To resent the length of the average job application.

[BinkyBaa]

Currently struggling to find a job despite a distinction (first) class masters degree. I'm desperate to get out of retail but I'll honestly take anything that pays just enough to cover rent at this point.

The thing that's really getting me down is that nowhere seems to want a CV and a cover letter anymore. Everything takes a series of tedious drop down boxes to put in qualifications and experience, followed by pages of rephrased "why should we give you this job?" boxes. Theres generally a quiz or three too. Every time I think I've gotten a quick application, theres a "please take 90 minutes to fill in this questionnaire" waiting in my emails.

It took me 4 hours to apply for aldi, who rejected me without feedback 2 days later.

Aibu to think it shouldn't take so long to apply for jobs that are just going to automatically filter me out anyway?

I am also a first class history graduate and I was saving to do either a master's or convert to law when I kinda fell into accountancy by the way. I really enjoy it - working as a management accountant for SME's you have such a variety of roles within an organisation, and your analytical skills are used to help understand how the business should function best for development and profitability.

ineedmoresleepnow NHS and council/civil service are rubbish for that I find. I applied for an NHS recruitment job as I have a lot of experience in recruiting but lost out to an internal candidate. They called and were very complimentary and sounded apologetic. I know they have to advertise these things externally but it does seem a massive waste of everyone's time, not to mention their own resources!

I agree with the internal candidate thing. I get that they have to do that too but it's such a waste of everyone's time when there is an internal candidate who is going to be given the job anyway.

The fact that the NHS and civil service take an age to get someone new started means that even if there was a better external candidate the extra 3 months of waiting would put them off.

Agree. It takes forever!

I used to recruit a lot in my old jobs and reading massive long application forms was just as soul destroying.

As pp said cut & paste your why should we recruit you spiel that you've saved elsewhere. Also on most job specific job sites (secsinthecity for PA jobs & most careworker jobsites ) you enter your CV once & save, also save a covering letter & then one click on the advert & your applications sent to the employer & your CV is also there for recruiters grazing for suitable people who haven't yet applied. .

Wexone what now?

Personal data is still personal data regardless of whether it is on a website or cv.

I feel your pain having spent three and a half hours this afternoon applying for a job. And I'm doubting myself that I'll get called to interview... it's soul destroying!

Totally with you OP. After 6 months of job applications I just gave up on the ones that wanted pages of form filling (the worst one was a civil service one with 8 sections to demonstrate individual skills and competencies, plus a section on how you meet the specification and another one essentially asking for the same information in a slightly different guise - it would have taken hours to complete and probably be rejected).

My current job was CV and very brief cover letter. It's made me realise that the convoluted applications say a lot about what it would be like to work somewhere!

Could you look at retail within a sector you want work in? Like managing the shop at a museum or national trust property where you'd have the opportunity to progress into a different area of the business.

Put bluntly, if an advert I post says fill in the application that’s what I expect. If a candidate cannot he arsed to do that, they are not exactly demonstrating an ability to follow reasonable management requests.

Second, whilst your CV might look tip top it almost certainly won’t tell me what I need particularly with regards to continuity of employment.

It will also not look the same as any one be of the other tip top CVs which means I have to look very hard to filter the information I need from your inability to grasp I don’t give a shit if you enjoy meeting friends and going to the cinema. Who the fuck doesn’t????

OP, I think your unfortunate dilemma is indicative of the near mass hysteria we place on Degree education.

You have a Masters Degree and can't get a job, not even in Lidl.

What was the point of University?

Your suggestion of going back to study for yet another Degree seems peculiar.

This is an epedemic in this country. Degree educated people who can't get a job. Our system is broken.

whoaherewego “the worst one was a civil service one with 8 sections to demonstrate individual skills and competencies”

Do you mind if I ask, was this a high paying role?

I went for one Civil Service interview, years ago, and they wanted me to explain in detail how I manage my time. The example they gave was that they actually wanted the candidate to say how they would set up their Outlook calendar, as well as explaining any time management methods used. I couldn’t believe they wanted to be talked through that - literally.

I’m also surprised to hear about the GDPR and CV thing, be interesting to hear more on that.

@RosaWaiting I think it was about £35k. Marketing role but I can't quite remember which department.

Yes, that's exactly the sort of thing! How is anyone supposed to realise that's what they really want you to say?! Ticking of very very specific boxes...

woah thanks

Yes, that must mean they lose a lot of good candidates. 8 sections isn’t necessary for that.

I was probably lucky that the interviewers guided me to the level of detail. So for example, i put meeting papers in my Outlook entry....you’d think that would be the end of the sentence, right? But they asked me “how do you put papers in your Outlook entry?”

I didn’t go for a second interview because I thought I’d lose my mind of I worked there.

it is still personal data but get a sign in and you set your password. you also have to sign the legal data things at the end

Have you thought about higher education administration? Have a look at www.jobs.ac.uk

@TSSDNCOP be fair, surely most people dont waffle on about their weekends on their CV of all things? Mines a brief personal statement followed by education, core skills, experience and achievements.

