Teenage job interview process - is this usual now?

[SomersetBrie]

DC 17 is looking for a job. He's applied for lots over the last 6 months. He's quite quiet and has no experience (hospitality jobs mainly) so I can understand this process is difficult.
The following has happened:

1. Send in application form/CV for advertised job. Hears nothing. Totally fine.
2. Does interview. Never hears from them again. I don't like this, but, sigh, fine.
3. Does interview, they ask if they can take up his references. He has two - one from a hobby group and one from his daily paper round. They take up his references - never hears from them again. This is surely not fine? It's a waste of referees' time and goodwill, they are not going to want to do this indefinitely. So far this has happened once a couple of months ago, but last week he was asked to supply references again twice and so far has heard nothing.

It's possible but unlikely paper round is giving him a bad reference, but I can't see why. They are still employing him, and he doesn't plan to quit even with a new job. Is this how life is now? If it were me, I would be contacting the employers to ask for "feedback" but that is not his style. Despite my interest and support in all of this, I am leaving it all to him to actually find a job. What do you think?

Agree, this is very rude. My dc found it hard to get a job and I'm also boycotting the local farm shop 🤣 and other places.
Agree that a recommendation by a friend can be a way in. Eldest got a job that way.
Dc got a job in a supermarket in the end and I don't think they even asked for references.
But he needs to realise that he has to bullshit a bit at the interview, to sell himself.
Mine refused to accept my advice also , at 1st.

For small part time type jobs, I’m super surprised they’re even asking for references.

Hence why a personal ref from an old teacher or family friend is better - they know your son as a person. The paper shop bloke is only going see him when the papers are picked up /dropped off. He can say if he’s punctual and polite and no complaints but that’s about it.

The volume of applicants and the system or administrator with the responsibility may be one reason - either a very large or quite small number of applications, and it does seem to be an either-or.

So, 1: Potentially the person communicating could have sent a message to all, but only at the end of the selection process (therefore to the successful, interviewed but unsuccessful, and not considered, but in practice this may be 3 weeks later).

2: Similar to the above.

3: The start date would be asap and the company really needs to process things very quickly, therefore has asked for the references from all they have shortlisted (probably a small number) even if only 1 person's is needed. Sometimes references can take ages, so they have tried to get ahead, but I agree, it will come across as rude to the referees.

Add to the CV 'Please ask before approaching my referees' where they are given.

In terms of interviews, he must back up evidence on the CV by talking about it. Don't assume that any CV reading will be retained (it will all have been very quickly done) - that is only what gets you the interview. The interview has to lead to the job. If there was any kind of middle agency in between, such as a job site or recruiter, they will also have edited the CV to their spec before presenting to a company, and taken out anything they see fit.

Has he got experience of any of the types of jobs he’s applied for?
I know that’s not always essential but even if he hasn’t, he needs to write his CV really making his transferable skills stand out and also matching up their requirements to his own experience.

If they’re sifting applications by hand, they’ll be looking for his experience to match up to what they’ve asked for on their job ad.

I’ve been involved in recruiting for my work place twice this year, the first time we had 2 vacancies available and received 173 applications, the second time we only had 1 vacancy available and received 98 applications. We don’t get back to everyone to say they are unsuccessful. It’s pretty common practice now that if you are successful an employer will be in touch, if you don’t hear anything then you’ve been unsuccessful. The onus is on you as the candidate to reach out to us if you want more information or feedback- which some people do! I would say of the unsuccessful candidates from our last recruitment I had maybe 15 get in touch to ask for feedback and that’s absolutely fine I’m happy to give it, but none of us have time to get back in touch with 97 people to tell them they haven’t got the job and why. Plus it’s so common now that people “quick apply” via Indeed etc, it’s VERY obvious when that has been the case and can clearly see they have no interest in the specific job so that’s an immediate no from us and the candidate likely quick applied to 20 jobs that hour. If the candidate is bothered about getting a/the job, they get in touch with us.

Thanks for this.
I think I can take out of this that the job a few weeks ago (catering) was a high volume large number of candidates and they must have taken up the references on anyone vaguely suitable for their needs and then offered out the jobs to their preferred candidates.
As a one off, I can see why it was done like this. I was just a bit surprised when DS told me another two jobs (different jobs but same place - as each other, not same place as job a few weeks ago) last week asked for his references after one short interview. DS thought it was totally normal and not at all phased.

