Employers Treating Applicants Increasingly Badly?

debtslave2024

Firstly, I would only like responses from people who are actively seeking employment in 2024, not someone who just wants to express an opinion with no recent experience of the same predicament.

I have made over 100 applications in 6 months, and reckon that with all the online assessments, video interviews etc, for minimum wage manual jobs, have wasted countless hours in doing so (equivalent to full weeks of paid employment hours.)

I basically get no response to the vast majority of online applications, but what is more worrying many of them are apparently not even read. I was just checking up on an online application that required a lengthy online assessment for a physical job, paying barely 15 pence over the adult minimum wage. I will not name the retailer, but they are an established retailer, that are considered more expensive, and offer greater quality than most of their competitors. Just checked up on their jobs portal on my application from the 15th of May, 2024. Still marked “under consideration.” I am seeing this pattern again, and again from multiple employers! What are they playing at!?

Showing my age here, but when I was in my 20s when you made a job application, you often got a typed letter confirming a positive or negative response within a matter of weeks of applying - now apparently, many do not even read the application, never mind respond.

The worst incident was when I turned up for a retail job, for a major supermarket, and the manager who was meant to interview me, did not turn up. Others have not even sent an email, to say that my interviews I spent time and money on attending, were not successful.

I have spoken to other job seekers in person, and hearing the same stories repeatedly. 

Is this a common experience “job seekers,” in 2024?

elsien

debtslave2024 said:

Firstly, I would only like responses from people who are actively seeking employment in 2024, not someone who just wants to express an opinion with no recent experience of the same predicament.

I have made over 100 applications in 6 months, and reckon that with all the online assessments, video interviews etc, for minimum wage manual jobs, have wasted countless hours in doing so (equivalent to full weeks of paid employment hours.)

I basically get no response to the vast majority of online applications, but what is more worrying many of them are apparently not even read. I was just checking up on an online application that required a lengthy online assessment for a physical job, paying barely 15 pence over the adult minimum wage. I will not name the retailer, but they are an established retailer, that are considered more expensive, and offer greater quality than most of their competitors. Just checked up on their jobs portal on my application from the 15th of May, 2024. Still marked “under consideration.” I am seeing this pattern again, and again from multiple employers! What are they playing at!?

Showing my age here, but when I was in my 20s when you made a job application, you often got a typed letter confirming a positive or negative response - now apparently, many do not even read the application, never mind respond.

The worst incident was when I turned up for a retail job, for a major supermarket, and the manager who was meant to interview me, did not turn up. Others have not even sent an email, to say my interviews I spent time and money on, were not successful.

I have spoken to other job seekers in person, and hearing the same stories repeatedly. 

Is this a common experience “job seekers,” in 2024?

Pretty sure that’s not going be happening. Internet forums have a lot of people expressing their opinions - It’s not a place for being selective about who you want to answer. 

MattMattMattUK

Different people, different areas, different skill levels etc. will all give different responses. A friend is a manager in retail, they advertised for a job, nearly three thousand applications, it was impossible for him to reply to all of those people and still do his job. Online applications often get batch processed and those that tick the right boxes get viewed by a real person. Now yes that system should ideally send a rejection email to those that do not meet the criteria, but not all do.

At the other end of the scale many skilled jobs advertised only get under qualified people applying who clearly do not meet the requirements. The UK has a huge surplus of unskilled labour and a huge shortage of skilled labour, even if the threshold for skilled does not need to be that high. An easy example would be a standard warehouse labourer on minimum wage, there is a huge oversupply, but get a forklift license and not only does the wage go up to £20 an hour but they will be able to walk into a job by the end of the week if not days, all for a qualification that costs around £500 and takes three days to aquire. Similar for being a qualified first aider, having a food hygiene certificate, an alcohol license and many others.

Debbie9009

I suspect you have really limited your chances of responses, for example I have what I consider to be relevant experience but I’m not the applicant and it’s pre 2024 so not much point in me posting it. 

Green_hopeful

My son is looking for a job having been made redundant. He has applied for a few jobs although for personal reasons he is limited what he can apply for. He got a really kind and friendly email explaining that he had been unsuccessful but that they could tell he was really enthusiastic and wishing him luck with his future applications. They also gave links to their careers page and other jobs. 

Marcon

Green_hopeful said:

My son is looking for a job having been made redundant. He has applied for a few jobs although for personal reasons he is limited what he can apply for. He got a really kind and friendly email explaining that he had been unsuccessful but that they could tell he was really enthusiastic and wishing him luck with his future applications. They also gave links to their careers page and other jobs. 

Delighted to hear it but that's certainly the exception.

debtslave2024 said:

Showing my age here, but when I was in my 20s when you made a job application, you often got a typed letter confirming a positive or negative response within a matter of weeks of applying - now apparently, many do not even read the application, never mind respond.

I have spoken to other job seekers in person, and hearing the same stories repeatedly. 

Is this a common experience “job seekers,” in 2024?

