I think a lot of employers at the momenet have taken advantage of the fact it's an employer's market to be damn rude and dismissive of prospective employees. I was called for a formal interview and test, following an informal interview at an open day ..... which appeared to go very well, where I was told at the time that I'd made a very good impression and given a lot of positive encouragement etc., and that I would be called one way or another the following week. That was 7.5 weeks ago ..... and I have heard NOTHING, not a call, no letter, not even a one line "thanks but no thanks" email. I have left 2 polite messages asking the woman who seemed so friendly and encouraging to please call me but these have been ignored. The ironic thing is that the whole emphasis of the interview was on how this company prided itself on its superb customer service and we spent much of it discussing the rights and wrongs of achieving this.
I am torn between doing nothing further and writing a stinking letter to this woman AND her bloody CEO. Torn ..... because it's a locally based (though well known national who are always banging on about how ethical they are) firm and I don't want to burn my bridges should any future opportunities come up. On the other hand, you have to ask if you really want to work for a firm so lacking in the most basic courtesy but the whole business has left me more shocked and upset than I imagined I would have been. Quite clearly, for whatever reason they don't want me but discovering you aren't even worthy of a 2 minute (or less) call makes you feel worthless.
Similarly, in an interview last year, I was told by the manager interviewing me that he had been very impressed and would "definitely like to see me on board". All he had to do, he said, was pass this on to HR who'd be in touch within a week. Well, they were, but with the standard "other applicants had better skills than yours" reply ..... what was so almightily crap about all of this was that the interview was for a supermarket nightshift FFS (like so many people, I'm trying to maximise take home pay and juggle childcare so I will consider anything) and there had been NO element of so-called bloody "skills" testing in the interview at all. To add insult to injury when I called the guy back he appeared to be baffled at what had happened, couldn't explain it, blamed a mix-up, apologised and so on ...... but I didn't get a job at the end of it.
That same supermarket - oh what the heck, it was Sainsburys - now has a policy so it would seem of insisting that applicants for its more menial and lesser paid roles live within, say, a 5 or 10 mile radius of the store .... which would actually exclude me anyway, even though I could drive there in 20 mins. I emailed their general employment query dept - twice - to ask why this was, but again, have had no reply. SO atrociously rude I think.
I genuinely have no wish to offend or patronise anyone who works shelf stacking which is what this amounted to - indeed I would have loved the chance - but when, for some unknown reason, you aren't even capable of getting that kind of job (remember, I was told lack of "skill" was the issue, instead, say, of there being too many applicants) you feel so incredibly low and worthless.
(By the way I have several years senior experience in customer services, finance and mortgages - NOT the bloody industry to be in ATM - and a f*g 1st class degree FWIW - which seems to be nothing !)
Like Lanky, I've also found that many employers are now asking for skills which for the life of me, don't appear to be vital for the role advertised. Related to this, I am finding that more and more job ads are snideily (is that a word ?) worded so they totally avoid giving any idea of salary. You get all this "competitive", "attractive" and "according to age and experience" bollocks which in plain English, seems to mean that they are offering crap money (but don't want to broadcast the fact). I have actually sometimes called up about likely roles to ask what the salary range is - only to be told it will be discussed at interview ....... which I think is terribly unfair, given you then have to take the gamble of spending (feasibly) up to 2 hours filling out an application form for a job you might not be able to afford to consider. What a waste of everyone's time !
Which brings me on to another bugbear (... I'm on a roll now) which is the current fashion for tailor made application forms, as opposed to CVs. I do see the merit in these for some roles where specific suitability and aptitude needs to be tested, but my heart sinks when you are faced with 2 or more pages of "In no more than 200 words describe your proudest achievement" type questions - and there are often up to half a dozen of these ..... when the role you're applying for is a very lowly paid, pretty basic and very part time one. Clearly, a lot of companies ask all applicants to fill these out whether they're applying for the position of Head of Department, or part time cleaner. Again, I've got no wish to offend, but it sometimes feels like you're being made to jump through hoops over and over with no guarantee of any acknowledgement let alone interview ..... and I resent spending hours on an application which might not be taken seriously, when I could be using that time to look for other work.
My friend's husband works for a well known charity and for a recent vacancy there they were swamped with applications. She told me he'd said they simply didn't have time to properly read them all, so basically all but 20 were binned without even being looked at - these people were told others fitted the role better, but that was a lie. They then took their chances with the remaining 20 even though they could have ditched the best applicants !
But what can you do ?? It's so, so disheartening.
(and I apologise for the long long rant)