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.

Application forms are a massive pain in the arse and often incredibly poorly designed. You have to accept that they will put a lot of perfectly decent candidates off, and they will instead choose to apply for jobs without application forms.

Pudding myself laughing venusinscorpio.
What an idiot you are!
I regularly receive lovely gifts from people who have doubled their salaries, changed their lives after accepting my assistance. I do my job 99% of the time because it makes me lots of money, but occasionally I like to give back. Then I meet the likes of you and remember it's more trouble than it's worth.

I don't think it's me who's the idiot here. The people coming for an interview obviously either couldn't give a fuck about your job or they are misled by you into thinking they had a chance. You go ahead and waste your time interviewing them then, why don't you. You are obviously really bad at sorting the wheat from the chaff and bizarrely think you are doing people a favour.

I am doing people a favour, end of story.

You tell yourself that.

Lol

We have to do application forms as we have to be able to demonstrate gathering certain info in writing which isn't on a cv. But we only get folk who have made it to interview stage to complete them - initial screening we requests cv and covering letter. We're not expecting war and peace either.

We've had that same issue with people ticking boxes saying they have certain mandatory requirements when they don't, we've given up using them.

OP might not wish to return to bunfight...

hope you do because I have a friend in London looking for this, was a perfect match for the last one she applied for, didn't get interviewed, rang them and they said "we had about 60 people who were a perfect match so we had to choose 5 to interview" - that's my experience of London jobs. I think 700+ applied for the job I do now, I feel effing lucky to have it (am allowed to work at home sometimes and they are quite good about offering flexi for parental care etc)

so how you can have no good applicants really throws me!

That sounds fair enough, Statistically, I presume you don't ask them to write their whole CV out again as so many do? At least they are already in the process so you're not losing candidates before you start. But it will still put some people off from continuing and make them more likely to take another job if offered and again that's something you just have to accept.

I'd love to get back into work but my main hurdle is lack of references because I've been out of work so long & don't have any friends

A basic admin role where I don't have to interact with the public would be ideal. The only ones I see advertised don't really exist are via agencies or too vague like the one that turned out to be for a receptionist in a dodgy massage parlour

My sister used to be involved in recruiting & interviewing. She used to bin all the CVs and application forms with her own name spelled incorrectly [ie they can't even COPY correctly]. When you receive 100's of applications you have to start somewhere.

If they're applying in this industry they will get the same approach from everyone - we have to be able to show that we have the right info. They do have to detail job info etc again as we need specific details which often aren't on the cv. Joys of being regulated.

venus you sound a little defensive? I get where pissed is coming from.

paintroller00 A little lol

I'm not defensive. Pissed called me an idiot, perhaps you missed that? I said I know how hard it is to get a job. There is not a nationwide shortage of decent candidates as is being claimed. That's really stupid. I have tried to give people who are complaining that they can't recruit a bit of a reality check. It really is their problem to fix. Like pissed, I'm doing them a favour.

I think the number of people struggling suggests that there is a shortage - I am aware there are plenty of people unemployed but they aren't necessarily a match for the jobs available. So people have experience or training which is not a match for the available roles.

A lot of the applications I see also suggest massive general skill shortages - this may be skewed by forced applicants though. When I get a sea of people who ignore clear requests for covering letters, obviously haven't read the advert whether it's been two lines, two paragraphs or two pages, have a cv littered with spelling and grammatical errors or with hugely inappropriate information included then it is hard not to conclude that those people are probably going to struggle to get any job.

Not saying this is all candidates but it's certainly a fair number. I also did graduate recruitment recently and the big feature of that was whopping porkies on the cv which became blindingly obvious at interview.

My sister used to be involved in recruiting & interviewing. She used to bin all the CVs and application forms with her own name spelled incorrectly [ie they can't even COPY correctly]. When you receive 100's of applications you have to start somewhere.

My friend tells a story of her boss binning all the CVs in the top half of the pile "got to start somewhere - life's not fair"

Those people surely are able to be thrown out fairly quickly if it's a requirement of the job. But do you need to be able to spell to do this specific job? If it's a manual role, why is that relevant?

In agreement with whoever uothrwad said don't let HR screen cvs! Especially if coming from recruitment consultants

In my experience in my industry, I've had my cv put forward by recruiters who need to submit a minimum number of CVs by a certain date. HR people ringing me for interview. No details on salary. All because I have 2 or 3 buzzwords for a particular niche on my cv, but from 8 years ago!

Conversely, I was told I was on the rejected pile of CVs for a job I really wanted - found out later that the manager recruiting hasn't been passed my cv (husband knows him). When he asked HR, they said it was because my current job, that I've been doing for 6 years, was irrelevant. No it isn't - the job title may seem irrelevant but my role is identical to the job being advertised. Imagine it as being along the lines of me being 'Underwater mammal specialist' when they wanted 'Whale specialist'. I'm nothing of the sort, but that would be a cool job

And I concur with people above - advertisers need to be honest about requirement. Is it 8-5, 3 days a week, or is it 3 hours per day at employer discretion? Is it really competitive salary? If certain qualifications are necessary, state that. I applied for one that said 'royal institute of whale specialists' preferred by not mandatory. Wasn't successful because I'm still studying for my RIWS qualification, and it was readvertised 3 times (and according to another person I know involved, they hadn't received any applixations from chartered people so they interviewed nobody.

And things like that are why people get shit candidates. It's your loss.

As a mature person (50) wanting to return part time to work I'm finding this thread is making me feel quite cheerful.

I'd been feeling a bit depressed after listening to a litany of job-hunting woe from a friend of similar age (but much better qualified and with a stunningly impressive cv) who had really struggled even to get an interview for the sorts of jobs she could have done in her sleep.

Yes, I've had the same experience as you, Mard. My highly relevant experience being dismissed as I didn't have x criteria that they hadn't actually put on the job spec. The agency had approached me unsolicited and put me forward and were really surprised as they had thought I was a perfect fit.

The industry I work in - not the one I'm recruiting in - is funny for recruiters. To stick with the animal theme:

• there's some small companies who only really hire vets and support staff

-there's massive companies who are like disney, they've got an animal bit of the business which needs vets but they also hire people to do hundreds of different jobs.

There's a few recruiters who specialise in vets, understand how vets work and the different specialisms. Lots of the recruiters are ex vets. They're fine to work with and the smaller companies tend to use them.

Them there's the generic recruitment agency who disney has a contract with, and who get first call on all jobs at disney. Including the vets. They know nothing about vets. So they search LinkedIn and cv databases for anyone with the word vet in their cv and proceed to phone them- even if they specialise in domestic cats, are actually a vet nurse or once did job experience in a vet

I think if you're looking for people for part time or job share roles, specify what exactly the hours/times are or could be and tell them the salary range up front.

The kind of people you are looking for need to know exactly what's involved before applying. Otherwise they can go through the effort of applying, speaking to agency several times, researching, dressing up, going for interview to find it was impossible for them from the outset.

I think the word "flexible" has changed. It now means employee is available whenever employer wants to fill absences, holidays etc. Very few parents can cope with this arrangement. Childcare isn't available as and when you would like it. It's a word that puts me off these days.

"Flexible" in most cases for me has never went anywhere beyond "You can start at 8.30 or 9 then leave at 5 or 5.30", both of which are completely useless when I need to be dropping DS off at school at 8.55.

Op are the jobs in London? I find part time hard to come by. Esp flexible working hours as well. Sounds amazing