67 ms·

Most people don’t finish online job applications

• robertwt7 4y ago
  I wonder where does the drop happen in the funnel. Probably the most troublesome part is writing cover letter? I remember that I have to create a template in LaTex for my cover letter which i can just change the company name and responsibilities. At this point I’m not even sure if big companies read cover letters at all.
  • 4ad 4y ago
    I'm just one data point, but every company I've worked for told they me they hired me because of my cover letter. I have 15 years of work experience.
    • vidarh 4y ago
      Conversely, after 27 years as a hiring manager, the vast majority of people I've hired didn't even send one. I think a good cover letter certainly can make a difference, if it helps highlight why you're a good fit for this specific role if it's not obvious from your CV, but I rarely send any myself, and not for any of the jobs I've actually gotten over the years.
  • Mountain_Skies 4y ago
    That's probably a big one though I'd guess the biggest would be the double data entry, where you're asked to provide a resume (usually in Microsoft Word format) and then enter all of that information again, broken up into dozens and dozens of poorly designed textboxes. It really is a huge middle finger to applicants and makes clear that the company believes your time does not have value.
  • danieltillett 4y ago
    As an employer I always read the cover letters. You had better have a slight clue of what job you are applying for or your application ends up in the garbage.
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  The measurement is % of people who click apply. But similar to “buy” I often click “apply” to find out more. After all I know that button isn’t committing me to the job or the purchase until I complete, and many sites gate information after clicking that button.
  • hourago 4y ago
    That seems to be done on purpose but I am not sure why. Do people really buy more stuff because they clicked "buy" to get the info? Or is it just some arbitrary metric that is being improved without having real impact on the business? Maybe to have a separate "get more info" is worse for business. At least for me, the opposite it is true. It makes me hesitate to click in the "buy" button just to find more about the product.
    • csunbird 4y ago
      Linkedin and other job advertisement sites get paid per "Apply" click or redirections, so they gate keep the information on purpose.
      • Cthulhu_ 4y ago
        That's exactly it, hitting "apply" is taken as a performance metric, so (and I'm sure there's a 'law' for this) everything is optimized to meet that metric.
        • phh 4y ago
          Yup, that's called Goodhart law
    • Frost1x 4y ago
      I think part of it is to separate information to better know that a user was interested in a product and read the information further and perhaps it was price or purchasing conditions that turned them off. When you advertise traditionally you don't get a lot of information back from consumers other than those who start or make a purchase. The more actions you put between discovery and purchase, the more you can refine parts of the process. There are probably other psychological elements at play as well about gradually introducing information so you can strategically present the better aspects of something before you talk about say an ugly cost.
• lkramer 4y ago
  What I have noticed is that the more menial, low paid and generally low desirable a job is, the higher that initial barrier is. I suspect it is to at least some extend intentional, though I struggle to understand why that is. On the other hand the initial step in software development job application (my current profession) typically seems a lot smoother, though of course then they are followed up by more technical steps (which generally makes sense). I do see start ups here in London who try to make the process smoother. I do not know how successful they are.
  • Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    > I suspect it is to at least some extend intentional, though I struggle to understand why that is. To limit the number of applicants; like you said, menial and low paid, so having people go through hurdles to apply makes them more motivated than shotgun applicants - and reduces the amount of applications HR has to sift through.
  • 3825 4y ago
    > What I have noticed is that the more menial, low paid and generally low desirable a job is, the higher that initial barrier is. I suspect it is to at least some extend intentional, though I struggle to understand why that is. One suspicion I have is perhaps the people in hiring whether consciously or not believe making the process more difficult improves the signal to noise ratio of applicants. Makes sense when there are 10+ applicants for each open position I think. They don't care about the people they are turning away.
    • nonrandomstring 4y ago
      Optimising for desperation is great if you're building a criminal gang in which most of the day-to-day activities go against a normal person's good moral judgement.
      • Bakary 4y ago
        To some extent a State is a gang, but at a larger and more sophisticated scale. So is any sufficiently large company. The 'criminal' aspect is always a relative measure.
• tjpnz 4y ago
  Aside from the usual resume data entry I especially dislike being asked to write mini essays. GitHub is a particularly egregious example in my own experience. Never again will I invest multiple hours into an application only to be quickly rejected by what I assume was a machine.
  • blackbear_ 4y ago
    Automatically writing cover letters could indeed be a good use for all the recent advances in AI text generation
    • jstx1 4y ago
      Great, more stuff for the cover-letter-reading AI on the other end.
    • Sirened 4y ago
      Would anyone with an OpenAI key be willing to share? Interesting to see what it gives for an "enthusiastic cover letter for a software engineering job at Google" or whatever
      • shapefrog 4y ago
        Write the greatest ever cover letter for a job at Google (I am open to offers - 7+ figure offers only please) To Whom It May Concern, I am writing in regards to the open position at Google. I believe that I would be the perfect candidate for this job and I would like to explain why. First and foremost, I have a passion for technology and Google is at the forefront of technological innovation. I would love to be a part of a team that is constantly pushing the boundaries and developing new, groundbreaking products. In addition to my passion for technology, I have a strong educational background. I hold a degree in computer science from a top university and I have consistently achieved excellent grades. My skills and knowledge would make me a valuable asset to the Google team. Finally, I have a proven track record of success. I have previous experience working in the tech industry and I have a history of meeting or exceeding expectations. I am confident that I would be a high-performing employee at Google. I believe that I have the skills, knowledge, and experience that would make me a perfect fit for the job at Google. I would love to have the opportunity to discuss my qualifications further and I thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, [My Name]
• iancmceachern 4y ago
  100% my experience. If it's too difficult or confusing I move on. The linkedin one click apply is pretty sweet, thats the way it should be, fill all the relevant info out once, not over and over. Also, this is what a resume is for.
  • vidarh 4y ago
    The furthest I'll go is filling in 2-3 form fields or write a short cover "letter" in a form if I'm particularly interested and the job ad provided sufficient detail that I know there are particular parts of my experience worth calling out to them and explain how it relates to the job in ways that might not be obvious to the first line recruiter. But yeah, if there isn't an "easy apply" button on a LinkedIn job ad it takes a lot before I'll click through and even more before I'll consider filling in yet another form.
  • JoeDaDude 4y ago
    I agree on the benefits of the LinkedIn one-click, but it's all about who receives it on the other end. I did the LinkedIn one-click apply once and received a questionnaire with 10-15 questions, the answers to which were all on my resume. One of the questions: Please provide a link to you LinkedIn profile.
• netfortius 4y ago
  IT jobs requiring upload of a resume, then asking to retype the entire content in a web interface of the job site == drop pursuing such.
• qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  I m one of these, i fill out the form, then i get the memories i had interacting with some of these companies, working at other companies. The Process-Dementia, the hostilitys, the relentless culture of using all things in human interaction as renegotiation ammonition. The relentless pressure, ignoring all social norms and employee health, to complete a task. The shallow friendliness, that ended as soon as your usefullness expired. The internal fights, silos and slightly drunk employees, who hated it there, but couldnt say it, cause big Brother Middle Management is everywhere. Its considered the "good jobs" in my area, as in well paid enough to own a house, but every time im tempted to apply and see the logos, and the memories come back, i abort these applications. Some companies are cesspools and its good to remember that and stay away from them. I also warn others to stay away from them. Some people hack these companies and get the easy life there, which is nice, but for people who actually want to work and not interact with such a culture.. not even as customers, if it can be avoided.
  • nonrandomstring 4y ago
    A poetic summary. Toxic work culture is a very serious thing. It's both a cause and symptom of a dysfunctional economy and we need to fix it with the same urgency as problems of transport, environment and health (and it relates to all). Every small company starts out "like a family", full of good intentions, and then ends up in a psychological race to the bottom of naked exploitation, greed and systemetised ignorance. Modern HR selects primarily for desperation and compliance. Management is essentially an activity of self-preservation. Qualities like duty, loyalty, initiative and industriousness are deemed weaknesses. There is no way we can build globally competitive and innovative business in this milieu. How do you do full hard-reset and reboot on an entire culture?