I understand this completely for initial job applications.
But does this mean that you don't get in touch with the unsuccessful candidates you interview and even more to the point that if you take up references and don't offer the jobs, you don't get in touch with them either?

I am seeing this is the normal now and kind of glad I am self employed.

Yes- we interview any candidates who meet the sifting requirements, so that could be 2 people or EVERY person who applied. So for example of the 98 applications I believe from memory that there was 75ish went to interview.

You can imagine how long it takes to interview that amount of people, and due to the nature of the job we have, we often seek references at the same time we interview because if references come back poor or highlight any issues that we need to know sooner than later as it could prevent us employing that person anyway.

Unfortunately most roles now receive huge amounts of applications, and so it does mean that employers don’t get back to each person. If he is really bothered about getting a job then HE needs to be putting himself out there and asking for interview feedback, ask for feedback on his cv, ask for feedback on his personal statement, ask for feedback on his references. Get in touch with whoever his referees are and create an agreed reference with them, majority of people do this now, agree a form of words for a reference and then whenever the previous employer is asked for the reference they just send that over- takes 2 seconds.

The way we (and I think most employers now) see it is that if you want a job and are actually interested in improving then you will get in touch with us. If you don’t bother to seek feedback or help yourself and you just keep sending the same cv and performing the same in every interview, then the results will reflect that.

Gosh, interviewing 75 people for one job sounds like such a waste of everyone's time. Is that really how things are now?
DC wants a job, but I don't think he wants shifts in the local takeaway enough to be seeking feedback from people who rejected him. His self esteem would not handle that. He still has some maturing to do.

It's a very good idea to agree a reference with the referees though so thanks for suggesting that. This was not something that even occurred to me as I am out of the business a long time.
If he is asked for references one more time, we do that.

It does probably depend on the job/workplace, but in my particular place we want the best candidate, and we sift through the applications to see how many meet our criteria to an agreed level. Any that do meet the agreed level are taken to interview, so that could end up only being a handful of applications or ALL of them, totally depends on the quality of the applicants at that time. There is no other fair way to do it- any applications in by the deadline must be considered, any who meet the threshold are invited to interview.

Politely, if he isn’t bothered enough to seek feedback then he isn’t bothered about getting a job.

They may ask do you have references, it doesn't mean they are asking the referee to give a reference. As he is so young they are probably surprised he has any.

He should say yes I do, if you are going to offer me the job I will provide them. Most employers don't ask for references until you have accepted the job in my experience.

This all sounds like a lot just for a casual job for a teenager. Do they really need references and to interview multiple people to hire someone to carry Christmas trees around at a farm shop?!
I'd be absolutely fed up if I was him.

And every job I've ever had, if they needed references they contacted them after they'd already offered me the job. I thought that was standard.

Politely, I did say why he is not seeking feedback.

When people ask for feedback, most of the time it isn't nastily negative, and it is short and sweet. It could often be a variation on 'Competition was really high and we were looking for X'. It may be helpful to him, especially when it comes to the behaviours at the interview stage.

The information in the job description may give a lot of pointers as to what they are looking for, but it's only something that's been 'curated' as a short box of writing. In retail or customer-facing situations, what could be memorable is being friendly, proactive in asking what people (including the employers) want, working out how the business wants to be viewed and what the managers get excited about, what else (the social media angle, online promotions, Trustpilot or similar) will be affecting the business one way or another.

It's not fun either to ask or to give it, true; but there will surely be a nugget of help in there for him. At the very least, what if someone drops out - hugely common at Christmas - and that he is the person who calls and the person he speaks to remembers him, recalls he did a pretty good interview, and wonders if he's worth a shot, if he's still available? I've just done something similar with one of our 3rd choices from an interview in the Summer.

Its a relentless process and it's hard to get knockbacks at any age let alone when young. I drum in to my kids even if not successful its experience for the next time. You just have to keep plugging away and keep applying, both have mine have done lots of applications, my oldest at uni now, is on hs 4th job, though just handed in his notice this week as the job isn't suiting him (very early starts on a uni nigtlife resulting in burning the candle at both ends) hoping he'll secure something else in new year as he's goign to be very skint otherwise!

