Unlucky
"Further to receiving your application form, I have to inform you that on this occasion you have been shortlisted but due to the number of applications received we have had to randomly select applications for interview. Your application has been placed on reserve, and should we not find a suitable candidate we will get in touch with you. "
I thought this kind of thing was a bit of an urban legend, but apparently not. Still, it's nice to know that after two hours plus of filling in an application form for something you really want to do, your chances of even getting an interview depend on random chance. That makes it better, but at the same time so much worse. Getting a job is just a game of bingo. I wonder how many other recruiters do this kind of thing, but don't tell you about it; I wonder how many other applications just got shoved in the bin because I just wasn't lucky enough.
I was wondering whether to reveal the name of the people who did this, but then thought, why think about things? Why not let fate decide? So as luck would have it I have a 2p coin handy. Heads, I tell you who it is. Tails, I don't.
Tails.
Bugger. Ah well.
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September 7th, 2011 - 20:45
I think they don’t understand the meaning of short list…! WTF?!
September 7th, 2011 - 21:35
I think you’ve made a copy-paste error:
“I have to inform you that on this occasion you have been shortlisted but due to the fact that we’re too fucking lazy and greedy to do our jobs properly we have had to randomly select applications for interview.”
Fixed.
September 7th, 2011 - 22:28
I know someone who used to work in recruitment for a law firm, and apparently the sifting process went as follows.
Applications are sifted into 2 piles, brown envelopes and white envelopes
The brown ones are binned unopened. (brown ones are cheaper so it ‘proves’ that the applicant doesn’t really want the job)
The white ones are opened and the applications put in a pile.
the top 50 (or whatever number is chosen) are lifted off and the remaining ones are binned unread.
of the remaining applications any one with an Oxbridge degree is put forward
of the remaining ones anyone with a First is put forward, then anyone with a 2:1. They are then sifted by A level results, then GCSE results. the ‘best’ of them are then put forward with the Oxbridge graduates to form a shortlist.
These applications are the only ones which were actually read in full.
Naturally this only applies when filling vacancies which have not already been filled by relatives and the children of friends etc.
September 8th, 2011 - 12:44
I am worried for two reasons.
1/ I don’t have my GCSE results on my CV. (I always thought it was meant to be two pages, and with a degree and IT qualifications, I didn’t think that anyone would care what I got for French GCSE 14 years ago.)
2/ Harvey Dent appears to have taken over this blog.
September 8th, 2011 - 13:52
When I was unemployed I found that recruitment agencies always had jobs on offer; and they had the same ones for offer for months on an end;
when you gave them your CV (via email of course) they never got back to you;
This day in age with the amount of junk that they still send me by bulk mail I find the “if you don’t hear from us in two weeks you have been un-successful” line completable inappropriate.
September 8th, 2011 - 14:28
I was once told confidentially that I’d beaten another candidate to a job by a whisker, simply because in the accompanying budgeting test we’d been given I’d done all my working on scrap paper and then used the actual test paper to neatly write out my results, whereas she’d done her working on her actual test paper.
We’d both done really well, but because my test was neater and hers looked messy, I was successful. Crazy, isn’t it? To be fair to my then employers, they did say we were both outstanding and it was really difficult to chose between us, so it was that or eeny meeny miny mo!
September 11th, 2011 - 11:16
Why didn’t they just throw the application forms down the stairs and the form that goes the furthest gets the job?
September 12th, 2011 - 14:35
Why on earth would a company openly admit to being so shit at their job? It may not seem like it now, but working for them would probably have also been shit, if they’re this inept.
Bon chance!
September 18th, 2011 - 04:42
Written CVs on off white laid paper to stand out from 100s on the desk, and it works – or it used to work.
In some ways I understand it. Having recruited for jobs occasionally and received 100-250 replies, what are you supposed to do? An acknowledgement is easy, but it would take days to send individually reply with feedback.
I’d tend to reply to clearly individually tailored direct applications, but not to standard-looking emails.
The one that gets me is organisations that insist on filled-in application forms, which take the best part of a day, and *then* don’t reply.
I once saw Notts County Council with 2 different application forms in operation at the same time, so the information couldn’t even be copied across easily.
Best of luck in your search.
September 28th, 2011 - 12:49
Slave traders are, in general, fucking idiots. I mislaid my CV during my previous term of employment but the HR Droids were able to supply me with a copy as furnished by the slave trader. If I’d known I was capable of all the things she put on “my” CV, I’d have asked for a LOT more money.
I’ve recently heard of several cases in which the prospective employer states “graduates only” on the job spec, which the slave trader then sends to people without a degree. Like I said up there ^^^^, fucking idiots.
October 25th, 2011 - 10:37
I don’t know if this is a fucking stupid idea or not, but in the case of CVs and cover letters, could you not send in 3 or 4 copies, ideally on different days?
That way, it’s far more likely one of yours makes it thru the random selection process, and they may even be curious enough to bring you to interview to find out what the deal is, and be impressed that you have worked out a way to beat the system
Or I may just be an idiot.