A pitting of stupid job applicants. The economy is in the toilet - quit being so dumb. (lame)

The BBQ Pit
1

I guess this is sort of a public service announcement. It’s probably lame and yet I can’t help myself. (TL,DR, skip if you were hoping for something interesting, etc).

My friend owns a small business. He is looking to hire a receptionist/secretary for his business and has enlisted my assistance in choosing because I’ve done this before and he hasn’t. So, he and I very carefully go over what his job needs are, what sort of compensation package he’s wanting to offer, and what his ideal candidate looks like.

We’ve determined that ‘Ideal Candidate’ is either a young gal with limited experience, just out of secretarial college (yah, I know that’s not what they call it anymore, but you all know what I mean) or an older lady with lots of experience who’s looking to wind down her working career.

We were VERY clear about the job requirements when drafting the add: Secretarial diploma or appropriate experience, ability to use the Microsoft suite of products, webpage experience, filing experience, excellent command of written and spoken english and a pleasant demeanor and phone voice.

Friend prepared the ad and submitted it to the Government of Canada’s Job Bank as well as Bow Valley College (the local place that trains folks in admin stuff). He got about 150 applications on the first day. Holy shit, says I - you’ll have loads of people to choose from!! Well, not quite - what follows is a (non-exhaustive) list of things NOT to do when applying for an admin job - or any job for that matter.

  1. If a good command of written english is right in the job qualifications section, don’t submit a resume and cover letter full of errors. Have someone proof it if necessary, but just don’t do this.

  2. Make sure if you’re going to list the name of the firm you’re applying to in your letter or resume that you actually put the correct name in there. Yes, I get that you’re applying to a bunch of places but an admin job requires good attention to detail - calling the place the wrong name gets you in the ‘no’ pile. Ditto for calling my friend by the wrong name. His contact info is right in the frikin’ ad.

  3. Don’t detail all the ways that the company you’re applying to can help you in your career - they don’t care. Honestly, what YOU can do for the company is really the only thing we’re interested in.

  4. Don’t use yummymummy as your contact e-mail address and if you must don’t put hootchie shots of yourself in little-no clothing drinking, partying and barfing on your friends all over your facebook page and forget to change the settings to ‘Private’, 'cus we did go look. Seriously - girl had reasonable education and experience but she now has a HUGE red flag next to her name due to her total lack of judgement. If my friend decides he’s had enough of the interviewing thing, she will be getting the axe.

  5. You do not have a CV. You have a resume. If you do have a CV, you’re not the person we’re looking for. When you constantly refer to your CV in your e-mail, cover letter and…resume, you make yourself look dumb, not smart.

  6. Let’s save us all some time - if you have NONE of the qualifications listed in the add, please don’t apply. Just don’t. This is not one of those ‘I have no experience but this great education but no one will hire me!’ things. Three people on the short list of interviews have nothing other than retail experience, but they went to secretarial school. Currently these three are the top job contenders.

  7. Let me repeat that last one - yes, the economy sucks. Yes, it’s hard to find a job. Yes, people are getting desperate, but for fuck’s sake - do you not get that EVERY sector is having the same issues? Working a series of jobs for 2 or 3 months at various fast food places and gas stations for the past 7 years does not make you an ideal candidate for my admin job. It makes you a pain in my ass. If you seriously want to get work as an admin, go to admin school. Based on the number of adds I see for these schools during the day, it seems that there are quite a few to choose from.

  8. Let me repeat that last one, one final time. Your lack of a job is not my friggin’ problem - quit making it mine! Jesus - 150 resumes, and at least 100 of them are total garbage. Errors throughout. No education or experience. None of the skills required for the job. Look, we have people applying for 3 provinces away who are willing to move here for this position - if you can’t read an add and proof read your resume then you don’t deserve to be employed.

And now, before anyone bothers to say it - yes, I’m the evil HR drone that’s incompetent, obnoxious, out to screw someone’s life over. I threw the applications in the air and decided to interview the ones that landed face up on the carpet. I didn’t even read them. In fact, I’m actually a key word scanning bot that just searched the applications for things like ‘team player’ and ‘good atenten to detaile’.

Oh wait, actually I’m not. I’m the person who worked with the company owner to get the compensation package together to include things like health care, and a wardrobe allowance, and an education package along with a very competitive starting wage in order to attract a high quality of candidate. I’m the person who poured over 150 applications, overlooking small errors in cover letters and resumes because I KNOW that people are applying for 40 or 50 or 60 jobs and sometimes things get missed. I’m the person who will help the owner select the right person for the job, and guess what - if you can’t do the stuff I listed, ITS NOT YOU. No one owes you a job. No one.

