I get the pain, but if you’re offered an interview and you forget to check what time the interview is scheduled for and you miss it, then that’s on you. Showing up to the interview on time is like step 0, the most basic requirement for obtaining a job. If you’re struggling with that step then at least part of the problem lies with you.
idk if you wanna interview me at least give me a call or at least an email, companies that just send you a notification to the website you applied through are dumb
This
Its basic respect and courtesy to email the potential employee. If you’re putting hoops to jump through with no actual incentive then you dont deserve employees.
Oh, in that case I agree with you. Although, if I were putting in all that legwork, I’d like to think I’d be checking my replies on a daily basis. But yeah, it’s pretty standard to email or call someone if you want an interview with them. LOL. Just arbitrarily throwing out a date and time means they don’t respect you or your schedule at all, and you probably don’t want to work for them.
I was applying for postdoc fellowships while doing a gig as an adjunct prof (do not recommend); I got an email from a PI who wanted to set up an interview, followed by couple more that told me that I need to respond to emails if I want to get a job anywhere in academia. All of these were delivered in the span of one lab session I was teaching. I told her as much and she told me I needed to stop wasting her time. I told her that, with that attitude, it looked like I dodged a bullet.
I hire in technology. I can easily spend weeks filling a position. Candidates lie through their resumes and interviews 20 wasted interviews = 30 hours cultivating those interviews I have about a 26% no show, no response to missed interviews. Posting a job equals literally hundreds of emails, recruiters, off shore companies, and badly done resumes.
Headhunters talk big and deliver bottom barrel candidates, no one likes recruiters, so great candidates hardly use them.
When I use tools like one way interviews so I can screen hundreds of candidates, the feedback is “it’s not personal enough”, then no show on an appointment THEY MAKE
I’m a small business, my resources for hiring aren’t extensive.
Just want to give some flavor to the other side of this.
Yeah whenever I go for an interview for a public position, I try to be mindful that the person or people I’m speaking to are probably exhausted. But unless you’ve got a reference to a private posting directly through a back channel, then I don’t think there’s any way around it - hiring for a role is hard. But ideally, you’ll have the person for years if you can retain them, so doing it right is worthwhile.
Candidates lie
I was a software developer and I often interviewed prospective candidates by phone. It was hilarious how often I heard keyboard tapping in the background after asking a question, and sometimes I could hear other people whispering. I was like c’mon - I’m only phone interviewing to see if it’s worth our time to bring you in for an in-person interview. You’re not going to be able to Google shit (or have your friends do it) when you’re here, so this tactic is not going to land you a job.
Ok, but - and please don’t think I mean this in an offensive way, I am asking this in the most naive way - isn’t that your whole job? I get that it is annoying, but you don’t waste 30 hours, you just work 30 hours. Hours that you get paid for and hours that you would use to do the same job/try to hire for another position otherwise. Of course you could get more done (i.e. more people hired) in a unit of time, but at the end of the day that’s not your problem really, is it? You did everything correctly. You still get your hours paid.
I didn’t say waste, and my job is managing and engineering. If I were in HR maybe. Even if I were a hiring manager, it’s still a lot of time into finding resources, and anyone in that situation gets frustrated.
You mentioned 20 wasted interview, therefore my wording. Admittedly I read over the part that it isn’t your only responsibility. I can imagine how frustrating it is! Even if this is all you do all day.
But still, you get paid for this. (I once had a well paid bullshit job and understand how draining it is to focus on ridiculous tasks that seem to go nowhere, you got my full sympathy here.) You go home at 5 pm and your day is done. Your paycheck arrives.
We as candidates don’t get paid. We put hours and hours into interviews and applications. It seems in IT it is common to just click on direct apply on linkedin. How I envy this! My husband just clicks on 100 applications and gets like 4-5 invites at least.
I work in the biomedical field/research (in Europe) and let me tell you, no one will even remotely consider me for an interview if I have the audacity to not send an application letter that is specifically tailored to the position. So, for every single job I am applying to I am spending at least two hours (if I am in a run and do a lot of copy pasting, let’s be real here, I often needed almost a whole day) to finish up the application alone. If I get an interview I have to take a vacation day to go interview. Maybe have a trial day if it is a lab based job (which of course is not paid). I have to do the reading on the company, what they do etc. I wrote a fucking application letter detailing how I identify with the companies values and how I have experience in this and that technique.