    • kuramitropolis 4y ago
      >Modern HR selects primarily for desperation and compliance. Management is essentially an activity of self-preservation. Qualities like duty, loyalty, initiative and industriousness are deemed weaknesses. This is true for the white collar world - the entire point of which is to put restraints on the actual skilled workers, so they don't start changing the world quicker than psychopaths can adapt. Otherwise the idiots will just drop off the gene pool, and then who's gonna start our wars for us, eh? >How do you do full hard-reset and reboot on an entire culture? You ask this rhetorically, as if it's some sort of intractable question, but the 20th century is full of examples of the West "rebooting" the cultures and economies of non-aligned states, and it sure ain't pretty. Takes about a generation of chaotic violent struggle, give or take. Then, a new local optimum emerges as power inevitably consolidates into the same externality-blind primate hierarchy, "but different".
• rlpb 4y ago
  Is this really accurate? Usually when I'm doing something I consider important, I get partly through the flow, go offline to prepare further, and then come back later with a more detailed answer. This is especially true if it isn't obvious at the beginning what I will need later on. Are they identifying if somebody does this, or counting the first visit as a person who left without returning?
  • vidarh 4y ago
    That's a valid question, but keep in mind that for most of the people clicking through it's unlikely to be something they consider important. When looking for a job, I click through on a lot of jobs where I simply haven't got enough information yet to be invested in any way, and part of what will make me decide is whether the application form makes them look like idiots I don't want to work for.
• 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  I did this twice today. 1st time: "after the initial HR screening and meeting with Dept head, you will have 4 interviews with 4 of our engineers" (expressvpn) 2nd time: "please tick to confirm your data being shared for the purpose of automated application processing" (crossover) F!#k this job market.
  • littlelady 4y ago
    I'm in the same situation. One company that was interested in me would have offered me a junior position as a "full-stack" dev, that should also be able to do "some embedded work". Also they don't "track hours", which is illegal in my country. Jumping through hoops during the process has also left a sour taste in my mouth.Even after spending hours on an application, cover letter, customizing my CV, often no response comes. Even a form letter would be better than nothing! It feels like I'm sending a part of myself into the void.
  • tomp 4y ago
    Excuse my naivety, but what is wrong with these processes? Would you rather they use your data without your consent? 4 interviews sounds reasonable, and also useful for you to meet the team
    • Jochim 4y ago
      It's more like 6 once you include the HR screen and Department head meetings. 4 interviews seems totally unnecessary in itself. Especially if they were all 1 hour or more. Their current process would take 4-6 hours and that's only if they don't have any take home technical tests. 1) Quick phone chat 2) Technical interview - Either review or carry out technical test. 3) Team interview Even then the team and technical interviews can be doubled up and the phone chat can easily be cut out entirely.
    • bigDinosaur 4y ago
      4 hours doesn't seem reasonable to me for anywhere that's not top tier. How many interviews would you consider unreasonable?
• pjmlp 4y ago
  The best part I hate is being forced to upload my CV, which as expected is never handled properly by the system, and then I have to manually replicate the CV entering data into tiny form entries. Also I don't want to give access to my LinkedIn and Xing accounts for data import, which is anyway, again, messed up.
• shapefrog 4y ago
  I would estimate 90% of people who finish the application never hear another word from the employer - with the bulk (~75%) being automated responses [1]. The response rate from clicking apply to begin the process is a wonderful 0.2%. I guess this is why websites reinventing recruitment and recruiters exist, although I suspect 'back in the day' when you would circle ads in the newspaper things were better, much better ... [1] Annecdata collected 2018-2022*
• hardware2win 4y ago
  I hate when I cannot just drop a CV, but I have to pick an open position
• 4ad 4y ago
  Well I'll tell you why I don't finish mine. It is because their UI and UX sucks. They ask for a PDF, but they always fail to parse it, and trying to correct the parsed data is an exercise in frustration. Also, they don't let you only manually type-in the data, they require the PDF to do a crappy job of parsing from. And then they don't let me fill-in things the way I want to. For example, as a one-man operation I have worked with multiple clients at the same time and mediated and implemented projects that were a collaboration between several clients. Their web UI won't accept that sort of thing. Just let me upload a damn PDF, or even just let me type-in free-form text.
• k8sToGo 4y ago
  Recently I wanted to apply to a company. First they had you read some weird document telling you how they can’t pay high salaries, so you should be modest with your expectations. Then further down the form they require you to record a video introducing yourself and telling them why they should hire you. Ended up closing the form right there. Do these people not realize how annoying their process is and how talented people don’t have to put up with crap like this?
  • dcminter 4y ago
    Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;) I believe the thinking is: "This is a great filter to ensure we only get great and passionate people!" when the reality is: "This is a great filter to ensure that only desperate or unimaginative people will apply!"
    • kuramitropolis 4y ago
      >Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice ;) This keeps getting repeated. But honestly these days I can't tell the god damn difference. What is malice, other than incompetent people struggling to survive like anyone else, and paradoxically sticking up for each other through the same repetitive cycle of abuse that prevents them from aspiring to competence?
      • ozim 4y ago
        This and that road to hell is paved with good intentions.
      • svnt 4y ago
        Malice is the conscious identification of that same pathway and the active exploitation of it for the harm of others. It’s a fairly high bar in terms of the behavior of others. Functionally, though, your experiences may be very similar on the receiving end of incompetence vs malice. edit: I want to append this to say: The purpose of the original phrase in my opinion was to encourage cooperation and communication as the solution. In a sufficiently structured corporate environment this solution may be impossible for reasons other than malicious behavior, in which case the statement is without practical value.
• 752963e64 4y ago
• orangesite 4y ago
  I'm just going to leave this here: https://github.com/jsonresume https://github.com/jsonresume
  • cuteboy19 4y ago
    No ATS accepts this, sadly.
• furyg3 4y ago
  Lot of thoughts / questions. First off, if you're getting the talent you need out of your application process, then who cares. If you're not, and your numbers of abandoned applications are high, then throw the forms in the trash can and see what happens for a month. Contact details, attach resume done. I highly suspect that a lot of these 'applications' are ad/click fraud (companies spend a lot of money to drive traffic to their job postings), other bots, recruiters testing the waters to play middleman, or people who were never going to apply no matter how easy the process is.
• lwhi 4y ago
  I wonder how many people _think_ about applying for a job advertised by traditional means; but never actually end up applying? I'd imagine a lot of people do; I know I have in the past. Perhaps the main difference with a digital application, is that we are able to track some of the behavioural artifacts that are created on the lead up to applying .. which aren't available (or visible) via the traditional alterative.
• tempestn 4y ago
  One thing to remember about stats like this is that the sample is very biased. While there are all kinds of reasons a person might be looking for work, and many people looking will potentially be great employees, most great employees already have jobs. The population looking for jobs is going to be, on average, less suitable for employment than those who already have them. Add to that the fact that more promising applicants tend to be selective with their applications, whereas lower quality applicants tend to spam resumes out widely, as long as little effort is required, and it starts to become unsurprising that a large majority of people who click an apply button don't bother to go further when a minor roadblock is hit. Ours is a very different type of business than Home Depot, but we intentionally put a minor roadblock (a fizzbuzz-level coding problem) in our job application, specifically to filter out those applicants unwilling or unable to put in the slightest effort to apply. (And we see a very similar percentage who don't bother to complete it - at least 90%.) The question is intentionally easy, as we don't want to waste people's time, and it's not fair to ask for much before reciprocating. But it is a fantastic way to eliminate the applicants who are just using the shotgun approach, and get down to those who actually have a clue and a real interest in the position. (Much fairer and more useful than keyword filtering imo too, and can be a good way to start a dialogue.) So I guess what I'm saying is, maybe this is a feature, not a bug.
  • willsmith72 4y ago
    I generally avoid applications like those. For one, when I'm applying for jobs, I'm in a totally different headspace to when I'm programming. It's uncomfortable and takes me out of the zone. And two, sometimes I apply for jobs on my phone. With a saved resume and autofill from Google it works out really well - but not if there's a coding question.
    • tempestn 4y ago
      I'm sure it results in some false negatives, but I don't know of a better way to filter the applicant pool to something reasonable. And so far it's helped me hire a fantastic team of developers, many of whom don't have the standard credentials you might look for on a résumé. That said, I do think I'm going to try and simplify the question even further, since I think having anything at all will accomplish the goal, so there's no point making people do any more work than absolutely necessary.