OP - you are indeed showing your age (although I too remember the days..). It isn't a case of employers treating applicants badly  - although failing to show up for an interview is very poor on their part - so much as times have changed. The volume of applicants has increased vastly, and employers quite simply don't have time to reply to hundreds of applicants for the same post, especially when many of them have applied purely to comply with the JobCentre requirement to apply for x posts a week.

You're hearing the same stories repeatedly, so why do you need to ask here if it's a common experience?

Nothanks

Internal recruiters would say that with a reducing number of people with the same workload, an increase in applicants they simply don’t have time for courtesy anymore. 

Not sure I concur but they’re squeezed like the rest of us. 

Also- this will be very scant consolation but the one that says under consideration will have been read, but they haven’t been into their end of the HR system (Probably workday) to mark it as rejected. 

Wyndham

While I'm not actively looking at the moment, I do contract work which means that I talk to a steady flow of agents. Some are just catch up 'how are you' calls, others have an active opportunity - to be clear, they seek me out, I've reached a stage where I don't have to actively go looking.

BUT, even with that sort of situation, my phone hasn't rung nearly as much in the last few months. The election caused jitters, the budget caused jitters (this is not a political statement, just that change means people are more likely to wait and see). I also work in a sector where there is very definite belt tightening. So overall it feels tough out there at the moment.

OP - just to check - are you personalising each application for the job? Are you changing your CV and highlighting the skills which are relevant to the application? Is your experience a good match for the criteria? Some jobs have hundreds, if not thousands of applicants. So, when your application is being reviewed, they are looking for a reason to say 'no' in order to get the shortlist down to a reasonable size. Unfortunately, that means you need to readlly stand out....

TELLIT01

What the OP describes has been happening for at least the last 20 years, in one form or another.  It's nothing new.  I'm not saying it should be that way, simply stating fact.

DullGreyGuy

debtslave2024 said:

I have made over 100 applications in 6 months, and reckon that with all the online assessments, video interviews etc, for minimum wage manual jobs, have wasted countless hours in doing so (equivalent to full weeks of paid employment hours.)

Job hunting is at least a part time job, though the pay level I aim at is notably higher. 

debtslave2024 said:

I basically get no response to the vast majority of online applications, but what is more worrying many of them are apparently not even read. I was just checking up on an online application that required a lengthy online assessment for a physical job, paying barely 15 pence over the adult minimum wage. I will not name the retailer, but they are an established retailer, that are considered more expensive, and offer greater quality than most of their competitors. Just checked up on their jobs portal on my application from the 15th of May, 2024. Still marked “under consideration.” 

If I apply online I get a very similar lack of response but then for every job advertised they are typically getting 500+ applications. Many places these days have scripts that run through the applications and look for keywords (similar to how Google works) or at best they have some office junior doing the same sort of scan. 

As someone who also hires others, I dont have the time or patience to review 500+ CVs. I normally recruit 1 person at a time and so really want to see 5-8 CVs tops. If it was 2 people probably about 10 CVs, the one time it was 3 people then 12 initially.  The vast majority won't be looked at. 

debtslave2024 said:

Showing my age here, but when I was in my 20s when you made a job application, you often got a typed letter confirming a positive or negative response within a matter of weeks of applying - now apparently, many do not even read the application, never mind respond.

I have occasionally had a thanks but no thanks sometime later but this is clearly them closing the advert down and everyone getting the same response if not selected. 

For those using systems there isn't much excuse, most jobs I apply for are via agencies and it tends to be done by email so emailing 485 or so people to say sorry but no and making sure they are all applying for this role and not one of the other 5-6 I'm also working on would be painful. 


For me, at the managerial level, I get my jobs by phoning agents who are advertising appropriate roles not by submitting applications by email even though thats what the advert requested. As a contractor I move every 6-18 months typically for over 15 years and can only think of one or two interviews I've gotten from an online application in over 15 years whereas get interviews in 25%-40% of the jobs where I managed to speak to the agent. 

Jude57

Remember, too, that most of the thousands of applicants for lesser-skilled (in terms of specialised skill sets like nurses, teachers, construction trades etc) are likely to be applying simply to meet benefits requirements. I have specialised qualifications but was unemployed briefly. My experience was that when I went fortnightly to the Jobcentre to meet my Job Coach and explain what I'd been doing to find work, while awaiting my appointment (I was always early because I believe being on time is a courtesy to the person I'm meeting) I'd hear other claimants discussing sending 100 applications a week just copying and pasting, for every job they saw advertised whether they fit the job spec or not, just so they could prove they were meeting the requirements of their Jobseekers Agreement and thus get their benefits. Benefits staff do carry out spot checks on applications but of course can't begin to monitor a fraction of that type of blitz-applying. Remember too that recruitment isn't usually a separate function so that the people doing the recruitment, sifting, interviewing all have day jobs, too. I've recruited staff for posts from entry level to senior executive and while it would be nice in an ideal world to give a polite written refusal to each applicant, sheer numbers make it impracticable. Some employers state in their adverts that anyone not contacted by a certain date should consider themselves unsuccessful on this occasion and it would be simple for all employers to do so.