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 a part time worker, it costs more to work 5 short days than 3 or 4 longer days

That's not always the case. Where I live, it's £31 return to London peak. Off-peak is £21. So it would be cheaper to go into London 4 days after 9am than it would 3 days before 9am. Obviously it's different if you drive somewhere. The lack of part-time season tickets is a problem though, and one that disproportionate;y affects women, we really should be able to do something under the Equality Act.

Why do employers rule out "over-qualified" people? Especially with mums? Many women in particular are happy to do jobs for which they are over-qualified because they want flexibility and work-life balance. I bet there are more and more men wanting jobs like that too, whether they have kids, elderly relatives or want to pursue a hobby.

As for the OP - I wonder if the salary is too low for the job spec?

Yes, many recruiters are a bloody pain in the arse. Ringing you in the middle of the day 'I'm keen to understand your situation...' It drives me round the bloody bend. Stop faffing and waffling, tell me what you want. I am busy and don't have time to do the whole 'how are you' routine, with someone I have never met and spoken with before.

I'd definitely agreed to HR not screening CVs. I've just made an offer (for another role) to a candidate that had been screened out by HR. It turns out they were using the wrong role profile for the bench-marking - had I relied on their results I would have lost someone who looks like they are going to be a really good fit for the job.

I've also found that the response rate is better when you are clear about the location, hours, department and salary or banding. 'Competitive £££' is utterly meaningless and many people will just skip straight past them.

A 'competitive' salary to me reads NMW or just above.
I've been applying to local Universities for jobs where I meet all the essential criteria and some of the desirable criteria. Not one interview - sometimes not even a 'sorry, not successful' reply. You have to fill in current salary in the application form - I suspect a current salary of 'zero' kicks my application straight into the reject pile.

I'm looking at the moment. I think I'm going to have to go back to the public sector, probably civil service, just because no-one else will consider part time working. I'm in London and have some flexibility, and excellent communication and policy and admin skills. What I don't have atm is hours to spend on zillions of applications, seeing as every one takes about four hours to painstakingly tailor a CV and covering letter and competency statements.

LinkedIn and agencies are great at alerting me to 100 jobs a week I could apply for, but rubbish at putting me forward for any without me re-writing my CV again. And there's no contact details for the job itself so you can't find out whether they'd consider a part time person or even just starting at 10am, without applying!

Statistically

This is a thread in AIBU. Views were asked for and I gave mine. I was trying to help. There is not a shortage of good candidates for jobs, there really isn't. If you personally can't find them, that's down to failings in your recruitment process, not anything they've done. I have highlighted some of the issues I see and lots of people who have experienced looking for work in the current climate appear to agree with me. Don't be so defensive, listen to what people say.

When every single person I talk to locally who is involved in recruitment, at all levels, expresses the same difficulties then it's not being defensive to think that the issue isn't us. We have tried numerous approaches, advert styles, recruitment agencies vs direct, etc. Whatever we do we get a deluge of utter nonsense. Some good people mixed in but also lots and lots of nonsense- much of it I suspect is jobcentre driven.

For example, advert clearly states you must have experience in x industry, have or be currently working towards y qualification and be able to pass a pvg check. These are all legal requirements. We get dozens of applications with none of these.

I imagine the job centre are "encouraging" them to apply.

But the problem is yours, not anyone else's. What can be done if your job is not attracting people? Look at the role, what it involves, all the elements of your process. Maybe the changes you made aren't enough. It is entirely your issue to solve.

I know full well how difficult it is to find a good job, so no, I don't agree with you.

No doubt but it's very frustrating. The ones with no relevance are easier to spot. What's harder is people with industry experience - I think we get forced applications from people who actually want full time. So they look ok on the face of it, invite them for interviews, then no show. We do confirm interviews but I think folk find it easier to just say yes and not turn up.

We can't change many of the requirements. We're open for the hours we are open, that can't change so ft not an option. We pay more than industry standard locally. But there are legal requirements for qualifications and background checking which we can't get round.

We've had people we've interviewed who have then refused to provide their documents so we can't employ them.

We no longer use the job centre directly as applications through there were...erm...fascinating.

Is it an interesting role? Are there any prospects?

Yes to both, without giving too much info! All of the staff we have recruited are still with us, and we are expanding so people have been able to move up. Feedback from the team on how they feel is generally really positive too. As I say it's definitely a local industry wide issue.

You wouldn't believe how many applications we get where the cv profile starts "I'm looking for a full time job in the building industry" or similar.

Sounds like there are a lot of rubbish recruiters around - if you're not getting the right applicants, maybe you're not doing your job well enough.

Anyone who puts "competitive salary" in an advert deserves everything they get imho.

Lack of skills in this country is breath taking, I've worked abroad and told people at interview what they need to do to get the job and 12 months later they've reappeared with the certificates they needed. Try and give the same feedback here and I've actually been told to fuck off lol

Without knowing the details I can't comment on what you're doing wrong, if anything. I fully get that you don't want it to be identifiable. But I think you have to accept that people with industry experience just might get a better offer after the interview, especially if they want to work full time and you can only offer part time. People tend to apply for multiple jobs at the same time and often you are already waiting to hear about other roles when you go for interview. Do you insist on candidates filling in an application form?

Why are you interviewing people who don't meet your essential criteria, pissed? Are they lying to you about qualifications?

venusinscorpio - I've done it in the past to help them out, give them interview practice, build my talent pipeline, gain loyalty etc. Gleen information about their current organisation, lots of reasons.

The old saying is that you pay peanut, you get monkeys. By and large, if you pay more, you get better people.

I didn't get the thing about the building industry, Statistically. Are you not in the building industry?

Perhaps they actually want a real job, not "interview practice" or to be part of your "talent pipeline". I can understand them telling you to fuck off if you waste their time.

Perhaps - but they were unemployed so they needed all the help they could get and given they wanted to join our industry advice and feedback to get in should be taken and action .... Or of course they could just burn a bridge whatever works for them eh ?

No good deed goes unpunished on Mumsnet eh ?

No. I'm not recruiting in anything even vaguely resembling the building industry. Unless you count lego

Did they know you weren't offering a real job?

That makes sense then, Statistically! I understand now.