• Distozion 4y ago
  From personal PoV as a software engineer - not that surprising. I've yet to have any success from any online application, while my hit rate when contacted by recruiters is relatively high - nothing to do with particular recruiters being good at gaging my wants or skills, simply they have the incentive to get this done, because only then they get paid. My guess is either the official postings are a company policy requirement to give someone a promotion (get some external CVs in, do some biased comparison to justify why the person deserves a promotion - at least my experience from working in a bank) or the company can't be bothered to spend their own time recruiting & just outsources it to a recruiting company, forgetting they have their own listing open. Also, most if not all of those external platforms are quite bad.
• innocentoldguy 4y ago
  There are two reasons I don't finish some online job applications: 1. Some application processes ask me to upload my resume and then want me to manually enter it again in a series of web forms. I'm not interested in spending 30+ minutes manually copying and pasting the resume I just uploaded. I figure that lack of common sense is systemic in the company, so I don't want to work there. 2. Some companies use third-party services, like icimi.com. If I submit two or three resumes through these third-party services and fail to receive a response, I never apply for other companies that use these same services.
  • hardware2win 4y ago
    >I figure that lack of common sense is systemic in the company, so I don't want to work there. They probably want you to fill that so they can query that data easier Meanwhile still have access to original CV
    • auggierose 4y ago
      They should just put the stuff they extract from the PDF into some queryable form. Then, when there is a hit on a query, direct to the PDF. I doubt that the query results will be significantly worse, probably even better.
  • auggierose 4y ago
    YC jobs does that, too ...
  • trentnix 4y ago
    1. Some application processes ask me to upload my resume and then want me to manually enter it again in a series of web forms. I'm not interested in spending 30+ minutes manually copying and pasting the resume I just uploaded. I figure that lack of common sense is systemic in the company, so I don't want to work there. Workday! If the "Apply Here" button takes me to a Workday link, that's my off-ramp. I have no idea how Workday is so ubiquitous when its user experience and aesthetic is so terrible.
    • 4y ago
• ttr2021 4y ago
  I applied for a role at ThoughtWorks once and their form was an interesting one. They as all the usual details but they an an option in leui of uploading your CV and other details 'or enter manually'. It's the most bizarro thing I've ever seen, a single line text field. Feeling kinda leet at the time I decided to take the plunge and cut and paste cover letter, CV, LinkedIn profile etc into this small field and let it burn. Unsurprisingly I never got contact or received any confirmation or anything.... Why the hell would they even have that as an option? (I am the %8 !!) Example: https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-au/careers/jobs/4526889 https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-au/careers/jobs/4526889 Scroll down to 'Apply for this job' and click to activate JavaScript expanding form....bleaugh
  • ttr2021 4y ago
    Haha, omfg a classic... One of the "questions" on their apply for job form is TL;DR Optional field is REQUIRED and only option is "Yes" "At Thoughtworks, we are intentional about making technology a better place for all. We know that the more diverse our backgrounds are, the more impactful solutions we build for our clients. We foster an inclusive community and focus on creating a balanced workforce reflective of the society we live in.To help us achieve this balance, we encourage you to answer these demographic questions. We collect this data to understand who we are reaching (and who we’re not) so we can do better at connecting with a truly diverse group of potential Thoughtworkers. Our recruiting teams will only see the data collected here on an aggregated level, consistent with our Data Privacy Policy. Responding to the questions is completely voluntary and anonymous. Declining to respond will not impact your standing in the recruiting process." The field is REQUIRED and the only option is "Yes"
    • Nextgrid 4y ago
      It seems like they only wanted to include a block of informational text but the software only supported fields, so they had to make it a dummy required field. This smells more like terrible tech than malice.
  • willsmith72 4y ago
    But why would you enter it manually? Why not click "attach"?
• willsmith72 4y ago
  I went through one the other day that had some dropdowns for "how many years of experience do you have with technology x", which seemed fine, until I found their form didn't work using the keyboard (tabs/numbers), and then found there were no less than TWENTY EIGHT such dropdowns, all required. Do you want to give me an RSI? Other issue is companies with a broken captcha. Can't apply without proving you're human, can't prove you're human because their captcha just spins. Wanna refresh? Sure, but you'll have to enter your details again. In saying that, I find the process better than a couple of years ago. Many companies are able to prefill details like education and employment from LinkedIn. At least it's better than them trying and failing to read your resume automatically.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• cuteboy19 4y ago
  Why do I even need to fill out your stupid forms? Just get all the info from LinkedIn, I'll authorize it. That way I can rescind access where needed.
• FriedrichN 4y ago
  If they don't want to hear from me by phone, e-mail, or in person, they'll never hear from me. Maybe that's the advantage of working in an area with a permanent labour shortage, but I simply refuse to jump through hoops before getting paid. I will not fill out a huge questionnaire which will leak my data, I will not record a video, I will not do a little dance and show my tushie (without getting paid, that is). They can go fuck themselves.
• trentnix 4y ago
  I just went through the job search process (and actually found my job thanks to Hacker News) and was astonished at how many job posting and job application antipatterns I observed. Here’s just a few: - job descriptions that don’t tell me anything about what the company actually does to make money - repeating the same question in your application form, sometimes in sequence - “submit application” buttons that resulted in a server error or 404 (and when pressing back to try again, all your previous info is gone) - requiring me to generate an account (with an overwrought password complexity requirement), validate my email, log in, and then I can finally upload my resume - "we don't discriminate" promises followed by way too many questions about gender preferences and vaccination status and diversity pledges - absurd captchas asking you to identify the “smiling dog” or "plant on a table" or "picture of a living room" through multiple pages - asinine questions like "tell us why you want to work at (Acme Corp or Bunyon Doctors of America or Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company or whatever)" It’s all out there and extremely common. If you manage to get to complete the application and get to the interview process, things don't get much better: - 5 stages of interviews with 11 people over 4 weeks before the committee meets to decide if we want you to pitch us on whether to offer you - "as a policy we don’t provide feedback" but here’s multiple nagging emails requesting your feedback to help us improve our process (looking at you, Amazon) - 3-4 weeks between submitting an application and receiving a request for a phone screen - an endless barrage of “tell me about a time when…” questions Companies often remark they are desperate for good talent but then invest seemingly nothing in making the process efficient, enjoyable, and succinct.
  • tacker2000 4y ago
    Havent looked for a job in about 10 years but even back then it was already loaded with these huge forms that you have to fill out which i loathe. I get it that they want to automate stuff but how much would an extra employee or two cost to analyse the resumes? The scraping software is also not that cheap. I guess it also says a lot about the companies itself if the first experience you have with them is using some shitty tool that nobody really wants to use.
    • jonnycomputer 4y ago
• hericium 4y ago
  Questions about race, like on the Wikimedia Foundation's application forms[1], are completely off-putting for me. But I guess it's working for them: folks treating race-based decision making process as racism would not waste Wikimedia's HR staff's time. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33086141 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33086141
  • _6hmp 4y ago
    I went and looked at the application form for the first job linked and this is absolutely standard in the US at every company I've ever applied to. It's not just some Wikimedia thing. It's voluntary to fill it out and the company is not supposed to use it in deciding who to hire. The purpose is to have retrospective data a company can use to make sure they are not introducing bias into their hiring process.
    • dragonwriter 4y ago
      Here’s the EEOC information page on the practice: https://www.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-race https://www.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-race From an applicant perspective, while physical tear-off sheets for mail-in applocations (one can imagine hand-delivery setups that solve this) are clearly imperfect, web forms are even worse.
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Questions about race, like on the Wikimedia Foundation's application forms Those don’t (oddly enough, given that the voluntary self-identification section for US applicants to support government reporting has a “race/ethnic definitions” expansion block) have a question about race, just gender identity and whether or not one identifies as Hispanic/Latino ethnicity. So its kind of odd to complain about a race question with those as the example.
• linker3000 4y ago
  "...user accounts can be helpful for applicants, as they allow them to track their application status." Name, phone, email address, upload CV. No account needed and you can push-update me via email.