And so we’re clear - I reviewed ALL of the applications. If you get no reply back, it’s because you’re application sucked and you wasted my time. I will not be wasting more of it to tell you so.

FWIW, my friend has a pool of about 30 people on the ‘short list’ - 11 on the ‘interview first’ list, so I’m not complaining about a lack of good applicants - there are lots. I’m complaining about a glut of crappy applicants.

2

There are a couple of ‘adds’ and a ‘you’re’ in that post that don’t belong - please ignore as required. KTHXBY

ETA: By the way - if you’re local, have any sort of experience/training and are looking for work, feel free to contact me - we’re still interviewing and I’m pretty sure friend hasn’t selected anyone yet.

3

Secretarial college? Are you kidding?

4

If you don’t give a shit about the problems faced by your potential employees, why should they give a shit if they piss you off? You are just one of hundreds of resumes they send out; they really don’t care if you are inconvenienced. They know that 99.9% of those resumes go in the round file. But it only takes one, and if an applicant has concluded the shotgun approach is worthwhile, there is really no reason to give a wet fart about the the employers who they don’t appeal to. Your problems just don’t matter.

Sound familiar?

5

I think it’s called a CV in some English dialects (British English perhaps?) I assume you’d be willing to work with someone with a good knowledge of some other English dialect but who simply needs to learn a few words to get to level in Canadian English.

Actually, I’m really curious to know how Americans/English Canadians came to call these things “résumés”. It’s obviously a French word (meaning “summary”), but they’re called CVs in French as well. I understand that the concept is that they’re “summarized” CVs as opposed to full or academic CVs, but that word is actually not used in French, so how could it have been borrowed into English? Unless it was actually called a “résumé” in French at some point in the past.

:smiley:

6

I think it’s called Business Assistant or Administrative Professional, actually.

7

Sure. The difference is that I actually have something they want - i.e. an available job.

8

Of course. To be fair there was only one application that kept referring to her ‘CV’. Pro tip: A CV is not 1 page long, and usually includes at least one education credential.

9

BTW - just to follow up - I do care about the problems faced by my ‘potential employees’. That’s why I encouraged my friend to include health care, an education option, and a clothing allowance in the benefit package along with a good wage (he did all of these).

My issue is with people who are not ‘potential employees’ - these are people who can’t read and aren’t qualified, and have no skills. They are not a ‘potential employee’ - they are a pain in my ass.

10

These two do not compute. Out of a pool of 150 you had three people who fit that ‘ideal candidate’ requirement. What if you didn’t have those three? If you’re looking for people with limited experience, you’re going to get just that. If there is no upward mobility or room for growth, (which I assume based on the young inexperienced/old nearing retirement requirement), and you need someone who can use Office, answer phones, and do some filing, then frankly you’re going to get a lot of applicants who don’t have much experience. And, the tasks listed are pretty straightforward; an inexperienced person with the right temperament can pick them up pretty quickly, so of course anyone and his/her mother is going to apply for the job.

Admin school!?!?!? It is to laugh! I’m going to admin school for the pleasure of applying for your dead-end gig? No way. Look, I am computer savvy and a pleasant person. Your small business admin gig is exactly the right way to gain secretarial experience, not blowing my money on some useless certification that teaches me how to format word documents.

1/3 are at least kinda decent? That sounds like a pretty good percentage, actually.

And so we’re clear, you’re the one who put an ad out for a job. You’re the one who needs an employee. You don’t want to hire me, so I wasted your time? Get over yourself. It might be an employer’s market right now, but don’t think that means you’re somehow king of the castle. Both parties in this equation have something to offer each other.
Basically, it looks like you’re hiring for a low skilled position in a small business, specifically looking for someone who won’t mind that the pay/growth/challenge level is minimal, and then bitching that you get a lot of applicants who are under-qualified. What did you expect? That there are hundreds of “certified” secretaries out there who dropped 10s of thousands of dollars on Basic Computers and Filing 101?

Not much sympathy for your plight from my corner.

11

Don’t look a gifthorse in the mouth! That’s a Godsend. You can throw it away immediately if you don’t like what you read. Much worse is when they did get their friends to proof it, and after you employ them it turns out they can’t do anything by themselves.

12

Do they have temp agencies in Canada? Try before you buy, more or less?

13

This is the bit that got me…things must be very different in your part of the world if an HR person can openly look for such characteristics.

Where I work, you absolutely couldn’t advertise for anyone using the words ‘young’, ‘older’ or ‘female’ without contravening equality legislation.

