Recruitment, can't believe how hard it is!

[Sunnydawn]

I read and hear so much about people wanting flexible working, and how so many people are stuck in dead end jobs, or on zero hours contracts.

But, I am involved in recruitment for two jobs right now, one a professional job in a lovely environment, as a part time job share. The other, a part time, flexible, admin job, again in a lovely office, with training and a good career if you want it.

And no decent applicants! No applicants for the first. Loads who have applied for the latter, but ecan't even attempt the basics forvan interview or trial (ie. turning up in time, dressing half smart, answer a phone).

Frankly, I despair. What are people doing? Where are they working/wanting to work?

These are different places, by the way, so it's not the particular environment.

As an employer it is more difficult to employ part time staff. Managing three people on 16hrs is obviously more difficult than one person full time.
You have two extra unforseen circumstances to deal with, sickness etc.

Moocherbot

and very low standard of behaviour for those who claim to be interested.

I have found that the low standard of behaviour is more a reflection of those recruiting than those applying for the jobs.

I refuse to do presentations now and email them a copy lol .... Yeah right, I call that consulting and charge £300 for it, cheeky buggers

I also do not "chat" to recruiters, most are arseholes and they have about 30 seconds to earn their 20% fee from me or we are done and I can live with the fact that Chad from Hayes hates me

We get recruiters going through the professional directory to find out where we work then cold calling through the office switchboard. Yes Chad, I'm going to have a discussion with you about my career on a landline in the middle of the office. Beat it.

Great post, otherpeoplesteens.

otherpeoplesteens
To the HR professionals on here, to what extent do you think computer software compounds or even causes the problem by excluding qualified candidates, eg in Mard''s "whale specialist" example, before a CV is even seen by a real person?
I'd like to sympathise with recruiters but everyone on Mumsnet knows to wear matching shoes and turn up for an interview on time. If you genuinely can't find any candidates who can do this then where are you advertising your roles?

Me and dh have been doing interviews for the last few weeks. Its been a nightmare!

We have had afew people not able to provide references due to them having trouble in their current job and asking us not to contact them.

When we ring people who have applied for the job to invite for an interview they havent got a clue who we are as they have applied to lots of jobs in different fields in a very short space of time.

Then there are the ones who dont turn up yet despite ringing them 15 mins before the interview to ask if they still coming and they reassure us that they are.

Obsidian77 I think you're right, I've turned down roles because they use Bullhorn in their recruitment process, I find it impossible to work with. The trouble is and I think this applies to just about everything these days, nobody has time to do a job properly the first time, they think it saves money but in the long term it costs much more. Nobody seems to get that.

Software definitely a problem. The niche recruiters I mentioned up thread do actually read the cvs they get because they know that job titles in my field can be utterly random! I suspect they use searches to find folk to start with but at a very high level. The generic all purpose ones are still contacting me about a call centre jobs in last did 10 years ago - now no longer on my cv before anyone asks

God yes, the application forms nowadays. I am not really job hunting at the moment (at home with DS) but a friend of mine had a position 2 days a week, 5 hours per day, great money, perfect job spec for me. Perfect because SIL could have DS one day and DH the other so wouldn't have to pay childcare.

Started filling in the application and got to the education section. Where the form wanted me to open a box, type in year, close box, save. Open a box, type in school name (no copy and pasting!) close box, save. Open box, scroll through qualifications (no GCSE's/O levels- think it was American equivalents). Then i had a look and there were just endless boxes of this stuff.

And at that point I just ragequit and decided that if an organisation cares so little for applicants time, and for decent web design and usability, then I'd just as rather not work for them. Unfortunately people on JSA are having to contend with this bullshit.

^BTW I did let my friend know that I wouldn't be going forward with the application and why.

Statistically, I've always assumed you work in some sort of top secret breast measuring agency.

Agree that any job that doesn't give a salary can nob right off. Similarly badly formatted application forms requiring laborious typing in of everything that could be found on a CV.

You have to remember that many people don't want your job but are "forced" to apply, either to keep their benefits or to keep their mum off their back.

But to be honest, the only time I've struggled to get a decent candidate or five is when I'm advertising a job at below the market rate. Pay peanuts, get monkeys. You still have to wade through the mass of shit to get to the five decent ones, but they are there if you are offering enough pay.

If you genuinely can't find any good candidates and are offering a competitive package, look hard at your advert and the role and ask yourself why you think that nobody who is able to do the job wants it.

whisperingloudly I'm a nurse on £27k a year. I have loads of admin experience and will quite happily move to wherever you are for an admin job for that money. It's almost double my salary!

We get recruiters going through the professional directory to find out where we work then cold calling through the office switchboard. Yes Chad, I'm going to have a discussion with you about my career on a landline in the middle of the office. Beat it.

Ha ha totally the same.

I'm currently working 30 hours over 5 days a week and I'm desperate to change jobs. But school hour jobs here are like gold dust. I'm in finance but I'm after an admin role (I can do the finance job with my eyes closed but it's just not for me) but I have no hope of getting into admin because I don't fit the criteria on paper!!! I have all the skills required, I'm smart and I'm keen to learn but because I've never been in an admin role I'm not even given an interview

The skills shortage that I've referred to previously is not in terms of technical qualifications or experience. It's basic things - like a CV and covering letter which are relevant to the role, which are correctly spelled and addressed. It's about attending the interview on time - or at all! It's about turning up smartly dressed rather than in jeans and flip flops. Speaking politely and answering the questions - rather than picking up your phone to fiddle with it in the middle of the interview (yes really).

All these marvellously capable people who would be delighted to do Whisperings job demonstrates just how hopeless most recruitment processes are at assessing whether people have transferable skills.

And taking it a step further - when you're hired:

Please do turn up on time. The hours are non-negotiable.
Please don't turn up at 08:59 and then faff about with your coat, breakfast and making a cup of tea, take exactly 60 minutes for your lunch and then log off at 16:59, only to complain that the 'management' won't allow you any flexibility to leave early - despite the fact that you have zero intention of working the time back and were pretty outraged to be asked how you planned to do so.
Better still, don't get your Mum to email or call me to complain that I won't authorise your annual leave.

Floodmud That's my experience too with online applications. That's once you've gone through all the links to find the application form, which can take a good while too. What I really hate are the ones where you can't read the whole application form at once, but have to complete every page before it will show you the next page. So you spend two hours cutting and pasting your employment history and qualifications into stupidly small individual boxes with even stupider scroll-down sections, only to then be confronted with five sections asking you to write 250 words for each, and the deadline is tomorrow.

I filled in one of them with 10 minutes to go, despite the site timing out and losing my text every couple minutes, and then was told that I had 250 words and was only allowed 250 so it wouldn't accept it. So had to delete one word from each document...

Obviously I was then contacted to say the post had been advertised "by mistake" so sadly they couldn't interview me...

Ah well, back to applications. Rather unfortunately most of my friends work in a different field so can't help put a word in for me.

I've given a list of industries where that level of salary is not considered "extreme" all of which I've had direct experience with and told you what we (and competitor companies) pay for an experienced admin role.

None graduate IT techs find it impossible to get a £50k job so I find it impossible to believe that an administrator for a IT firm would achieve that, sorry!

FruitCider a network administrator might be

I have friends who are in HR and recruitment and they maintain there is a big difference in the attitude to jobs from EU migrants compared to some very entitled 'returners to work'. Most EU workers have a can do, very positive attitude. Similarly, in teaching (and social work) most employers have nothing but praise for the robust, resilient attitude to work shown by Aussies and Kiwis.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38004880