• abrax3141 4y ago
  I once got banned from Yelp for scraping. (I was indeed scraping, but it was for a class project. Nothing nefarious. So the ban was fair, and I was expecting it.) They have some mechanism for getting unbanned that I don’t remember at the moment. So I did that. Crickets. Still banned. Did it a couple more times. Nothing. Weeks pass. F!! So I filled out a yelp job application with random fake great-sounding stuff, and in the cover letter explained that it was fake but your unbanning system doesn’t work. Unbanned in (as I recall) under 24hrs !! and got an email both apologizing for the problem and asking if I wanted to come in for a job interview. (Since this was my real account they knew perfectly well who I was and presumably looked up my LinkedIn profile, or something, since I told them that the filled in resume was faked just to get their attention.) Moral of the story (maybe?): Just fill the thing as needed to get through the automatic gate-keeper, then wow them in your cover letter and real uploaded resume. Maybe some - maybe even most - will be pissed off, but you only need one job!
  • mqus 4y ago
    Maybe this is the way to contact google in case of issues! /s
  • TuringNYC 4y ago
    >> Moral of the story (maybe?): Just fill the thing as needed to get through the automatic gate-keeper, then wow them in your cover letter and real uploaded resume. Maybe some - maybe even most - will be pissed off, but you only need one job! Unless Taleo blocks you centrally and now you cant apply to half the companies in the world.
    • Kwpolska 4y ago
      Care to share more? How and why did you get blocked from Taleo?
      • TuringNYC 4y ago
        This hasnt happened to me, but I was countering the original post -- doing strange things (scraping, automated resume submissions) are not things that just jeopardize you from one company -- they could theoretically jeopardize you from all the companies that use a single platform (Taleo, Greenhouse, Lever.co, etc.)
• jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Most companies have recruiting backwards. The interview process is not about selecting the best candidates but about selling your company so the best candidates are actually willing to even entertain talking to you. Recruiters, HR people, etc. mean well but they kind of just put up a lot of hurdles for the best candidates to even get far enough into the process that there's a meaningful interaction. The profile of the best candidate is that 1) they are probably not bored or unemployed 2) they have many options if they want to change their current situations 3) they are unlikely to engage with cold outreach via email or phone. 4) in the rare case they show any interest in your company at all, you should be ready to go and talk business.
  • urthor 4y ago
    HR and recruiting are very aware of this? They're absolutely trying to filter out the overqualified. Overqualified candidates will resign the second they see the terrible projects the company contains. They're looking for the sweet spot of desperation.
    • jbirer 4y ago
      Pretty much, overqualified means they have leverage and are independent, not easy to jerk around and power trip with.
    • bjarneh 4y ago
      > They're looking for the sweet spot of desperation. You've seen through the fog my friend...
    • bluGill 4y ago
      Most over qualified won't accept the job for the pay you are willing to give. I have seen over qualified people take an entry level job - but it was only offered because they explained they had personal reasons to want to move to the area we were hiring (a non-remote job, though this was pre-covid), and were willing to take a pay cut. As soon as review time came they go a promotion. (At the time we only had entry level positions open, as we had "too many" senior people on the team)
• tumetab1 4y ago
  > The InFlight audit found that the average time to complete an application is 4 minutes and 52 seconds, with the large, legacy ATSs returning the longest application completion times and the newer, more-flexible systems delivering faster results. This seems way to fast for me. I usually take much more longer to known what to write in those damns forms "Why you want to work here?" usually takes me at least 20 minutes to write.
  • dagw 4y ago
    "Why you want to work here?" A lot of people will write that once and then just copy paste everything over and over again. Some people believe that job searching is purely a numbers game and that 100 crappy applications is more likely to lead to a job than 5 well thought out ones. And for all I know they might even be right.
    • notch656a 4y ago
      In my experience they're right at least at the junior level. As a fresh grad I knew I was as shite as everyone else so I sent several thousand applications and then only put effort into the few that contacted me back. I think the more senior you get you are the one selecting and not the other way around, so it makes more sense to put the full effort in up front.
  • ativzzz 4y ago
    > I usually take much more longer to known what to write in those damns forms "Why you want to work here?" usually takes me at least 20 minutes to write. I think this is only worth doing for companies you REALLY want to work at. for the other 95% just write a mostly generic two paragraph response and swap out the company name and your passion for the specific problem they are solving
• CM30 4y ago
  Given how awkward the process is, I'm not surprised. You'd think it'd be 'upload CV, maybe fill in a few fields and submit your application'. But nope. In many cases it's a lengthy multi part form with dozens of things to fill in, usually asking for way more information than you'd ever want to give. Like a ton of personal demographic info that has zero relation to the job in question, and feels invasive as all heck. Or instances where you've manually got to fill in your past jobs in some of multi part field that has to be slowly filled in piecemeal rather than being imported from your CV or what not. And let's not even get into stuff like "please make a video explaining why you want this role" or some of the other ridiculous things I've seen in these applications. Unless you're working as a TV presenter, actor or other showbiz related role, you shouldn't need to do a literal audition. So usually I'll click an apply link, find a huge form waiting the other side (or some other 'trendy' bullshit), and immediately go back to find something else. I'm not wasting my time on providing some fifty pages of documentation before even getting an interview.
  • 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
    >…a ton of personal demographic info that has zero relation to the job in question I recently applied to a (completely technical) position which asked me to state my sexual orientation. Who thinks that is not going to be off putting to many people? Even as a boring straight white man, I felt so uncomfortable I closed the application.
    • CM30 4y ago
      Yeah, your sexual orientation is not something your boss/employer needs to know. Even having that information feels like a potential legal/HR nightmare waiting to happen.
• eigart 4y ago
  I do this a lot. One job I am considering applying for right now is a bit light on the details, and there is no contact information. The full application form is the only way to interact with them. I’ve filled out and closed the form three times.
• ksec 4y ago
  1. 90% of the Application's Data are already in my LinkedIN, or my CV / Resume. Why the heck do I have to fill it in again. 2. Some companies even / still requires you bring your University Certificate or whatever as proof. For Pete sake. That was decades ago. Can I pay $5 to LinkedIn or whatever so once and for all they can verify it from there. 3. The other 8% of the application that I have not included details in my CV/ Resume or LinkedIn could have been reused across all applications. Why do I have rewrite it again. 4. You are not fucking suppose to verify or reference check on me before I even had my interview or offer. So now my boss / management knows I am job hunting? 5. By the time I get to the end of the application I am already exhausted depending how bad the day I had. And some form of PTSD from previous interview where i had to contain my thermonuclear anger or else going absolute animal against the HR / agent / interviewer. Because I have to be professional. 6. My thought on why all these are so bad is because job application, listing site, social network ( LinkedIn ) all work for hiring companies, they are the ones who pay them. And not job seekers. Someone needs to figure out a way where we can turn this around and empower ( I hate this word, but I dont have anything better in my vocab ) employees.
  • mozman 4y ago
    Employment is a relationship. If you can’t be bothered to do mundane work to apply how do I know you will dutifully complete those menial but necessary tasks that come with all jobs?
    • jstanley 4y ago
      Employment is a relationship. If you can't be bothered to treat me as a human being when I apply, how do I know you will dutifully treat me as a human being when I'm working for you?
    • hobs 4y ago
      Do you normally fill out a 1 hour questionnaire with bizarre drop outs for your first dates? Don't accept the power imbalance that is the status quo.
      • 4y ago
• mathattack 4y ago
  Any company that uses archaic software externally probably uses crappy legacy software internally. It’s a sign they don’t value your time.
• bilsbie 4y ago
  One can only retype so much of their resume.
• Foobar8568 4y ago
  As a person employed by a consultancy, working for several clients, these forms are bloody annoying. Even more when reruiters don't understand how consultancy works. And if by any lucks my resume is parsed, I will have to redo everything from scratch, which at this point, I just close the website.
• washywashy 4y ago
  Most job offers I have received weren’t from a timely response from a direct application, but from already being in a company’s recruiting database from previously applying. I find savvy recruiters reach out to people who have previously applied because there’s usually a confirmed interest there, rather than doing cold reach outs to people they find on LinkedIn.