My youngest has just secured a Christmas temp job in retail to start this week, there were quite a few applications over several months before geeting this break. Sometimes I think its just luck of the draw to get an interview especially that 1st interiew with no real experience.
I woudn't be pushing youngster to seek feedback, I think you know in yourself as you've said he's quite and not very chatty. Therefore he is likely to struggle to come across well in a customer facing role for an interview. Maybe a role with less interaction required may work better for him?
It is unsual for refeences for teenage jobs to be saught prior to starting role. The only time i'm aware that any reference has been taken up for my 2 was for my youngest who did 6 months voluntary work in a charity shop for her DofE, my friends (referees) commented on them wanting war and peace all for voluntary work! The part time jobs my eldest has had, no references were taken up.
I would just encourage your son to be resiliant and keep trying.
As for not going in the farm shop you need to move on from that, don't take it personally (as hard as that is). My oldest insited for one of their jobs in getting a job in the pub in our village, inevitably things went a bit pear shaped after a few months, I didn't wade in though (in fact i tried to keep annonymous that i was the parent) for 2 reasons, 1) kids have to learn to manage situations in the workplace themselves and 2) I selfishly wanted to use pub in the future and didn't want him to work there in the first oplace in case of issues (but they knew best of course!). I don't think very highly of them as employers for kids, but its still my local and want to be able to use it for food/drinks.

Good luck to your son, keep plugging away and build up their confidence.

@SomersetBrie

We would only ask for references if we were planning to offer them the job.

So if we interviewed 5-8 people we might get it down to 2-3 we really liked.

We would then ask for references. Based on the references we would then make an offer.

If one came out with glowing references we would go with them.

If someone had a reference that simply said "xxx worked for us from x date to x date" with no further elaboration we would not prioritise them over someone who had references from relevant companies in the industry stating that they'd performed very well.

I'm guessing that he may be struggling based on lack of previous catering/hospitality experience. Other teenagers may already have some.

We would always contact the unsuccessful applicants though and tell them that they were not successful at this time.

I have worked in HR in various job roles for over 30 years
I recently supported a supermarket with recruitment and we had over 100 applicants apply for 4 part time positions.
Due to the nature of the job role we could only take on two under 18s due to the use of “dangerous machinery”
Of those numbers we interviewed 12, narrowed it down to 8 and requested references for all of them. This is to save time as references can take 2-3 weeks to get from some people and we also needed to have a back up in case any of our first choices declined the job
Of the 8, we still had no references after 7 days for 3 of them so offered 4 of the ones we had references for a job. One declined so we offered it to the 5th. The references eventually came back for the other 3 and we held on file. We physically couldn’t wait any longer but those 3 candidates were just as good as the others. Speed of references can make a lot of difference.
Regarding the interview…
For a 16/17 year old I am not looking for a lot of experience. I am looking for team players who can use their initiative , handle pressure and will give good customer service. Get your son to think of a few examples as to when he has demonstrated those sort of skills. Most positions will want similar.
Another good question for him to ask in an interview is “is there anything about my application that leads you to believe I might not be able to do this job - if so please could you tell me so we can discuss it” Doesn’t have to be those exact words obviously. That gives the interviewer the chance to say something - eg lack of experience - and your son the opportunity to say why he is still a good fit
One last thing… in hospitality and retail unsocial hours are the norm. I have rejected students who say they can’t work Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays as they want to go out with their friends. Those are the busiest times for the business. Make sure he isn’t saying anything like that!

It probably is interview technique, he is super quiet and of the impression that he doesn't need to tell anyone anything as it's "already on the form."

On catching up with your posts OP, I think this is probably the problem.

He needs to sell himself at the interview. If that's his impression then could he be coming across as surly/not very enthusiastic?

If other candidates are super bubbly and chatty, and trying hard to sell themselves then he may be tripping up there. I've been in interviews where the applicant was very quiet, didn't seem to want to interact, and it's been hard to judge whether they'd be any good on that basis. So we've gone with other applicants.