Ridiculous job application processes?

[Medsy]

Currently job hunting and they all seem to be CV + cover letter, then great thanks can you come into the office to do an assessment, then thanks for that can you do an interview, then well done you passed, can you do a second interview.

Is this the normal now? I don't mind the multiple different parts, it's the fact that they aren't condensing these parts into one day say, so if you've got 4 or 5 job applications on the go you're spending huge amounts of time on them all when you do in fact need to be working your current job...

Or maybe IABU?!

I think it probably depends what kind of job it is? When my place of work recruit it is like this, interview 1, assessment, interview 2/presentation. And it couldn’t all be done in one day because actually for every 1 position we have available we got 70-80 applications in our most recent for example. So for 3 roles we had 227 applications. The multi stages allows you to sift people out and find the most appropriate candidate.

I have done 8 interviews for 1 job, got down to the last 2 and didnt get the job

An asbolute waste of everyones time

I think anything more than 2 interviews and maybe like an initial chat over the phone is excessive. If a company can't get a feel for whether someone is a good fit after that, they are just wasting people's time.

Too many places need to realise that interviews are as much about candidates working out whether they want to work for the company as much as whether they want to employ them.

That's awful! 8 interviews??! Sounds like they didn't know what they wanted.

I think it's hard to keep up your motivation for a job as well, when you've already poured your enthusiasm into your cover letter, put heart and soul into whatever piece of work they want to do, really sold yourself at the first interview...By the time the next interview comes around (sometimes a week or two later) it's a bit like look, I can't really tell you anything you don't already know by this stage.

I got offered a job with a company that got it right IMO: quick phone call to vet me, then I was brought in to spend 2 hours on an assessment, followed by a single interview with two interviewers.

Was the job president of the UN? 😱

I actually think two interviews is too many. Interviews are a notoriously unreliable way of testing competence anyway as they are so dependent on how good someone is at selling themselves, as opposed to how good they will be at the job. They have their place but to put so much time and energy into them (as a business, never mind for the candidate) isn't a good use of time. The written application should be the primary means of making the judgement, the interview should be used as a confirmation stage.

8?!?!! Please tell me this was for some really big really important role with billions of dollars and peoples lives on the line? I bet it wasn’t though. Probably something really normal like receptionist.

I had a phone interview and 4 in person interviews for an admin job. It was utterly bonkers and the only reason I went through with it all was because I had been made redundant and needed something.

It is completely unnecessary for any role to have that many interviews.

Had an interview this week. 30 mins competency based desk task, then 30mins interview. Public sector.

I don't see the need for any extra than above.

This is so true. I’ve had one or two interviews where it was like being interviewed under caution (I should imagine), the whole tone and attitude of the interviewer was about trying to find things about me they didn’t like!

On the plus side it allows you to rule out that toxic workplace environment from the get-go.

It IS a sign of a toxic workplace @TroubadourCat you're right.
Any organisation with a ridiculously onerous interview process (8!!!) just doesn't have their shit together and would probably be a nightmare to work for. Way too many cooks involved.

Totally this. The cover letter and CV should be enough to tell the company whether you've got the basic skills for the job. Beyond that, it's working out which candidate fits best into the company and for the candidate, working out whether these are people you actually work for. A couple of interviews is more than enough time to do that.

And also, there is a special place in hell for companies that don't acknowledge applications and keep people informed in a timely manner as to how the process is going. It's not hard to send a "sorry" email, but so many companies don't even bother to do that.

YANBU. My relative has had to do online assessments, telephone interview, group activity days, before a final 1-2-1 interview for a …. Zero hours contract retail job! Ridiculous.

YANBU. I went through this recently for the first time in years and it's ridiculous. It put me off applying for certain roles. I think it's because HR as a discipline has become so over inflated - they created unnecessary tasks to justify their existence. Monumental waste of time for applicants.

Also the number of applications that require you to complete a massive online process, register for an account and password and then......crickets.

Trying to get a fucking job is stupidly tortuous.

Completely agree - the makework wonks haven't polluted this thread yet but they will be along soon to tell us that an 8 hour process of form filling is essential to "weed out people who aren't serious about wanting the job".

It’s ridiculous, just as irritating are the online application forms asking a billion questions (some of which are just on my CV or repeating what you’d put in a cover letter?!)

I don't imagine they even do interviews for that - probably a quiet chat with a few favoured contacts, like most high-powered jobs.

And then employers have the gall to moan about shortage of employees.

It's not even a new thing.

DD1 - about 13 years ago - went for a part time sales assistant job with John Lewis.

2 interviews 2 weeks apart and then a week after that a gathering where all the candidates had to sit round a big table and build a lego bloody house !?!?!

And she didn't get the job!
(feed back was that she made a fantastic roof and was very sharing with the lego parts .... )

All 3 of these things were held an hour and a half's travel away from us. Waste of effing time and money for her.

The next job she went for she got within 10 mins of chatting to the manager (GP surgery).

and she's still working there now as a bloody good manager herself 😊so JL and their stupid Lego house missed out there didn't they?!

(sorry, proud mum 😂)

Thread derail and possibly unpopular opinion but I have never had less that very average service in John Lewis. The worst was when I was talking to an employee about a purchase I wished to make (telling her where the item was in a locked display), and a colleague came over and interrupted and they both had a long an unrelated conversation without even acknowledging my presence or the conversation already in progress. They are my last choice for anything now.

You sound lucky you are getting lots of interviews. I think 2 and some kind of assessment is fairly standard. It also sounds like at least the applications are straight forward. Lots I've applied for have an application form where you have to fill out their form with lots of stuff that would be on your cv and then answer around 5 or 6 questions that all require to have a think and write, check etc what you want to put. So one application can take a day. And not even an interview! Maybe those ones are weeding people out and have fewer interviews. I doubt it though.

For a job in the travel industry I went through the following: phone screen with headhunter, phone interview with CEO, writing a letter about myself, dinner with the CEO and his wife, 8 half hour in- person interviews, a lunch, a psych test and a math and writing competency test. By the final interview with the CEO I told him I feel I'd shown enough and did he want to give me the job? He gave me the offer in person. It was a total nightmare job and I lasted one year before walking out!!