• sarchertech 4y ago
  Having worked for a startup that tried to fix this, a big problem is institutional inertia/too much deference to Chesterton’s fence. In general application form questions have accumulated over the years. When you dig into why there are 95 questions, you’ll find that no one actually knows who added most of them. Or if they do know, that person is no longer with the company. But “I’m sure each question is there for a good reason.” And no one wants to risk removing any of them.
  • Root_Denied 4y ago
    If you can't identify the value of a question then you can't adequately rate responses to that question. The "risk" of removing them is what, exactly? Unless you're feeding those responses into an ATS system that's doing some data correlation/massaging on the backend, in which case can you identify why the system things the question is important - if not, refer to first line.
• danielschonfeld 4y ago
  In the same token it would be amazing if doctors in America tried calling their own office pretending to be someone else and see what it’s like to make an appointment to their office. Same with filling their forms for the first time (proceeds to write your name 13 times, your date of birth 23 times, your full address 8 times etc etc).
  • akuji1993 4y ago
    My last fews doctors visits at my German GP doctor have taken me 25 calls or more to get to a person. This is a practice of two doctors, not a huge house. I think Covid has done a number to those telephone systems, especially since you can only get vaccinated and PCR-tested through gp's now for the most part. I'd love to know if they are aware how bad it really is. You're sick and want to just stay in bed, but need to see them to check up on you. And then you lie there and call them 25 times on repeat until finally, maybe, someone picks up.
  • kennend3 4y ago
    Not just Doctors, but dentists and that whole group have major issues with their "customers". My dentist requires i cancel an appointment by calling in with 2 working days notice. Failure to do so can result in a charge. She has also called to reschedule my appointments with under one day notice??? Last time she did this, i told her there will be a short-notice cancellation fee. She refused to pay, and refused to recognize the irony in what she was doing. She also texts you to confirm your appointments, but the only option you get is to "accept" - you cant respond to cancel/reschedule.. this must be done via the phone only???
  • bluGill 4y ago
    The reason for name and DOB is each sheet of paper needs to have that just in case somehow they get separated. Though it should be not more than once per two-sided sheet of paper
    • Root_Denied 4y ago
      Yeah, this is more likely compliance under HIPAA or other medical records regulations and not something that doctor offices are doing just to make things more difficult. When you have surgeons making sure to mark the leg they're going to amputate with sharpie so they don't remove the wrong one it's not that out there to try and make sure each document has a complete set of basic information on it for anyone looking at it.
• kennend3 4y ago
  myworkday is the flagship reason why! Find a job postsing on linkedin, click apply and you are redirected to [abc].myworkday.com. Need an account first, so you create your 20th one on *.myworkday.com Upload your resume for the 20th time, need to fix the exact same data mistakes myworkday makes every time you upload your resume. Repeat. What value does myworkday offer? why cant i just create one account on myworkday and use it for any job i apply for? Why is myworkday so prevalent when the experience is terrible from a job applicants perspective?
  • orthoxerox 4y ago
    Well, at least it's the same mistakes it makes.
    • kennend3 4y ago
      If you look for the silver lining in things.. Yes, having it make the exact same mistakes every time would fit the bill. Flip side, I'd LOVE to know why companies use it. Like what does it do for them? Why does every company require its own login, and its own resume? wouldn't it make more sense to have a large pool of resume's in a single location?
      • jonathankoren 4y ago
        Companies love secrecy. However, you could still have secrecy by just ACLing the resumes across the applied companies. The downside is that you can’t customize your resume for each job, but that’s easily fixed by hosting multiple resumes.
• Joel_Mckay 4y ago
  Most online forms are simply lead-generation collection for illegal staffing agencies, silly scams, or asshats social-engineering market data. Other forms retain detailed sensitive information for marketing/business-intelligence reasons, or ask flat out illegal questions only a naive kid would answer (targeting those who are vulnerable to legal exploitation). A long time back, I would take the effort to expunge information from staffing services masquerading as company contacts (some places have data retention laws). As experience taught this was the number one warning sign for internal toxic business cultures, low ball compensation packages, and position instability. If the first thing a company does is discriminate, manipulate, and or deceive... you likely won't want to work there... Again, please consider becoming a plumber , as it is the reductionist logical dream of all techs =)
  • parthianshotgun 4y ago
    Or a carrot farmer!
• anthlax 4y ago
  The current optimal strategy for new grad SWE applications is to shotgun as many out as possible as fast as possible. I know many people who’ve applied to 50+ new grad jobs (even in this market) and due to its many to many nature, many new grad job applications get 20k+ applicants (from an inside source at a medium sized company). It makes new grad applications slightly better than a random lottery. There is nearly no difference between an applicant that gets screened in and an applicant that gets screened out at the margin. Really unfortunate situation, and I don’t know if there’s a solution. Colleges solved it by adding a barrier to entry to apply (you have to pay) but jobs can’t do the same thing. Perhaps a arduous application process is a kind of mechanism to throttle applicants and weed out those who are just applying for applyings sake?
  • sigstoat 4y ago
    > jobs can’t do the same thing is there a legal restriction? i'd pay $5 to a company when applying to an actually interesting position if they promised i'd get a non-form letter from a human back about my application, good or bad.
  • happyopossum 4y ago
    > The current optimal strategy for new grad SWE applications is to shotgun as many out as possible as fast as possible. > It makes new grad applications slightly better than a random lottery Your second assertion indicates that your first may not be true... Even new college grads know people, have been through internships, and have the ability to research jobs and companies to find a better way in. Do that. Ever been to a trade show? In a tight job market it's not uncommon for a good chunk of the attendees to be carrying CVs and asking about jobs. I used to roll my eyes at that, but now I see it as a go-getter getting-their-go-on, and if I were hiring for what they're looking for, I'd shepherd their app though the process and ensure they made it to the post-screen interview stage. That's just one example of how to do it - there are tons of others. The point is that straight out of college, your job is getting a job. Spend 40 hours/week on it. Work hard. Try new things. Learn what works and what doesn't (pro-tip - every time you make it past the first stage, ask someone how you got there!). The people that do this are going to go farther than the people who shotgun 500 job applications then give up.
• psychphysic 4y ago
  Most jobs are over subscribed and simultaneously there is low unemployment and finally many are actually going to be filled by one of a few candidates who were in mind before application started. I hear all the time, looking for a job is like a job in of itself. Then why are you leaving so much work unfinished?
• gwbas1c 4y ago
  > they are being asked to answer the same question more than once, or they are being asked to enter data that is already contained in the resume that is also being uploaded That's pretty much the point that I stop. As a professional in demand, I'm not going to do data entry for a mere job application. (But, if I see an apply button on some other job board that lets me upload a resume, I'll let the company's HR see my resume and do their own data entry.) The problem is that hiring companies are treating applicants like a captive audience; and have little empathy for how frustrating their expectations are. Interviewing for a job, especially a professional job, is always a two-way street. When I apply, it's because I want to know more. Extensive data entry for a job that I'm not sure I want, or that I'll be hired for, is a waste of my precious time.
  • pandemicsoul 4y ago
    The interesting thing to me about this, and many other responses here, is that it's so blind to the reality beyond the tech space about how hiring actually operates for a job seeker. If you're in a position like, say, "software engineer," your skills are clear and unambiguous. You can list the same skills for every job application and eventually find what you want. But many – if not most – job seekers don't actually have that kind of experience. There's a ton of experience that needs to be tailored to the employer. I'm in the nonprofit operations space and there's about 10 different ways I can spin my experience based on what's being asked in the job listing. I don't WANT to copy & paste my LinkedIn because that's not going to get me the job – it reflects what my previous employer wanted, not what my new one might want.
    • Bakary 4y ago
      David Graeber wrote a great book about this phenomenon
    • dentemple 4y ago
      Many sites that allow you to export stored resumes (such as LinkedIn) will also allow you to store _multiple_ resumes. But even when they don't, there's nothing stopping you from having these multiples ready on your machine and updating the aggregator site as necessary. So even in situations where tailoring is needed, it's still a completely unnecessary step to solicit details that are typically found on a resume. Prior to becoming a software engineer, I had to tailor my applications just as you pointed out. BUT I ALSO HAD MULTIPLE RESUMES READY for each situation, since writing a new one from scratch--each and every time--would've been a completely pointless use of my precious job-seeking time.