It makes sense that the applications are the the way they are to make it easier for the recruiter to review them all. I just wish the way the websites worked was a bit less tedious and time consuming to get through. At least you'd be getting paid in the 2 minutes it took to read my conventional CV because I'm not even getting an interview out of the hours it took me to apply the way companies like yours want me to!

@T0getherindreams my thinking is that law has a slightly more straightforward progression from conversion course to training under a mentor at a law firm and so on. Since everything feels so uncertain at the moment, the idea of something more secure that isnt teaching seems appealing, though I'm probably being naive about it.

I hadn’t had the pleasure of experiencing current recruitment methods until last year. I sympathise with everything that people are saying about long-winded forms, and hoops to jump through. No wonder the country’s in a mess. The inefficiency is astounding. I think people like me who have not looked outside of their current job for 10 years or more would get a shock at what is being asked of people now. So many good candidates already working in demanding jobs with full on home lives just haven’t got the extra hours and hours of time to give to the nonsense that are some modern job applications. I’m looking at you, NHS, with your Values etc, or long winded civil service competency type application. Civil service used to be one of the few, thankfully, organisations which used this, god knows why the practice has spread to other organisations. Most Civil Service departments are not exactly known as being the beacon of efficiency, so why others think it’s a good idea to copy their overcomplicated, overblown recruitment system I will never know.

The only people who WILL have the time to jump the hoops are NOT the ones who want the job the most, contrary to what some are claiming here, they are the ones without a current job with plenty of time, or who like to slope off work early to fill in a job application (thay’s If they’re not doing it in work time) and those who have few demands on their time outside work. Who will recruiters miss out on? The most dedicated, hard working people, who will probably also be the most sensible and refuse to engage with bullshit so decide that such an organisation isn’t for them.

Result: some parts of the public sector get more and more bloated and inefficient.

If you can’t pick out a likely candidate from a CV and a covering letter, and then use the interview process to find out whether your instinct was right, then maybe recruitment isn’t the right area for you. The bureaucracy of public sector recruitment is painful these days. Common sense has gone out the window.

Last year I secured a highly respected grad scheme for a tech firm. I studied anthropology (1st) and gave up on my MSc (chose to travel after I received my job offers). 95% of the applicants at the assessment centre were engineering students but because I was able to hold my own as I could demonstrate genuine passion.

Applying to grad schemes is soul-destroying with all the tests and video interviews. But it is 100% a numbers game.

I'm not saying all of this to gloat but just to encourage you to not sell yourself short (hope I'm not being patronising). I know people who applied to 50+ schemes.

Good luck!

Also, my work experience consisted entirely of retail jobs but I was able to link this to my industry/passion (everyone has to bullshit).

I must have applied to 20ish schemes, completed tests for 60% of those and had only 8 or so video interviews. In the end, I attended 5 assessment centres and had 4 job offers. I treated the application as a FT job in itself. It can be done, my dad told me my degree was useless without a MSc in Management.

It is tough and soul destroying but due to GDPR rules no where will take your CV now
Just to say - that is utter bollocks.

Second, whilst your CV might look tip top it almost certainly won’t tell me what I need particularly with regards to continuity of employment.
Eh?

BTW OP YANBU The process is the result of snake oil recruitment systems, not some wonderful science.

All the recruiters talking about people “being bothered to fill in their petty and long winded bollock faced online forms are probably wondering why their organisations are full of automatons with no original thinking who can only follow orders. They are going to get a rudeness awakening when there are only millennials and beyond in the job market. The insta generation aren’t going to waste time on Rhein kind of arse.

I would definitely think about communications roles with a history degree.

Go and see a specialist recruiter for the areas you want to get in to. I also echo a previous posters advice, find people through research, word of mouth and LinkedIn who are in management in the areas you want to go in to. Contact them and take them out for coffee and network with them. It’s good to recognise names
On applications.

Or try for admin entry level in companies with big HR/Comms areas.Try for a call centre roll in the civil service for example. I just picked up my most recent recruit into a junior role from the call centre of my government department. Her knowledge of the business made her very valuable.

Has anyone applied for a job at the Passport Office recently? The application form was crazy. You didn’t have to put in anywhere about what qualifications you had (just tick the box that said you met the minimum qualification criteria.) There were about 3 competency-like questions to be answered in 250 words or less using the STAR format but you were answering them in a vacuum because there was no part of the form that asked you what your current job was or your career to date!!

I had applied for the identical job 5 years previously and got the job but only after they fucked around monumentally telling me in an email I’d been unsuccessful and then telling me I’d got the job 2 months later when I’d already got another job!

This time I was rejected within days. So either I fucked up the application form or my being 5 years older is an issue (which as I’m in my 50s now is quite likely)

I like the advice about keeping stock answers on a master document. I do that but it’s never quite right and by the time you’ve tweaked an answer to suit the particular job spec it’s as slow as answering from scratch. And those fecking fernickety forms that have you entering each exam subject and grade achieved, one at a time are horrendous. And the ones that pick up the days/weeks/months/years between jobs and ask for explanations aaarggh! Those are especially hard to do when you’ve done 2 or 3 jobs concurrently with overlaps.

I HATE applying for jobs can you tell?!