Why Talented People Don’t Get Hired – Liz Ryan
I follow Liz Ryan through an email list and LinkedIn Group. Ask Liz Ryan is the think tank, consultancy and online community home of workplace expert Liz Ryan, the voice of the new-millennium workplace. On a regular basis, I am amazed and gratified at her articles, advice and commentary on the workplace situation and job-hunting woes.
Below is a very good article she has recently published.
Why Talented People Don’t Get Hired
Posted by Liz Ryan • October 21st, 2009
Employers call me and wail, “So many job candidates, and no one to fill my job.” They say that the recent economic woes haven’t made it much easier for them to hire talent. “We get flooded with applications,” they tell me, “and most of them are dreck.”
Your applications are dreck? That’s a shock. Gee, all you’re doing is asking every single person who would throw his hat in the ring for a job in your company to:
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- Waste 45 minutes filling out a cumbersome, 1999-vintage online application form;
- Recall and convey every hiring date (year AND month) and departure date (ditto) for every job a job-seeker has ever held; AND remember every salary and every supervisor’s name;
- Agree to an upfront background check, credit check, and reference check before the applicant has received so much as the courtesy of a return email message; and
- Send all this personal information into the void, on the off chance that the employer might stoop to respond with a phone call, an email message or an off-handed auto-responder that says “Don’t call us; we’ll call you – or else we won’t.”
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Job application processes are insulting. And employers wonder why they can’t fill jobs?
What self-respecting person is willing to put up with this demeaning routine? If employers can’t show more respect to the talented people applying for work in their companies, why would any job seeker with other options sign up for this galley-slave treatment?