Then I come in and they haven’t even read my CV so far. They ask me basically no questions. They tell me info about their company that is on their webpage that I can recite. I ask them some questions. They seem to like me a lot. Then I go home. Then they ghost me. I don’t know if it is because I lack a PhD or because I am overqualified because I have an MSc. Or because they see a girl with a wedding ring on her finger in her late 20s and assume I will get pregnant soon. The ones that turn me down at least write a copy pasted email saying they chose another candidate. Vague and no details on what set us apart.
For all of this, for all the typing and reading and travelling and interviewing and trial days I am spending money and time. Time I do not get a salary. Time that is wasted and that I do not get paid for.
It is better in science jobs (there they seem to do very anal reading of everything, which I appreciate and I always get an offer) but corporate businesses are hell.
You had me up until one way interview. I don’t respect any hiring manager that cannot face me in an interview. Never do one way interviews because there is no opportunity for the candidate to interview the company.
It’s not the only interview. Jeez. It’s a tool to screen. There’s still interviews.
Look at it from the candidates point of view. You have a set of questions or a task you want us to take the time to complete. We do not have the option to ask you questions and see if it is a good fit. That is one reason why we see it as unfair.
Now I understand that you may have hundreds of applications, 24 hours in a day, and a deadline. I don’t have a better solution for you because I’ve never hired anyone, sorry. I feel for you but many people hate one way interviews.
That’s not the experience we give. What you describe sounds bad.
- candidate gets an email explain company and position in about 3 paragraphs, along with responsibilities and skill we’re looking for.
- offers a short 3 minute video explaining company and role.
- offers a one way interview to introduce themselves, and describe relevant skills or other anecdotes about themselves.
- every candidate receives a phone call
- promoted candidates get f2f (video chat) interview.
So yeah. Perhaps not optimal, but it helps us hire more effectively, and we can process twice {roughly} as many candidates
Ok, but - and please don’t think I mean this in an offensive way, I am asking this in the most naive way - isn’t that your whole job? I get that it is annoying, but you don’t waste 30 hours, you just work 30 hours. Hours that you get paid for and hours that you would use to do the same job/try to hire for another position otherwise. Of course you could get more done (i.e. more people hired) in a unit of time, but at the end of the day that’s not your problem really, is it? You did everything correctly. You still get your hours paid.
“hires for” doesn’t just mean “in-house recruiter”
Hiring is probably not their only responsibility
then no show on an appointment THEY MAKE
I scare myself that I will miss recruiter appointments, I know that I would make a terrable canadate when I was (and still kinda am) going through mential issues.
Headhunters talk big and deliver bottom barrel candidates, no one likes recruiters, so great candidates hardly use them.
Thank you, thats good to know. Even worse are the orgs that “job hunt for the 3 legged deer of our society” . The corrupt ones will make you feel crippled. ironically, hurting your mential health, making you an unfit canadate and exasurbating the problem.
Do you get the impression that these are real humans lying to try and get the job themselves? Or is it just spam from vendor agencies conjuring hypothetical candidates that they in turn will need to find, taking a cut in the process.
It’s really hard to say. Generative AI can pump out unlimited resumes and fake human data to make everything look real. I don’t know of a service that screens candidates or vets them to make sure they an actual human. It’s kinda tinfoil hat to think hiring agencies are flooding the market with fake, so that people like me will just give up; but… i mean… maybe?
I dont see how that could work. Spamming with ai generated resumes are easy enough but finding a candidate who would accept their offer to just lie and go through with it serms impossible and never heard of. I dont know how these applying process works exactly so is it possible that the service is automatically applying for people based on their relevance? Just a guess tho.
deleted by creator
Poor people should just simply try working for their father’s company for a year and then taking a VP position at a small fortune 500. I don’t understand why they won’t try that, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Tsk tsk tsk.