• LegitShady 4y ago
  "oh thanks for filling in the resume fields after uploading your resume! Now get you game face on because we want to record you answering 10 minutes of stupid questions on video." "No."
• game_the0ry 4y ago
  > According to Appcast, one of the industry's most respected recruitment data providers, the candidate drop-off rate for people who click 'Apply' but never complete an application is a whopping 92 percent Employers, out of laziness and entitlement, have pushed away all responsibility and effort in hiring, which fell on to lazy, entitled and incompetent "human resource" specialists, who then outsource to applicant tracking systems that have not changed much since the 90s. Predictably, employers complain that the candidates are lazy entitled when they have difficulty hiring.
• JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  If your hiring process sucks, everything else about the company must suck, too. First impressions and all that.
• danielvaughn 4y ago
  I just went through a round of applications recently. Luckily I got hired from someone reaching out to me on HN, because the experience was fairly miserable. More often than not, they’d ask for my LinkedIn, which I’d assume would pull in my resume. But no no no, I then had to manually enter all of my past experience. When you have over a decade of relevant experience, this is quite cumbersome. By the end of each application, I was so irritated that I declined to submit a cover letter to any of them. No one has time for that. Out of 12 applications, I got 7 flat out rejections and 5 no-responses. I chalk it up to the cover letter, but I’m sticking to my guns on this. Cover letters aren’t useful these days, especially when platforms such as GitHub exists.
  • lelandfe 4y ago
    FWIW, I spoke with 5 recruiter friends about cover letters while I was applying last year. Their stance: ain't no one got time for that – unless it's a tiny company. Each of the 5 said they never ever read cover letters, but allowed that truly small startups, who are thus extremely selective, may put some weight into them.
    • bluGill 4y ago
      Cover letters are useful for two types of candidates: Fresh our of college (or even looking for an internship), or other non-traditional path to a technical job, where you don't have experience and need to convince me you are technical enough to interview. (this also covers people who have large gaps trying to get back into something technical) Candidates who know they are over qualified and need to explain why they would accept the position anyway, and thus it isn't a waste of our time to interview you for a position that can't pay something reasonable. Otherwise I read them, but they don't tell me anything. I want to see evidence you have done technical things like the type of things we need someone to do. Your resume should give me a better indication of what you can do because it is what you are doing.
      • danielvaughn 4y ago
        The fresh out of college situation is a good point - I’d recommend a cover letter in that scenario. There isn’t enough experience to assess a candidate so makes sense to counter it with a letter.
• awkward 4y ago
  Desired salary? As a required field? Not today Satan. People don't complete online job applications because they have all the user hostility of modern nudge driven tech but implemented with the subtlety of a brick in a burlap sack.
  • Root_Denied 4y ago
    CA and NY are about to have laws go into effect that require posting the salary range, should make that question a bit easier to answer. Just put in the highest part of the range.
• dr-detroit 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ExxKA 4y ago
  I am going to change this with Trovinto.com Trovinto doesn't ask for CVs or your life story, it just validates candidates competencies with less than 10 job specific questions, before they ever reach an application tracking system. It helps HR and hiring managers generate a relevant interview guide and then it automatically evaluates and ranks the submissions. I am looking for feedback so please try it at https://use.trovinto.com https://use.trovinto.com Let me know if you are interested in partnering.
• rafabrodz 4y ago
  I have just filled a job application with 33 inputs which 17 of these were textareas. aint nobody got time for that..
• uyuyuyuyuy 4y ago
• adamsmith143 4y ago
  It's pretty simple, if you make me upload my resume and then want me to fill out a massive form with information directly from my resume I'm out.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• vhodges 4y ago
  So... I work for Jobvite (Employ) where I manage the team that is responsible for (amongst other things) the services that power both the career sites CMS and the job apply process (on the Enterprise side of the business). The answer of course is not to use the ATS apply process. It's almost universally a bad experience for candidates. Home Depot should take a look at our products, they would have different outcomes if they did.
• athinggoingon 4y ago
  The absolute worst is iCIMS. It's probably used as an obedience/submissiveness test by the recruiters. If you make it through the application process you've shown that you're desperate enough for this job.
• bingobob 4y ago
  love it in 2022 we still cant agree on some common form standards for this type of data
• deeblering4 4y ago
  I'll bail from a job application if the tech trivia starts. Even a fizzbuzz. It's a complete waste of time. Easily gamed or "crammed" for and provides little to no measure of actual problem solving or capability in the context of actual work. On the other hand it's a strong signal that the company adheres to many "best practices" that aren't grouned in reality. So I say thanks for the red flag interviewer, goodbye!
  • PainfullyNormal 4y ago
    How do you find a job, then?
    • jonathankoren 4y ago
      The VAST majority of jobs don’t do this during the application phase.
      • PainfullyNormal 4y ago
        The vast majority of jobs don't ask technical questions during the interview? Have I just been the unluckiest applicant of all time, then?
        • jonathankoren 4y ago
          > The VAST majority of jobs don’t do this during the **application phase**.
          • deleted 4y ago
            [deleted]
• samtho 4y ago
  I have found, being on both sides of the interview table, the jobs that get applications have the following characteristics: 1. Salary range 2. A short list of “must have” with most items being in the “nice to have” 3. No bullshit form questions, maybe a quick text-only “cover letter” which is ultimately just a Captcha. And this makes sense, why would I waste my time filing out some asinine personality test or resume re-entry when the pay makes this a non-starter? Being too greedy with your requirements prevents people who would otherwise be qualified for the role from applying in the first place. A lot of these larger companies have had the luxury of having a high false negative rate but it’s one they are finding they cannot afford any longer. Unfortunately the high entry bar coupled with the “sink or swim” once your in a company just makes people inflate their résumés and job hop once they get a better offer. We’ve seen it in tech for years and now we’re starting to see it in other industries as well.
  • kennend3 4y ago
    > why would I waste my time filing out some asinine personality test or resume re-entry I'm currently looking for employment and find this frustrating. In return for me spending 10-15 mins filling out their personality test, i get nothing? At least give me the results or something for my time?
• DebtDeflation 4y ago
  >90% of the Application's Data are already in my LinkedIN, or my CV / Resume. Why the heck do I have to fill it in again It's probably closer to 100%. As soon as I see the application form wants me to re-enter my entire job history, my educational background, and my contact info, I immediately exit it.
• Grothendank 4y ago
  This is why I want to build an AI that goes around filling thousands and thousands of job applications with my information, and just gives me a firehose of the BEST remote interview opportunities. But then I show up at the interview just to mock the interviewer! I would add metrics, and a global leader board to see who can jilt the largest number of the most valuable companies! It would be a fun hobby, that many many people could enjoy together! Lets make hiring just /impossible/ for companies, so long as they want to have difficult yet exploitable job application processes!
• 12xo 4y ago
• AlwaysRock 4y ago
  Feature not a bug. Recruiters want qualified applicants, not applicants. The easier the application the more absolutely stupid applications you get. If you've ever handled incoming resumes you know what I mean. I'm not saying the line cook couldnt learn how to become a lead software engineer but they probably should at least have some experience as a developer first. HR/recruiting and the managers actually with open roles dont always have the same goals.
  • SentientAtom 4y ago
    Screening applicants is LITERALLY their job. No need to shift the burden of poor candidates to the good candidates by requiring resumes be parsed into format stripping text boxes.
• electrondood 4y ago
  The point of these obnoxious forms is to filter you out as a candidate. Every step of the process is meant to filter you out as a candidate. Referrals as 5% of applicants, and 50% of hires. Make friends with coworkers, and then as they move on you have a massive network that allows you to bypass all of this bullshit. Also, I've consistently found that any company that uses this shit software is addicted to complexity and unnecessary processes, and was worth later quitting.
• smeej 4y ago
  What a lot of these comments seem to be missing is that this article is focused on the kind of menial retail labor nearly anybody could do. Those are the Home Depot-type jobs with the gigantic staffing shortages. What the article seems to be missing is that if an applicant doesn't want to be there enough to spend five minutes and 52 clicks filling out their form, the company knows full well that if that applicant becomes an employee, they're going to stop showing up at the slightest inconvenience and inconvenience their team, leaving them short-staffed again. This process at this job level is a glorified captcha. Instead of proving you aren't a robot, prove you have at least a tiny interest in getting this job.
