The Three Worst Job Application Sites!

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 21^st century.

Cause all this is obviously having detrimental effects on your HR process and organizational operations: you haven’t hired me!