They should just tell their daddies to make another film. Please daddy please! 20 million dollars is still 12 million dollars after taxes!
look, we all know if you click this link here you too can be a millionaire working 6 hours a week. (link withheld because i want to be a millionaire first)
Click “Like” and subscribe to my channel for more tips on being rich!
There’s so many other issues too, such as the fact that old job posts don’t really get removed, employers/recruiters also spam multiple websites with their job posts and forget to check them, and some of the job descriptions don’t even match what you go and sign up for.
No salaries mentioned on lots of posts, multi stage interviews that somehow demand your free time during work hours, so good luck interviewing for other roles while you have a job. Take home assignments that take multiple hours sometimes, sacrificing a whole evening.
Recruiters that will ask for all your information again, despite having found your phone number from your CV, and once you go through that, tell you they have nothing for you and that they’ll be in touch.
Questions that mean nothing in an interview, including acronyms I haven’t used or even heard of outside of interviewing for other jobs, because my job doesn’t need or use them, we just do the work.
Take home assignments that take multiple hours sometimes, sacrificing a whole evening.
Do NOT do this.
Taking a live proficiency test is one thing, particularly if you’re applying for more senior roles, but doing actual projects for free in your spare time should be a hard pass. Full stop.
Not doing a home assignment(or work test as we call them) would mean never getting a job within the industry I work in, or at least not within the country I’m in.
And as someone that have been on both sides of this they are a great tool especially as it gives something to focus on in a technical interview. Though I would say that a requirement for this is that you always give/get actual feedback.
What the hell industry do you work in, then?
Video games
I made the mistake of doing a take home assignment once. They didn’t even have the courtesy to give me feedback on it when I asked.
Don’t forget the tech listings that require 5 years experience in a particular programming language when the language has only even existed for the past 2 years…
Catch-22 situations, where it’s impossible to meet the qualifications. 🤦♂️
This is part of the interview. It’s to see if you can deal with project managers once you get hired.
I feel like these are the real issues - I can’t tell if OP is meant to be a joke … “You forget to check the website and you miss the time”. I mean, that’s on them. Also it seems pretty easy to blag the words an interviewer wants to hear, the real danger is that the job IS NOT as advertised.
The number of interviews I used to sit in on, and wonder WTF the interviewer was thinking… One asked a service designer “if you were a type of cake, what would you be?”
I would disagree, those issues are valid too. Why does every website needs its own account, phone number etc? I get so many spam calls when I start looking for a job because of this. Just e-mail me. I’m not going to check your website every day for 2 weeks just to see if you get back to me.
The spam calls also put less value on actually answering my phone, because half the time it is a spam call. Why does every recruiter need to call? Why does every site need a number when I just need one answer, yes or no. I have my CV, I have my skills on my CV, and with one reply I can send you a very short list of what I’m looking for in 2 minutes, not every job needs a 30 minute phone conversation only for the recruiter to decide they have nothing for me.
And yes, there are magic words the interviewer wants to hear as well. As someone who sometimes struggles in higher pressure situations (which my field does not require at all btw), and also struggles with using the correct vocabulary or recalling random phrases and key words they want to hear, it’s frustrating to no end.
Honestly, I feel this should have all been streamlined by now, especially when I’ve already worked somewhere for years and my company has been satisfied with my performance - why is this not enough? Why can’t this be quantified somehow? An alternative which very few companies do is give me a technical/practical interview that’s actually like the job as advertised. Much easier for remote roles, but can be done in person too. Let me do the job, show you I can do the job, and then you decide to hire me based on that.
I do relate to your last point though, the amount of unrelated riddles or whatever get asked to ‘see how I think’ or something is ridiculous. Even when I get the answers right, the interviewer themselves don’t seem sure. I don’t get it.
In my industry, practical interviews are very common, but they’re not always reliable. I can get as much from asking someone about their process and being talked through a case study they’ve chosen, as giving them a practical exercise to perform on the spot. I’d usually do both.
I’m not disagreeing with the overall inefficiency and frustration of the whole process, I’ve felt it on both sides. It’s messy - bad or overstretched HR teams, slow managers, unclear budgets, poor choice of tech platforms…
One asked a service designer “if you were a type of cake, what would you be?”
