I thought I’d rant about different websites and their job application “tools”.
I think if anything applying to 1000 jobs has made me an expert on the subject.
The best kind of site is one that just asks for a resume and cover letter be
emailed, and then emails back politely and effortless acknowledging reception
of resume and cover letter.
| Insert joke about government ineffectiveness here |
WORST: since I aim mostly in the public sector, I’ve applied a buttload via
Neogov, a job posting/resume collecting site for local, state, municipal
agencies. The process isn’t too horrid (I wish they would letyou rename your
profile though). The worst part: checking “job status”, the statuses (statii?)
never change! I’ve applied to 135 jobs with Neogov. The most recent (7
applications yesterday), the oldest and one hundred of them have the same
status: application received. Even jobs that were courteous enough to tell me I
was rejected have the status as “application received”. The other 30 or so say
something else: in review, checking references, approved, etc. Those statuses
don’t change much either. What’s the point of having a status page if none of
those statuses mean anything? Why bother? If an application’s been rejected,
say :rejected”. On file for future consideration. “We’re just teasing you.”
“Don’t give up hope”. “ha ha ha, you still think you’re in consideration”.
Really, Neogov, get with it and fix your half-asses service.
RUNNER UP: I realized that I can disclose #2 worst career submission site
without revealing my location. The site: YMCA of a large metropolitan area.
I’ve checked the Y site for small areas, and they don’t have this problem (just
submit application email). This very large Y, though… whoa! It’s a marvel straight
out of FrontPage 1998! It even features a scroll bar within a scroll bar! It’s
four pages of navigating nightmares, requiring cut and pasting resume and cover
letter into an embedded word processing window that’s neither Word nor anything
other word processing site, requiring the whole resume/cover letter to be
completely reformatted (I just applied yesterday, and not only that, but my
resume was completely centered, with no way to un-center the alignment!
| "Y" can't you have a better job application site? |
Question for HR people: when you get a resume submitted on a crappy site
like this, and it’s obvious your platform fucked up the formatting and that the
applicant really did a good job with his/her resume, just got frustrated trying
to reformat it to your platform, do you dismiss it outright? Or wade through
the fucked up formatting because you realize your platform sucks and you don’t
want to unfairly disqualify applicants?
Anyway, the Y’s site also ends with a really horrible skills spreadsheet,
the purpose of which is really mysterious. If I’m applying for a camp counselor
job, do you really want to know my ten-key and excel experience? Cause I have
that, too, but… I just want to be a camp counselor.
And Y, you can’t say it’s cause you’re a large non-profit. I’ve applied to
LOTS of nonprofit organization, bigger, smaller, and roughly the same size as
you, and your submission site is THE WORST, hands down. Please update. I really
like the Y and want to work there, and luckily the staff I’ve met are far more
competent than your site.
Oh, and they also ask TWICE: “Have you ever molested a child?” I appreciate
them asking that outright. Awkward, but… yeah, better to just get that out of
the way.
A CLOSE THIRD: Taleo. Taleo is a ‘service’ used by nonprofit and for profit
companies. It’s awkward because like Neogov, it’s used by many, many different
companies. But whereas Neogov is centralized –in that all applications are on
the one site- Taleo is sort of customized per company. I say sort of because
I’m not quite sure. Say I see a job on a New Company; I click to apply and it
says “registered with Taleo? Sign in here!” If I say “yes!” because I’ve
applied via Taleo before but not to this company, it’ll say “sorry! You haven’t
registered with Taleo before. Please fill out this form…”. If I click on “no!”
it says “please fill out this form”; when I’m done filling out the form, it
says “our records indicate you’ve registered previously with Taleo, please sign
in…”
| Tally-ho to any site using Taleo |
This has happened to me repeatedly, a frustrating circle of signing in,
filling out forms, and having to do it over, until I’m say “fuck it! I don’t
care if you get my application or not”.
I swear, at time 80% of my frustration and the most aggravating part of
being unemployed is dealing with sites like Taleo and others. Their purpose is
unclear or redundant -simple scanning software can pick up my data, like name
and address. Why have me fill it in separately? Instead of just having people
submit cover letters and resumes, you require through to jump through flaming
cyber hoops with all sorts of fancy bells and whistles. If your company uses
Taleo, you should really get into the 21st century.
