Friend keeps asking me for a job - getting exhausting!

[fireandice26]

Hi,

I have a friend who wants to work at the company I work at. It's a VERY large company that we all know of. Her area of expertise isn't my field (so she would be in a completely different department).

She asked me every few weeks for a job - as if it is something I can magic up. It's not. It's REALLY not. Then upped it to nearly every time we spoke. Granted; it wasn't EVERY time we spoke - but that said; she would moan about her job and how much she needed a change and how she 'needed someone to help her...' so we would directly or indirectly get onto this topic.

She applied directly via the site and got rejected for three roles. No interview/chat. Just a direct 'no'. She now is looking for a job at another arm (but same parent company) and asked me to refer her. I simply cannot do this - (I'd have even less (than zero) 'pull' at the other arm of the company!!)

Before anyone points out the obvious; yes I have told her MULTIPLE times that getting a job isn't as simple as she thinks it is. She seems to think I can just pass on her CV to my bosses and she'd be moved to the top of the queue... and BAM... the role is hers!

I also told her to please stop asking me as it's making me really uncomfortable and damaging our friendship.

Last week, she brought it up again and upped the ante big time since she's now been let go from her current job. Whilst I get the urgency given the change in her circumstances; AIBU to just distance myself/ghost at this point?

I cannot give you a job. This fact will remain until I tell you otherwise. If you mention it once again then im going to have to just stop seeing you. End of.

I appreciate that things might work differently at your company, but it's very unfair for companies generally to use A.I to screen candidates, and think that's ok, but not want their candidates to use A.I to help them write the job applications that can literally take hours to write.

I did one for the public sector recently and it took 1.5 - 2hrs to write (and that was simple compared to some I've applied for). They want to know every single job you've had (which is a lot by the time you get to your 40s, every single individual GCSE plus grades, reasons for leaving every job, explaining every gap between employment, and also address every one of their numerous 'essentials' and 'desirables' criterias. None of them will take C.Vs.

The experience of doing that is awful. Wasted hours upon hours of my life doing it. .

So did I.

I have this with a friend on a subject - whenever they bring it up now I just say "you have been saying this for 30 years and nothing has changed, I don't want to hear it again".

you need to find something similar to say to your friend, just one final time - "Friend, I have told you repeatedly that I cannot get you a job and I have asked you to stop asking. I cannot keep having the same conversation with you, so please don't mention it again".

If they bring it up again, then just leave.

You're the strange one here!

It doesn’t when 14 job applications land on your desk, each one worded practically identically (some of them actual were identical!). It looks really bad and very lazy - very few bother to 'make it their own' after they've generated it via AI for a start... and then there's the Americanisms in the spelling, which again show non one's cared enough to check it properly before sending it in in.

I actually think AI should be banned from use in job applications it's got that bad.

I know! Shall I put a piece in the daily mail……how I got something so wrong, god forgive me!

😁

I used to work for a big retailer in a central function at head office that had nothing to do with HR/recruitment and very little to do with the physical stores.
The number of acquaintances who thought that me working for that retailer meant I could get them/their child/their mate a job in a store without them going through any sort of recruitment process was astounding! A lot of people seem to not be able to grasp the concept of someone formal recruitment processes

i mean most friends will do a referral for a mate if they can. And you usually get a bonus

total YANBU from me.

Or do what I did when someone asked me to refer them to my old job when there was no way in hell I’d recommend her: just say sure will do! I’ll pass your info on. And just don’t.

Another one here who can spot an AI job application a mile off. I recruited recently for a pretty basic, unskilled role and considering barely a single candidate could count an English GCSE at any grade to their name and not much meaningful work experience either, the covering letters and CVs were all remarkably articulately worded and professional sounding. Mostly a lot of wordy waffle talking about nothing in particular.

The covering letters and the descriptions of any previous work experience all parroted back to me the exact same phrases and skill requirements verbatim that had appeared in the job ad. They'd clearly copy and pasted the ad into Chat GPT and said 'write me an application for this.' The resulting applications consisted of the job advertisement in regurgitated form, sometimes with whole identical sentences lifted and plopped in. 🙄I know I wasn't recruiting for the role of Einstein, but I expected them to at least read it back and tweak the results to make it a bit less obvious. It doesn't bode well for someone's levels of initiative and common sense, frankly.

Mind you, I suppose if employers think it's okay to use AI to carry out mass screening of candidates then they can hardly complain if the candidates use AI to apply in the first place. Double standards really.

She's stupid, and bullying you.

This happened to a friend of mine; one of her friends seemed to think she could just "put in a good word" and secret handshakes would seal the deal. She never let up. My friend has nothing more to do with her now. I suggest you do the same!

Hmmm, wonder why 🤔

A friend uses an agency to do the her CV and gets great jobs. Perhaps @fireandice26 friend is just not good at CV applications

Why do people always make this comment?

You can like someone and still find an aspect of their behaviour annoying. Or you can dislike someone and find aspects of their behaviour annoying but, for whatever reason, not want to tell them to piss off.

Either way the OP is entitled to vent her frustration in a thread.

This sounds enormously tiresome. Having looked at her CV, how realistic is she being in her desire to work for this company? (Not very, I'm inferring.) Is there any training you could recommend to her if you haven't already done so?

This friend doesn’t sound very bright. If she was smart she would be asking sensible questions about the overall company culture and structure in order to tailor her CV for a potential job.

The fact that she has refused to accept what you have told her makes me think she’s a difficult employee to work with. She’s somebody to pretend you don’t know as a potential colleague, rather than making a recommendation for the business to give her a job!

I would hate this. I had a difficult time getting started in my profession thanks to having no handy contacts or family connections to lean on. Nowadays I get asked if I can sort out work experience/internships/training contracts for the offspring of acquaintances all the time. I've never quite mastered the art of politely telling people to fuck off so I can't help, but I can offer sympathy.

If you've looked over her CV and she's still getting rejected... it sounds like you've done a bit of a half arsed job. Could you pass her CV and application paperwork to a colleague for a second opinion? If it was my friend, I'd be helping her out (and hopefully getting her off my back).

Even if I liked somebody originally, I‘d go off them pretty rapidly if they spent all of our time together pestering me to get them a job.

Maybe she just isn’t qualified for these jobs? OP says she’s applied for 3 completely different ones and been rejected each time.

No amount of tweaking my CV would make me appointable as a director of HR, for example.

She's not getting it.
Step away.
Her behaviour would make me very very wary of her, and her "garden leave".

Does the company perhaps have a referral scheme? I work for a company that you can click on a role internally on our jobs listings and if there’s someone you think might be a good fit, you can refer them and if they get the role you get a little voucher or something but even so, it doesn’t guarantee an interview let alone the role. If there’s no scheme like this available, then no, no one has the power to just magic a job for someone unless your the big cheese!

So it's my fault?

She's not getting the jobs. Simple as that. I can't tailor her CV with any untruths to 'make' her the perfect candidate - especially given she wants a referral.

She's simply not qualified enough to get the roles - that's the nature of job hunting - especially within the field we're referring to. There are thousands that apply to any one given role. She's applied for three different roles (within my arm of the Co) and has been rejected each time. She's now applying to another arm (where the threshold is different - but where I don't know anyone). Also, I don't feel it's appropriate to go to someone I don't know there and ask them to 'have a look' and refer someone.

Not in my arm of the Co given the nature of the role. But the other arm, possibly. But I don't know anyone in the other arm.