“Cheesecake with chocolate frosting. Don’t ask me why, it’s confidential.” (stupid questions deserve stupid answers)
The only possible use I could imagine, was to test how people respond to irrelevant stupid questions, since that happens a lot in some workplaces. Do they get frustrated and make it awkward, or shrug it off politely.
Good point. So how would you say I did… was the frosting part too much? 😃
But really, I wonder if it’s also a neurodivergence test; in an actual interview setting, I’d probably tend to think about it seriously and answer sincerely, then follow up with details if prompted.
Haha, yeah you might be onto something there. It felt like a way to pull the rug from under people to see how they cope, which wasn’t nice. I try to put people at ease in interviews, rather than try to catch them out.
I was ambushed with a “so, what do you do for fun?” once and the sudden context switch made me pause for so long that I must’ve seemed like I had no life outside of work 😬
I was ambushed with a “so, what do you do for fun?” once
Same, I said “I like electronics and taking things apart”, for an IT position. Got the job, ended up on printer duty. That wasn’t what I meant by “fun” 😐
Job is listed as remote
During interview they tell you they expect you to move to bumfuck north dakota within 6 months of starting
To be fair, that is remote.
Job is listed as remote.
During the interview they tell you it only requires 2 days a week in the office. You tell them you don’t have a car… they reply there are trains from where you live to where the office is located… you look it up and they’re right, it’s just a 2 hour commute each way. You start to think “8 hours a week, is like 1.5 hours a day for 5 days, could be worse…”. Then you realize their hiring process requires 3 more on-site interviews before even getting an offer.
Got this with Anchorage, Alaska. How did they expect they could hoodwink somebody up to Anchorage?!
Oh, our apologies, we’re in AK, you must have assumed we were in one of the other 7 Anchorages in the lower 48:
Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi New Jersey Texas UtahWe’ve never had this happen before, how strange.
Jesus Christ you just described my life for the last six months.
I almost died in my sleep commuting home from a job that barely covered fuel costs. Never again.
I worked a job where I figured a full quarter of the money I made from the job went to pay for commuting.
My last job was 8 hours of work and an hour commute each way, but it was by train so it wasn’t too bad since I could read my book or nap. Have to drive an hour or more each way is suicide-provoking for sure.
“the silence is deafening” sums up my job searching experience. I can apply to as many jobs as you’d like but I can’t actually start working until the other side says yes. and they seem to not even register that my application has been sent. How am I supposed to work, if no employer ever even looks at my application?
This is my experience too. I spent 5 months looking for a job on Indeed and LinkedIn but eventually got a job in a completely different field thanks to my father-in-law.
gotta know someone with connections to get a job it seems.
yOu’Re SuPpOsEd To CaLl ThEm YoUrSeLf!
I fucking hate that. If they need the position filled, should they not be checking each and every applicant? Why do I ALSO need to call the place after I sent in my application/resume?
Is that the case? What about companies that don’t have a phone number and instead say to fill out their online form? Are you supposed to just hack them to get their number or something?
Are they still complaining no one wants to work? I thought that reversed last year. When they WERE complaining about that, it WAS pretty damn easy to get a job. For entry level stuff anyway. I had my pick of the litter, but now finding a better job is near impossible again, the way it was before COVID.
I heard someone IRL say it just last week. I think the issue is more specific to certain jobs or industries at this point, whereas before it was widespread and there were worker shortages in every field.
What I glean now is that a lot of the “no one wants to work anymore” issues are centered around low paying service jobs. Which in my mind tells me basically that people have skilled up to fill better paying roles, and the overall reduction in employable workers means there simply aren’t people willing to work those low paying jobs anymore.
If you want to earn enough money to live on, learn a skill and get a better job!
*Learns a skill and gets a better job*
Hey, not like that!
It’s a great anti labor propaganda line. They will never stop saying it now. There’s a group of business interests that wouldn’t mind pushing labor rights all the way back to indentured servitude.
