Why is it so hard to recruit?!

[Jessforless]

I’m so confused and a bit disappointed. I’m recruiting for what I think is an amazing role in my team at work (it used to be mine) and it’s a great salary, a very detailed job brief and the duties are brilliant. I loved the role, it has an exciting and truly enjoyable aspect and lots of benefits and holiday.

The applications are frankly - terrible.but only because it’s like people haven’t read it! Imagine the job is tech (it’s not) there are people with absolutely no tech experience sending in CV’s with no covering letter.

There are applicants who are students (and it’s not a small salary, much higher than the average) and applicants who work as bartenders and delivery drivers (nothing wrong with this - just absolutely nothing to do with the role!)

Out of 60+ applicants - there’s not one I can invite to an interview.

Is this just me? What is going on?! It’s such a lovely job, with a great package. (I promise, I’m not being blinkered) When I went for the role there were so many great applicants apparently. How has time changed so much that now it’s so difficult to fill to role or even find one person to bring in?

What is the wording of the advert as that maybe part of the problem. I swerve any job that has the words "dynamic" and "bubbly" in it as it gives the impression that no-one over the age of 30 would be considered no matter how much experience they have.

Could it be people being forced to job hunt for UC?

I saw a job advert a while back that fitted me like a glove. Looked at the company site and no-one was over 35 in the pictures. Some adverts can make it very obvious the demographic that they do want and those they don't.

It's not even a new thing. I remember around 25 years ago it started to get harder to get suitable applicants for jobs we advertised. In the nineties, we'd get quite a good response to adverts etc and we could choose the best applicant, out of usually several, who'd be fine for the job advertised, whether it was a qualified/experienced role or a support role or a trainee.

When we got to the back end of the nineties and in to the noughties, and the number and quality of applicants just nose-dived, and we were looking at applications trying to find someone "who'd do" to interview out of a pool of people who were illiterate (poor cv and covering letter full of mistakes, barely readable etc), or who had zero experience for a senior role where we clearly specified experience was essential, or young applicants for a trainee position who didn't have the minimum GCSE and/or A levels as specified in the advert (essential as our trainee positions involved training for a professional body qualification and they only admitted trainee members to study and take their exams if they had the requisite minimum qualifications). These weren't low paid/minimum wages jobs, they were market rate (and above) for our profession and we nudged up the rates offered a few times to try to get more applicants but even that didn't seem to increase the number/quality of applicants.

We moved to using recruitment consultants instead of advertising ourselves, in the hope of a better standard of applicants, but even after the recruitment firm "vetting" applicants and only putting forward those who passed the criteria, the standard was still poor and we really struggled to find candidates who we were happy to employ.

I do not apply for jobs with a detailed job spec. It takes far too long to apply. I would also never apply to the civil service. I saw a job I fancied and looked at t he lengthy recruitment process and thought no way.

It sounds like you need to be more targeted in your recruitment, rather than casting such a wide net on all the job search sites.

It's likely to be salary foremost. Those have increased between 5 and 10% just in the last few months.
Also many candidates skip adverts quoting 'salary negotiable' , not even a pay scale mentioned, me included.

I always skip adverts that do not have a salary range. I have found in the past it usually means the salary is low.

One of my past employers has difficulty recruiting. But on glassdoor the reviews are rightly terrible. Anyone with any choice would avoid them.

Surely nobody still does this

🤣

Yes people still use these words in adverts,

I rarely apply with cover letters anymore when job hunting, too time consuming to write them just for it to just be rejected with no feedback.

Having recently spent time going through the application process, I find it somewhat disingenuous that many companies require a cover letter that takes hours to prepare and style to a job and personal specification only to
1/ Not have the decency to reply
and
2/ Put it through an automated system that kicks out any applications that don't fit. At least have the fucking decency to actually read what someone has spent time and effort putting together.

I do think employers need to think outside the box. Look at transferrable skills etc and maybe not always expect the exact fit(obv does not apply to some roles) My son has a Bio tech degree and cannot find a job..he has applied for many and in different sectors too.It is really really tough

Can you post a link @Jessforless or send a PM? I have a friend who could be suitable!

Also interested to see a job link, if it is London based.

This is the kind of attitude towards event work that makes people think they can do it with no experience and probably part of the reason why OP is getting so many applications from unsuitable candidates.

Being an event planner in a venue is nothing like working on proper events and certainly can't just be done by someone who's worked in a bar. Event jobs aren't customer service jobs. They are more about specialist production knowledge and supplier management, management of the creative process, budget management and people management. It also usually requires long and unsociable hours. People who underestimate what event work requires are the people who fail to run successful events.

You'd think so wouldn't you, but alas they do.

Lots of people out there who simply don't want to work. Or have an inflated sense of entitlement and/or think the pay is crap. The company I work at has struggled to recruit for a few years, though having said that, it's also struggled with employee retention, but I won't go there.

And your attitude is why places can't recruit. Why are you so protective of your industry to the exclusion of training up fresh blood?

Being an event planner in a venue is nothing like working on proper events and certainly can't just be done by someone who's worked in a bar. Event jobs aren't customer service jobs. They are more about specialist production knowledge and supplier management, management of the creative process, budget management and people management. It also usually requires long and unsociable hours. People who underestimate what event work requires are the people who fail to run successful events

And yet a friend of mine who worked in marketing for a leisure company now works creating events for an events company.

Working in hospitality also requires long and unsociable hours.

Lots of people can manage budgets and suppliers. I suspect people skills are the most important skills of all - especially if you are a wedding planner :) An estate agent with good people skills who also has some budgeting knowledge (might be from their own household - some people are just good at managing money and budgets) might make a good events planner given they spend all their time managing transactions and dealing with capricious people.

As I said, people need to look at transferable skills rather than thinking that they need the perfect candidate with years of experience.

Surely it's on the applicant to highlight what those transferable skills are though? What is it that you've learned/built as a bartender that makes you feel like this is the right next step for you? What can you bring to this role because of your experience?

Such a hard events market at the mo

I spent hours on an application on sunday where i fit all of the brief and was auto rejected

I have circa 17 years event experience and now feel so demoralised