  • im3w1l 4y ago
    Yeah there are important selection effects at work. You nailed one but I think you missed another. Five minutes is the completion time for those that did complete it. The people who abandoned the application might have done so because they realized it would have taken hours or even days to dig up the relevant information for the required fields. The people who can complete it in five minutes are those that have all the information at their fingertips, because they already applied to tens or hundreds of other jobs. The person who has worked for your competitor for 15 years, and is considering making one single application to you will have to do more work.
    • happyopossum 4y ago
      > The person who has worked for your competitor for 15 years, and is considering making one single application to you will have to do more work. I think you're gonna have to support that assumption a bit more - job apps (especially ones that can be done in 5 minutes) don't ask for a bunch of data that isn't generally at your fingertips, and your example would make the process even easier - 1 job in 15 years is easy to remember and faster to type than 8 jobs in the same timeframe.
      • im3w1l 4y ago
        "Start date.. Hmm I think it was 15 years ago.. Or was it 14? Let's see, I finished university year N, and then I worked at X for 5 years... I think? Maybe I can check my bank statements... they go back 3 years online, and 10 years if you ask them nicely.. maybe I have an old diary in some box in the attic? Well it's late now, I'll remember to check when I clean it up next month"
• donretag 4y ago
  Online applications are indeed ridiculously long, yet somehow, when a recruiter contacts you from LinkedIn or other method, they do not require any of this info. No formal resume, no references, nothing. A large part of the problem in the us is the required "Voluntary Self-Identification" information. It is voluntary, but it still needs to be filled out, even if the response is Decline to Answer. Should be optional. Companies are now taking an extra step and asking about pronouns and other identifiers, beyond what is required by law. I just want to complete this application and move on.
  • _fat_santa 4y ago
    > Online applications are indeed ridiculously long, yet somehow, when a recruiter contacts you from LinkedIn or other method, they do not require any of this info. No formal resume, no references, nothing. This is one of the reasons I don't fill out job applications anymore. If there is a company I would like to work for I find their recruiters on linkedin and reach out to them. Though my past few jobs have come from either a recruiter messaging me with a position and me messaging them with any open positions they are trying to fill. The last time I filled out a job application I was in college applying to my first tech job.
• joelcfont0214 4y ago
  Agree. LinkedIn should contain the most accurate and up-to-date professional information about each member. This in itself is a resume. There is no need for double entry elsewhere. If a company can not extract that info when recruiting, it is clearly behind the times and losing candidates. I certainly look down on companies that still have such antiquated and awkward job applications.
• duxup 4y ago
  When I was job hunting the last time I filled out so many forms that my auto fill values in my browser(s) were just jacked beyond repair. I just deleted them all and let the browser re-memorize them. Somehow all the same and yet not same form fields just messed up the browsers I used.
• ny711 4y ago
  The job application system is broken and is in dire need of a fix. Half the time companies just post jobs to test the candidates they can get when they really have an internal person they are going to hire.
• Aachen 4y ago
  Has anyone ever heard back after filling an online form to apply for a job? After moving to a new country where I didn't have a network, I looked online what companies are here and tried to apply to various. Most had some online system, a few just told you to send an email. The only responses I ever got were from companies where the job ad had the email address of someone whom I should send my CV to. Better, even, if it's a real person and not hiring@example.com. I think one of the ten "automated" companies sent an automated email after a year that I might want to check the site for new ads. Lol yeah sure I will, great success last time. They were the one where I had worked for before but in another country (and had multiple good references), and they couldn't be arsed to respond at all (just like all the others with online application forms). Rot in hell.
  • throwthroyaboat 4y ago
    I applied for ~50ish jobs online when I graduated (90% at overseas firms). Only one company (FAANG-ish) sent me a response, and that's where I ended up getting a job.
  • aeyes 4y ago
    I once did it when I found a job posting on one of these sites which looked very interesting interesting to me. I didn't really expect anything from it and I wasn't really looking for a job at the time. But I thought it couldn't hurt to see what would happen. Got a call the next day, interviews the same week, contract signed the following week.
• mixmastamyk 4y ago
  I know I’ve personally been enraged at being expected to write my life story into a thirdparty system and then ignored or not given an offer. To the point I will not entertain these things any longer until an offer is in hand.
• browningstreet 4y ago
  I've never gotten a position by filling in a job application.
• hardwaregeek 4y ago
  Job application portals are hot garbage too. Regularly lose your state, regularly require lots of manual, slow entry forms. Regularly have like 2 minute AJAX calls that could fail at any moment. There's also the vaguely insulting patterns like only putting MIT/CMU/Stanford/Harvard/etc. on your college list, punctuated by "Other". I have a love/hate relationship with applications that are just an email. On one hand it doesn't box me into the requirements of the job and lets me make my own case. On the other hand I know that the company is missing out on so many excellent candidates simply because writing an email is a lot more work than filling out a form (at least for most people).
  • mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Writing an email and attaching a resume is a small fraction of time it takes for job sites.
    • hardwaregeek 4y ago
      That's true, but it is a major blocker for people. A lot of people find sending an email daunting, especially more than an impersonal form. They need to compose a message and make it personal to the company.
  • neilv 4y ago
    > There's also the vaguely insulting patterns like only putting MIT/CMU/Stanford/Harvard/etc. on your college list, punctuated by "Other". To select where candidate went to school, and they only listed options of big-name schools and then "Other"? Maybe they were trying to make a joke, and it was inappropriate. Or maybe they were being surprisingly transparent about the brand-seeking prejudice that some employers have.
• riffic 4y ago
  job apps are definitely not the way to score a job. they're for suckers. the best way is to work your network for a connection. Steve Dalton has the best literature on this concept.
• DeathArrow 4y ago
  As I was recently applying for jobs, I can tell that many companies have annoying application processes. Many require you to apply on their site, ask for LinkedIn profile, ask to upload your resume but also ask to hand fill the same data in their forms. There is also some stupid web site used by many for the application process that requires you to create another account and refill the forms for every application even if you already uploaded you resume, input LinkedIn profile and completed the same forms on the same website for another position you've applied to before.
• yandrypozo 4y ago
  especially if I have to write a dumb presentation letter and write again every skill that I have in my resume
• agd 4y ago
  Three reasons for this: 1. Difficult/lengthy application processes can filter for intent 2. Structured data (obtained during sign-up) is useful for recruitment platforms 3. Some ATS's are just bad Point 1. might be difficult for SWEs to understand, but in lower leverage roles (e.g. non-grad) you sometimes have a 100+ applicants for a single role, so any filter helps a lot with the recruitment process.
  • maerF0x0 4y ago
    > so any filter helps a lot with the recruitment Only if the filter is good. What's a good filter? One that improves the quality of candidates at a given market price. I don't think filtering out people who realize the system is bullshit/broken is a wise filter. Such a filter means you'll be capturing the portion of the populace that is unable to think beyond what they're told and inefficiently bash their heads against brick walls. I know the cynical will say "Exactly! thats exactly what these employers want!" But truthfully, it's not, it's just what they think they want... This is part of what is breaking America down, people getting what they "want" instead of what's actually "good for them". I understand these are just concepts and really messy in reality, and there's a dystopian take of false benevolence. But America I believe that America used to work because people used to be optimistic, which meant they could work with honest benevolence towards many/most. I was telling a friend yesterday that one difference between the Canada I remember and the America I live in now is that Canadians used to not chase every last personal profit (dollar). As an example, if a company could buy a piece of software that helped them perfectly price their product giving an average increase of $101 dollars, but at a cost of $100... most would say "yeah, the company should do that! they make an extra dollar..." but what is missed is the customer ends up paying $101 dollars for the increase of $1 profit. I think in Canada people let some of those marginal dollars lie, thinking it was just too much effort to chase it, and not good for everyone involved. Not good for the customer, the software developer could do something virtuous with their life instead of predatory, the entrepreneur can both feel good for how they act in the marketplace and also sell something else for $100 that the customer now still has.... So what does this all have to with hiring software and forms? I don't entirely know, but I think this form stuff is a symptom of a real problem to be fixed, not just bandage over.