You apply for 20 jobs on Indeed. “Do you want to fill out the application manually, or upload your resume?” You select the latter and upload your resume. Indeed loads the next page: “Please fill out your work history manually.” You scream 20 times
Cpoy and paste if you can and you need to
Pro tip: for the workday applications with the manual forms, I have a separate file I upload without formatting that perfectly fills out the forms in the fields they want, then I upload a formatted resume.
That’s genius!
One of the additional things that sucks is here in Australia if you’re unemployed and/or disabled you can sign up for Centrelink and do Job searching there. But it is just terrible, because not only do you have to look for a certain number of jobs (I think abled-bodied people can do 20 jobs per month, whereas I got to apply for 12 due to disability), but every 2 weeks you have to go in and spend maybe 10minutes or more traveling to the jobseeker place and tell them “no I haven’t heard back from anyone, yes I’ve applied for jobs, etc”.
On top of that, if you’re disabled you’ll get fucked over because you can’t work, you know you can’t work, but Centrelink refuses to put you on the National Disability Scheme because you’re not disabled enough (people who have missing limbs have been told that their missing limb will grow back, or you’ll grow out of it. Some disabilities aren’t even on it, like ADHD isn’t considered a disability and only “high functioning autism” is allowed). But you can be a part of the Disability Employment Scheme (DES) where you still have to apply for jobs, but not as much, but you get some benefits over being a regular Jobseeker.
Generally, the whole thing fucking stinks and I’m so thankful that I’m finally out of it. That and the fact that those receiving Jobseeker payments are being paid below the poverty line because the government refuses to put it up.
I just, ugh. Job seeking sucks, especially when businesses ask for 50million years of experience but it’s entry level. Or the fact to get experience you need to work in this field but to get in this field you need experience. Ugh.
As someone who’s been on Jobseeker multiple times, it is absolutely a poverty trap, it’s designed that way. Much easier to exploit when you’re hungry.
While I do rant about jobseeking, I do appreciate the job provider I’m with (since I’m still in the probation period of this job). Like a previous one I was in honestly made me suicidal because of the things I had to do. And while my current provider still sucks (I am disabled and find walking tough, but they expected people to come back into the office, I couldn’t even do like one week phone call, one week go in like I was doing), but they make me less suicidal. That and they do offer things to me, like vouchers for ubers to work and they’re covering 3 driving lessons (haven’t had a lesson since way before the pandemic).
So yeah, being on Jobseeker is such a poverty trap. It’s made to feel like hell on Earth.
I’m sorry you’ve done it so tough, saddens me greatly that so many are reliant on such a poorly designed, implemented and enforced welfare system.
You wooly for 20 jobs on Indeed. The ones that respond want you to do a one-way interview so they can discriminate against you without facing you.
Wooly
yeah auto-correct…
I’m leaving it
Huh, and I was thinking you woold fix it!
Put in about 40 apps on indeed. Got one interview, didn’t get job. Couple weeks later got an email from one employer that I wasn’t what the were looking for. I responded, thanking them for at least responding. Got the interview. I hit 5 years in the job next week.
I do that but half of the time when I get a response like that it’s from some automated email that says no one will read any replies to it.
My current (UK) employer emails candidates just to say “sorry, but thanks for applying”. I dont get why any company wouldnt at least have the mechanism to email people an update.
Five years ago, people treated other people like people. Happy for you though!
Thanks!
I am in this hell. Recent software engineering graduate, and i haven’t gotten any bites for a long while. I’ve got no idea what to do besides work on my personal projects in hopes that it catches the interest of some unicorn out there that will actually read my info.
If you haven’t already, make a condensed version of your CV in point form. Literally one page, no more. Clear headings (education, experience, skills) with a few key bullets (3-4 max) per heading.
Remember, this terrible situation is due in part to the fact that services like Indeed make employers think they shouldn’t have to invest in hiring at all, so they don’t . They’re lazy, so your approach has to adapt to that .
Hang in there, I’ve been where you are. You’ll get through it.
Hey, maybe start out by looking for bits instead. Sorry, I’m ashamed of my own joke, but it demands to be let free.
If you’ve got a degree, your institution’s job boards are lightyears better than Indeed. Keep working on the personal projects though, they help once you have an interview.
^.^Very respectable
I won’t touch Indeed, but I appreciate that you don’t have a choice in some industries.