14

Nice. Because what someone does in their off hours is any of your fucking business at all. :rolleyes: Judgmental pointy headed drones like you are what jack up the hiring process for everyone else. Ideal candidate is female? :confused: Why? there are plenty of males who make excellent admin assistants. That’s cool though, just toss half of the population in the bin. Douche.

15

Well sure, but do you think they could proofread their cover letter? Make sure you address it to the correct person? Actually list a skill or qualification you have that you think would be beneficial? I mean throw a girl a bone here.

Well then don’t apply. There, that was easy.

Yep - no doubt about it - I’m not grousing about not getting good applications - we did. I’m grousing about the people who obviously spent NO time on their application and are likely surprised when they’re not contacted back. We spent about 8 hours going over the compensation package and job ad so that applicants would know what they were applying for - I don’t think spending 5 minutes to proof read your application is much to ask.

No - you didn’t read my ad, you didn’t apply the way I asked, you have none of the qualifications I mentioned and didn’t even make an effort to fake it in your cover letter if you included one. Yah, you wasted my time.

Your description of the job is not inaccurate - I mean it’s $32,000 - $41,000 per year with a full benefit package, so it’s not totally sucktastic in the compensation department, and there is an opportunity to for additional training (in accounting) if the person is interested so it’s not totally dead end, but yes, it’s not a high level CFO/engineer/rocket scientist position. That doesn’t mean the person can be a brain dead shmuck who’s never managed to keep a job for more than 2 months.

As to the other, yes, there are hundred’s - heck thousands of certified secretaries out there. And yes, they went to school to learn how to write a letter, do record keeping and document management, record a meeting, and answer a telephone in a cordial and professional manner. No, it didn’t cost 10s of thousands of dollars - I think a 1 year program is about $2,000 (although I’m not positive).

16

Of course, none of those words were in the ad and two of the people being interviewed are men. Of course, of the 150 applicants only about 8 of them were men, so yah, when the ad was being written it was with a woman in mind just because we knew more than 90% of the applicants would likely be women - doesn’t mean that a man won’t get hired though.

Well, I may be a douche but even if we tossed all the applications from men (which we didn’t - see above) it would be less than 10% of the applicants - not half. And while it doesn’t matter what you do in your off time, presenting yourself as a ‘yummymummy’ who parties all the time and doesn’t have the sense to set your facebook page to private doesn’t make you look like a great employee. It makes you look like someone who’s going to call into work ‘sick’ an awful lot after having a bit too much fun the night before.

17

Because one of us has a job to fill and the other needs one?

18

Yes, you’re absolutely right. It was just getting a bit absurd after about 10 letters in a row had errors in the first sentence. Oh for god’s sake people use the frikin’ spell check!!

However, being that I’m a horrible, pointy-haired douche out to ruin the lives of applicants everywhere, I actually ignored those first errors and still read the entire application because I know sometimes people make mistakes. Evil, rotten, bitch-queen, etc.

19

Maybe, or maybe she is just a normal young person who works hard at her day job to finance her playtime on evenings and weekends. What on earth did you expect to find on someone’s facebook page? Not many people are going to post pictures of themselves studiously filing papers and answering the phones. I can imagine the status update now: “Had a great time today organizing TPS reports! (click) check out my mad filling skillz! Lol”.

In reality, all that matters is her job experience and references. Things like hobbies, interests, and facebook data should be used only as a culling tool at late stages of hiring between individuals who otherwise interviewed well are are difficult to choose between. If you are going to play prognosticator then you should only hire applicants who are older gay men in a stable relationship, as these are perhaps least likely to go partying, call in sick, get pregnant, or want to advance farther in their career at this point. THAT’S a safe bet.

20

Of 150 applications, her’s was the only one with such an absurd e-mail.

Yummy Mummy?? Like you can’t sign up for a free hotmail account with just your name to use on job applications? Are you trying to highlight the fact that you’re hot in order to get an admin job? Seriously - total lack of judgement. Employers don’t want to know about you partying and blowing off steam and barfing on your friends. If someone looked up my facebook page, firstly they would find not much because it’s friends only, but secondly they would see pics of me with girlfriends bowling, at my SIL’s birthday party, at an office function, hanging out with my husband and son, etc. You know - a normal mix of stuff. They wouldn’t find pictures of some dude doing body shots off me, or me puking on one of my friends (ex-friends?), or flashing my business out of a car in every freekin’ picture. Firstly, 'cus I’m an old lady and don’t do that stuff, but secondly because even if I did do that stuff, I have the sense not to post it on the internet for any Tom, Dick or Alice to find after my absurd e-mail address pinged their radar on a job application.