting but they maybe should have inserted "deciding if to" into the "before inviting" 

Shortlists can have multiple iterations... we got 500 applications for a job, our search software created a short list of 75, the recruitment manager created a short list of 25 and asked for some extra details from each of those. They then made a second shortlist of 10 based on those details and the hiring manager decided the 4 he wanted to call to interview.

KatrinaWaves

The way I read what you posted

“We’re pleased to let you know that we have shortlisted your application but due to the high volume of applications we’ve received, before we proceed to final interview selection we need to establish some further details.”

To me the bits in bold make it very clear they haven’t whittled it down to interview yet. 

[Deleted User]

Sandtree said:

Rainey123 said:

As a candidate, it read as "you've been shortlisted, we just need you to confirm that you understand the hours etc before inviting you for an interview". Perhaps it would have been clearer if they hadn't said that I'd been shortlisted in the first email. It's not something I've ever come across before. 

There is nothing wrong with the word shortlisting but they maybe should have inserted "deciding if to" into the "before inviting" 

Shortlists can have multiple iterations... we got 500 applications for a job, our search software created a short list of 75, the recruitment manager created a short list of 25 and asked for some extra details from each of those. They then made a second shortlist of 10 based on those details and the hiring manager decided the 4 he wanted to call to interview.

Wow, I had no idea. Well, I'll know for the future not to read too much into being shortlisted. What an eye opener!

[Deleted User]

KatrinaWaves said:

The way I read what you posted

“We’re pleased to let you know that we have shortlisted your application but due to the high volume of applications we’ve received, before we proceed to final interview selection we need to establish some further details.”

To me the bits in bold make it very clear they haven’t whittled it down to interview yet. 

Yes, as others have pointed out, there can be several stages. I had no idea. Thanks for your input, I'll bear all this in mind next time

KatrinaWaves

Sandtree said:

Rainey123 said:

As a candidate, it read as "you've been shortlisted, we just need you to confirm that you understand the hours etc before inviting you for an interview". Perhaps it would have been clearer if they hadn't said that I'd been shortlisted in the first email. It's not something I've ever come across before. 

There is nothing wrong with the word shortlisting but they maybe should have inserted "deciding if to" into the "before inviting" 

Shortlists can have multiple iterations... we got 500 applications for a job, our search software created a short list of 75, the recruitment manager created a short list of 25 and asked for some extra details from each of those. They then made a second shortlist of 10 based on those details and the hiring manager decided the 4 he wanted to call to interview.

That’s the OPs reading of the email, not the actual wording. The OP quoted the actual wording of the email in the original post (and I quoted it further down) and it’s not misleading IMO. 

Dakta

Wow, I had no idea. Well, I'll know for the future not to read too much into being shortlisted. What an eye opener!

Being devils advocate it does look like you made it past that first sift, they just realised a lot of people did, probably too many to realistically interview and added another sift between the interview and the sift you passed which you didn't meet the criteria for.

It's not uncommon to have more suitable candidates than jobs and I wouldn't take it personally, the numbers have to be whittled down somehow. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and fight on.

[Deleted User]

Dakta said:

Wow, I had no idea. Well, I'll know for the future not to read too much into being shortlisted. What an eye opener!

Being devils advocate it does look like you made it past that first sift, they just realised a lot of people did, probably too many to realistically interview and added another sift between the interview and the sift you passed which you didn't meet the criteria for.

It's not uncommon to have more suitable candidates than jobs and I wouldn't take it personally, the numbers have to be whittled down somehow. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and fight on.

Yes, that was my impression too.
I will do, thank you