I exclusively used “quick apply” systems when I was looking for a new role earlier this year, mainly via LinkedIn and Cord, and it was a much better experience. Fill everything in once, and then single click to send an application. There was the occasional redirect to a web form, less than half of which I filled in (as they were asking for things already in my application).
Recruitment desperately needs this kind of disruption. I hope the trend continues.
I’ve been using both LinkIn and Indeed. I feel like it’s the same thing, but one has a Facebook skin on top of it.
What’s Cord?
I didn’t get my current role through it but I did like the way it was set up
Thanks
Very similar to finding a new home.
Bonus challenge: Find a new home without a job.
Oh man. I’m in my 40s, working full time in an office-based, professional role and renting is fucky even for someone who can prove a stable income. You go to look at a house, only to find 20 other people queued up waiting. You like the house, you offer to rent it, only to find that it’s been rented to someone offering £200 a month more than the list price.
It’s absolute shit.
I am on lifelong disability which means I get a guaranteed amount of money each month for life.
No landlords will touch me, a person with a GUARANTEED INCOME.
However, if you have a job, that you can get fired from or quit the next day, they’ll accept you. Blows my fucking mind.
Btw, for anyone wondering, if I lose my job, the government will step in and give me money for my disability. If I have a job, they don’t give me money. If I have a shit job where I make a couple hundred per month, they’ll cover the difference. I don’t mooch off the government, but my point is that I’m lucky enough to have a safety net, and landlords are so dumb they run away from it.
Godspeed.
No landlords will touch me, a person with a GUARANTEED INCOME.
However, if you have a job, that you can get fired from or quit the next day, they’ll accept you. Blows my fucking mind.
Exactly, it’s crazy. Some even go further and require you to earn 3x as much as your rent.
While I understand it’s a good rule of thumb to not spend more than 1/3 on rent … a good rule of thumb for THE RENTING PERSON, that is. Why would any landlord care if I eat oats or drive a lambo? As long as I pay my rent, what do they even care how much I have left?
And since rents have been rising more than wages, satisfying this unecessary demand becomes increasingly difficult.
Maybe it is because they are not rational homo economicuses. They find someone to rent their place anyways, so they can use their power to punish or reward people based on their societal ideals. Or simply have a say in what kind of people are allowed to live in that hood.
Years ago I rented to a section 8 tenant. She was a single mom, and my mom was a single mom, so I wanted to help her. The rent was guaranteed and I receive a check in the mail directly from the housing authority. However, the tenant never took care of the house. At times, it seems she was unemployed, but was still receiving the assistance, which was nice I guess. But I don’t know what she does with her time because you’d think she will at least try to make the place that she lives in as clean / nice as she can with her time. Unfortunately, I ended up having to pay over $10k to fix up my house after she left, and the home has a lot of random damages like broken window screens, big holes in the walls, etc. Never have those issues with other tenants.
Point is, many people who receive gov’t assistance never have their life together. And my experiences tell me to run away as fast as possible whenever I encounter them. As opposed to people who work hard for their money, they actually take care of the places.
You may be different, but again, once bitten, twice shy.
Same with buying shoes; how do you expect me to go to the shoe store without having shoes to walk in?
And for glasses; how can I find my glasses without glasses?
For real though, don’t ask if I like the new frames I’m trying on. How am I supposed to know? I’m not wearing my glasses
Nowadays one way to do it is to record a video in selfie mode while you try on the frames and move your head around a bit, then switch back to your real glasses and watch the video.
Some glasses dealers now have apps which CG the frames in question onto your face, and the results are getting more impressive and less cartoony.
This is a great piece of advice thanks for sharing it!
I’ve tried the CGI frames before but none of them look like real glass to me. I do have a big head though so that’s probably a part of it.
you were trying to be sarcastic, but instead you have revealed a major issue with the recidivism of homelessness and crime that affects every modern society.
if one of us is in chains, none of us are free.
you were trying to be sarcastic, but instead you have…
Lol no, I know better than trying to be sarcastic online, I was making the same point as you (although less eloquently). Wholeheartedly agree with what you said!
