By Jason Buss.
After writing on the candidate experience, I recently caught up with a few tweeps, including @CarolineBoegel, @robpitingolo, @arwilliams, and several other job seekers to get additional insights on what their experience has been from a candidates viewpoint.
5 trends that quickly emerged included:
- Applying for a job on-line is cumbersome, time consuming and candidates leave irritated. Yes, still after years of talking about it, the number one issue raised was still “the black hole of HR”.
- A majority polled start on google or indeed (this should come as no surprise), and spend most of their time on a companies career site. Other tools referenced for job searching and networking were LinkedIn and facebook.
- Job descriptions and postings online can be vague, not represent the role completely, and some are poorly written.
- Resume submission tools on corporate career sites can be very frustrating.
- With all of the evolving tools and technology corporate career sites still lack in creating an engaging, and meaningful experience. It’s still one-way.
This example is so appalling, I had to include it word-for-word: I actually applied for one job online that literally took me through a two hour application on their website. They asked me to upload my resume and a cover letter, and then took me through a complex application in which they asked me the same questions that my resume already covered, such as my education and intership experiences. It was one of those situations that I was expecting to spend 20 minutes filling the form out, but once I was already one hour in to the application, there was no way I was going to quit and start over some other time, but I had no idea how long it was going to take me to finally finish it. And that company has yet to follow up with me at all.
It appears little has changed as all 5 of these trends have been talked about for years in the recruiting industry. While there is no silver bullet, here are some additional links and resources for Recruiters to combat these issues:
- Top 5 List for Deploying an Effective Online Career Center
- Seriously? This a Candidate’s On-line Experience in a Web 2.0 World?
- Effective Corporate Career Sites & Measuring Results
We clearly have opportunities with creating an experience that is both engaging and mutually beneficial. What other issues are you seeing with the overall candidate experience?
Wow, I thought I was the only one thinking that the online application process for most companies was painfully cumbersome and ultimately useless.
Recruiting needs to make big leaps. A part of the techno gas I think is that there’s still a large population of the workforce stuck in Web 1.0 and (Web 0.0).
The other part is that recruiters rely on person-to-person communication, networking, cold-calling. And all of that is key. But I think there’s been some confusion or misunderstanding the secret to the web: which is to establish long-term relationships.
I think that smart recruiters would do themselves a favor if they understood social media, learned some of the tools, and market & educate prospective candidates (this is more for third-party recruiters).
If recruiters don’t make the effort to incorporate social media and if candidates aren’t aware of them, then it’s going to be long time until the recruitment process becomes remarkable. Right now, it’s less than remarkable: it’s a waste of time, mostly.
Glad you posted this!
Phil.
Thanks for stopping by, and the comments. You are right on so many fronts, and those that understand (as basic as it is) have a clear competitive advantage.
Jason
I’ve become convinced that the most effective way for company to take job applications is by e-mail. It gives the candidate the flexibility that he or she needs to sell himself or herself. It may not be the best for applicant tracking purposes, but it is the best for user experience. Everyone knows how to e-mail.
There needs to be a whole lot more transparency to this process. When it was pencil and paper there was a person in the gatekeeper role. Now it’s just a cold screen and technology. Companies (not just HR) need to stop hiding behind it.
Jason, It’s like you were writing this article for my company! We (Complete Career Network, owners and operators of eJobFairs.net) are in the final development process of a new product that is designed to address this very issue! We think we will increase the number of eyeballs to applications by as much as 50%. In fact, we are currently seeking recruiters who would be interested in being free beta testers for our this new product. If so, they can email me at bjagger@completecareer.com
I hope we resolve some of these issues for job seekers. We think every employer should provide a great candidate experience – IF they’re interested in hiring the best people (otherwise, do as you wish.)
We’ve made applying for jobs as simple as possible, and we give employers the tools to show off their cultures, teams, etc. Hopefully we move the needle just a little bit forward in giving employers the right toolkit to reach, engage and connect with candidates more effectively.
Hey, is there a section just for latest news
So happy to find this article Jason! In frustration I left a similar rant elsewhere on this site which I’ll repost below.
What is it with employer/employment sites that are so user unfriendly to job applicants?
The last application I filled in took me 4 hours between site timeouts and duplicate entries. I now groan with despair when I hit the apply button and it sends me to the employer site or employer network.
I have applied for jobs that expected me to upload my resume, cut and paste it, and then fill in all the boxes with identical information. Then there is the well known specialist employment agency that took 6 months to update their software to include the latest windows applications. (until then it was impossible to apply on their site if you had updated software)
What a time waster and what antiquated online forms are these companies using for applicant tracking? Why do they have so little respect for their applicants?