• tristor 4y ago
  I've done this in my past when I was younger and looking for more menial work. I remember distinctly that I had decided my side hustle of repairing PCs for the elderly and doing networking for small businesses would be good experience to support me applying to Geek Squad / Best Buy while still in high school. The moment I finished entering my basic information, their hiring form was a multi-page psychological evaluation, which I did not feel was an appropriate thing to do on a prospective candidate so I noped out immediately. This article isn't really focused on applying for software engineering roles, but for menial roles. When that happened to me decades ago it was rare, and Best Buy was one of the first companies to do it, now I see my teenage daughter applying to entry level roles and it seems nearly every company is doing these sorts of psych evals, and worse your profile is tracked across multiple employers because the company offering the service is the same. No wonder people are noping out. Nobody should have to undergo a psych eval done by a computer program, and not even a qualified person, just to be able to flip burgers or stock shelves. It's demeaning, dehumanizing, and it frankly should be illegal.
  • eastbound 4y ago
    As an employer in France, the employee has so many rights that you are very conservative on who you hire, and if you can ask for a psycho evaluation, you’re tempted. After all, you want employees to not steal, and the government doesn’t take care of putting those in prison, so you have to filter that yourself. In theory the diploma should be enough, but the govt doesn’t take care of sustaining the diploma levels, because it’s unfair for some protected groups. So I just fired my first person who I had assumed having a Masters degree in communication implied they could use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Turns out in communication they don’t type much in Word. Now it’s gonna be on my hiring test.
• lowercased 4y ago
  Most companies don't contact or reply to people who do finish online job applications.
• atlgator 4y ago
  If I click Apply on LinkedIn and it redirects to Workday or Brassring, I immediately close the window. I'm not spending 30 minutes creating an account and filling out endless forms because the platform can't parse my resume properly. Kudos to companies that have adopted simple platforms like Greenhouse.io. Upload the resume, answer a few supplemental questions about the job, self-identification questionnaire, and submit. Easy.
  • MisterSandman 4y ago
    Workday needs to die in a fiery death.
• DeathArrow 4y ago
  Most of my interviews came from applying through LinkedIn. Some companies are content with you only clicking apply through LinkedIn and getting the data from there, while others have you redirected to a terrible mess like Workday and waste your time doing mindless data entry. Most of the companies who contacted me back for an interview are the ones who got their data straight from LinkedIn.
• dataminded 4y ago
  We need a standard schema for resume data. This problem shouldn't be an ML problem.
• Maursault 4y ago
  It never ceases to astound me that employers are apparently incapable of reading a resume and have absolutely no consideration for the fact that job seekers are not merely completing their single aggravating application, but hundreds, and expect that work, and it is work, for free. Look at the resume, if there is strong interest, interview me, if interest continues, check references, and if you want me as an employee, make an offer and hire me upon acceptance, and then and only then require the application be completed when I am being compensated for my time. It is bad enough that even once hired, payroll is offset by two to six weeks before compensation for work completed two to six weeks earlier finally arrives, that I still an required to volunteer an hour or more of my time to painstakingly complete a job application.
• naet 4y ago
  A lot of comments focused on their software engineering applications, but this article is about Home Depot online applications which are likely not for technical or computing positions. Many of their applicants might be great at handiwork but rarely use a computer (and may not need to use one regularly on the job). I was recently helping my father in law apply for entry level jobs. He isn't that old but is not a very computer literate person, and he was getting extremely frustrated when he would walk into a grocery store / thrift shop / hotel with a printed resume but they wouldn't accept it and were always telling him he needed to go through their online application portals... which he struggled to fill out on his own. I helped him fill out a few and honestly I can't even blame him for struggling on some of the application portals; one in particular for a Hilton hotel was absolutely awful online applications that constantly hit errors or timed out for no good reason. Some were hard to find online, and of course the classic re-entering all the same info in different ways for online forms quickly gets annoying.
• neilv 4y ago
  When I'm actually interested in a company/position, and cold-calling, I'll actually go though the Apply button forms (even though the forms almost always seem poorly implemented). Where I next cut off things is if I invest in their forms, but then they don't seem serious or savvy on their end. The most common problem here is that they say they want a Staff, Principal, or technical cofounder person-- but the interview process hoops seem to be for zero-experience new college grad filtering, or for hazing. IMHO, the biggest thing many tech companies -- from startups to FAANGs -- need to hear about hiring top talent is that they aren't Google, and they can't just copy Google's rituals, without having Google's reputation and value proposition.
• more_corn 4y ago
  Let me guess. Applicants upload resume. They are then asked to paste 30 different fields that could be parsed from the resume. They figure “if you can’t be arsed, I can’t be arsed” and then thy go apply at a place that’s not so cavalier about wasting their time. But it turns out that most companies hiring practices are archaic and broken. Hence the “most” part of the headline.
• mikefallen 4y ago
  The best is when you use the linkedin connection to pull your resume and then they ask you to fill in the same information again. Insta close any app that does this
• colechristensen 4y ago
  A complicated -- usually poorly functioning -- application form is a solid red flag, especially when I've given the information in another form, usually a resume. Then again, I've gotten all of my positions through responding to the constant recruiter spam beyond the age of... idk 22 or something. A mostly out of date LinkedIn profile is almost exclusively my career search tool of choice.
• ivanmontillam 4y ago
  In my experience, while applying to jobs, I've found that recruiters have become too entitled, and even if you're 100% fit for the job ad you're applying to, they still want to force some random process on you. I understand recruiters have the incentive to lowball you and play hardball when you're trying to find, at the bare least, the salary range. Still, sometimes you're literally overqualified and willing to take a bit less, but that entitled attitude deters a perfectly fitting candidate from applying. Then you start to post high-quality stuff on LinkedIn, HN or elsewhere, and when they don't find another candidate to lowball, they seem to regret it. The approach recruiters apparently take is about thinking that candidates are cattle, numbers on their HR system.
• citizenpaul 4y ago
  HR/Hiring has become toxic. Companies lost a little leverage in the pandemic. Now they are stomping on people to "get them back in line" with horrible "hoop jumping" to prove you are worthy of a job. Why would you want to finish an application when you can read between the lines that this company is terrible.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• potsandpans 4y ago
  I've found it somewhat offensive / invasive that applications are asking me to disclose my sexuality recently
• gareth5851 4y ago
  A recruiter once called my co-worker and bragged about getting me a job at another company. This was before I was ready to leave.
• abudabi123 4y ago
  Since Elon Musk has entered the building at Twitter. The online job applications procedure can be easily fixed. Jobseekers can enter their details because they can trust Twitter under Elon Musk and a quick turn around process like that you see in the SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla connects worker to workspace. Connect to Ziprecruiter?
• SentientAtom 4y ago
  I see you're looking to apply to our technical position. You will be happy to find we have excluded salary from this posting to assure your heart is really in it for the career and development! We see you have a resume to attach, please copy and paste every field into a separate box, and make sure to give us the phone number of the manager you had in 2003 and also the day you started. Excellent, now we will ghost you or if we are interested we may put you through 6 rounds of hiring interviews where you can explain to non-SME's why you deserve the opportunity to work here. Great, now complete 34 modules on sensitivity, espionage, theft, and how to operate doorknobs.
• rushils 4y ago
  Yes, the recruiting process is archaic. That's what we're trying to solve at Simplify (YC W21). Our goal is to modernize the job application process and make it as seamless as possible. We're building a common application that helps you both discover and apply to highly relevant jobs. One of the tools that is powered by our common application is our Job Application Autofiller: https://simplify.jobs/autofill https://simplify.jobs/autofill With the autofiller, you are able to breeze through some of the most annoying job applications (think Workday, iCIMS, Taleo, SuccessFactors and more). Our goal is to make this process as simple as one click.
• sonicanatidae 4y ago
  Why would anyone waste their time uploading a resume, as requested, then spending the next 15 minutes entering in, everything on the resume they literally just uploaded??!?! Let's not get into OCR in these, it's abysmal, throwing information all over the form and usually, it's simpler to just fill it in yourself, if you're that desperate.