To think job application forms have become nuts?

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Why does everyone have an online form lately?

20+ criteria boxes to write in at length? It seems counter intuitive. Surely with cover letters and CVs you can judge much better the candidates literacy, ability to write at length and capabilities using computers? Particularly if they’ll be writing reports in the job.

Drop down menus for employment history, an hour or more of slow clicking instead of a few minutes typing up an employment record.

I’m looking at a shortage area too, with real recruitment issues. Disproportionately low pay too. Yet they give themselves another hoop with a 15/16 section form with fiddly drop downs.

The process with applying for someone jobs has become so lengthy it puts candidates off. I’ve just applied to two jobs with reasonable forms and ignored three with stupid forms. One of these contacted me to ask me to reply, I was eager, but I’m busy. I don’t have a life where I can or want to waste 6-8 hours on forms which could be potentially skim read and ignored.

Even a preliminary stage of CVS would be useful, before expecting candidates to wade through hoops.

Before my current role I withdrew from a job I wanted because they had a form, then test, then more online forms, then more tests (all with massive time delays too) for a 28k position!

I used to recruit, like of CVS and cover letters. Easy to read, simple and spoke volumes. I wouldn’t as a recruiter either want to deal with the fuss of online forms sectioned into many pages on my
screen.

We do blind recruiting, which can't be done via cover letter or CV. We also need to ensure certain criteria have been met before we get to interview stage.

It enables us to assess standardised applications, which is important when there are many applicants. We have to grade each application again a set criteria. You may miss all of those if you send in a CV and covering letter. All of this is to ensure fairness, consistency and to reduce bias.

I hate LinkedIn as a social media platform but it can be very useful for avoiding forms... upload your cv and just ping it out. Although you never know if "apply now" is going to take you to an external link... TO THE FORM...

My pet peeve is no salary info. I work in an admin role where salaries can range from £20-80k+. I really need to know which end of the scale you're on before I waste my time applying. When recruitment team members call me, money is always one of the first things I raise. People like to shy away from talking money but I'm not gonna interview without knowing salaries.

I think of it in terms of externalities.

Unless you legislate against it or force companies to bear costs somehow, a company will always prefer to dump a load of pollution that makes people ill and costs taxpayers a fortune to clean up, rather than dispose of it safely for a fraction of what cleanup would cost, because dumping it is very cheap for them and they're not the ones who bear the costs of the unsafe dumping.

And a company doesn't care that they're forcing applicants, successful and otherwise, to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours on going through their recruitment process, because those hours and that effort don't cost them anything. If imposing a laborious process means that they think they're less likely to hire the wrong candidate candidate or that they can do the recruitment with fewer staff hours, they'll do it, no matter the cost in time and effort to candidates, because the company aren't the ones bearing that cost. If you can save one staff hour by making a hundred candidates waste an hour each they'll do it. Applicant time and effort is an externality so they don't give a shit unless it starts to affect their bottom line by e.g. making it impossible for them to recruit.

I have absolutely no problem in filling in forms with stuff like diversity data, any criminal record, right to work in UK etc, and a section in free text on how you fulfil the requirements for the role. At the age of 61 I do have an issue with having to retype the details of every single job I've had in 40 years of working, especially as I spent a fair amount of time in contract roles, when they've also asked for a CV. And guess what - no I don't have available the details of my line manager or HR department from 25 years ago when the company folded a few years after I left, or they were taken over, or they moved head office a number of times since.

Another one I find makes me want to give up is when the company is in a "blue collar" sector, and 3/4 of the form relates to things like "do you have a cherry picker license", "which of the manufacturing machine types have you ben trained on" or asking when you took various manual handling qualifications - when the job you're applying for is back office admin.

I was also mildly irritated to be asked to show my "O" level certificates from 45 years ago (hint - don't still have them). Luckily they were happy to accept copies of assorted professional Project Management qualification certificates in their place, but them actually seeing the certificates or equivalent was a mandatory requirement for recruitment there. And no, not all roles in the organisation needed this because higher level roles (managerial) in a different area didn't need them.

Look these companies probably waste spend a lot of money on IT contracts to ”deliver” “services” like these tedious application forms, which is why the salaries are so low and staff turnover is so high.

I find it extremely hypocritical when employers have huge long application processes but then a statement about diversity and inclusion.

Well, actually, not everyone has the time to jump through a billion and one hoops to apply for your job - and if you're that keen on diversity, you don't want to be throwing up obstacles that don't actually assess the ability to do the job.

I'm actually a fan of a a lot of the processes in the education services sector though. You upload your CV, and answer a few interview style questions. They shuffle and mark the questions before they look at the CVs. I think that's both manageable and fair.

I've experienced the same as @Allergictoironing. I'm a decade younger, but because I freelanced for a number of years it's almost impossible for me to comply with 'list every job you've had in chronological order' forms as I used to often have a part time employed job overlapping with freelance work - it just doesn't work.

I'm a teacher now and every school needs to know the same stuff yet every school has a wildly different application form. Now that is a sector with serious skills shortages and where the applications absolutely could be standardised.

Fiddly forms select out people busy doing a job similar to the one you want to hire them for and select in people with time on their hands.

I feel old. I used to work for Tesco and sift the forms as a receptionist. They were handwritten and stacked in old photocopy boxes under the desk!

Actually worked well. Handed them out in person, so never got too many and only handed them to people who asked in a reasonable manner.

I’m having this issue. I’m working self-employed in three different areas around family life!

I don’t think I have any interest in writing for hours just to be viewed by AI

Surely this could have been weeded out in a half decent interview process? How on earth was it missed? If relevant to the role a short task would have covered this

Oh the irony of this post 😆

University of Exeter job application forms are ridiculous. 🤣 I binned it off after an hour

It's horrible as a recruiter as well. Takes so much time. I'm pretty sure I could gauge whether someone could do a job just with a CV and interview. Maybe a short covering letter.

Just to pop on and mention National Careers service you can have your own mentor that can support with CV's, applications. I found it of great support and a real eye opener when developing a new CV

Weak humour I know…

YANBU. Apparently we have dire labour shortages in many areas. I'm guessing a lot of people don't have the tech or literacy skills to do these long-winded application forms; though they could do the actual job perfectly well. Why are we creating additional barriers to work when there are enough already!!

Recruitment agencies are absolutely cleaning up, in part due to this trend.

I've never got an offer from a stupid form job. Worst was 8h not even joking . For a uni who made me do a presentation on top of that and interview. They already had an internal person lined up and never intended to hire! Never again.

Agencies are the way to go!

Well said.

Completely agree, I don't even tend to apply for jobs with application forms anymore unless they're really simple.

Isnt there a legal thing in that you can leave info out on a CV and obscure facts but you can be dismissed if you lie/ deliberately mislead on an application form?

It has got completely out of hand and in a sense is a theft of people's time.

I'm feeling the urge to build a tower with dried spaghetti and jelly babies now!

This is what makes me so reluctant to engage. So often in roles such as university lecturing you are just part of a show of open interviewing.