Employers - Is it just me?
Discussion
I read a story about the decline of tie wearing in business.
Came across a great line about your approach when attending an interview and whether a man should wear a tie when so many offices now dont have a tie in the dress code except for maybe when meeting clients.
It said "Better to wear it and be over dressed for the role than risk not wearing one and be under dressed".
I take this same approach with a cover letter rather than just sending my CV off.
You cant do wrong including one - i'd say you stand a far higher chance of being passed over without one.
Came across a great line about your approach when attending an interview and whether a man should wear a tie when so many offices now dont have a tie in the dress code except for maybe when meeting clients.
It said "Better to wear it and be over dressed for the role than risk not wearing one and be under dressed".
I take this same approach with a cover letter rather than just sending my CV off.
You cant do wrong including one - i'd say you stand a far higher chance of being passed over without one.
At my public sector organisation, all jobs have to display a pay range. The ranges are usually 10k between low end to top end. However, new recruits, no matter how great they are, must start on the lower end unless someone very high up has approved a higher starting salary (very rare).
I agree though, annoys me to see job adverts that say '£negotiable' or '£competitive'. Just put a chuffing figure on it!
I agree though, annoys me to see job adverts that say '£negotiable' or '£competitive'. Just put a chuffing figure on it!
ToothbrushMan said:
I read a story about the decline of tie wearing in business.
Came across a great line about your approach when attending an interview and whether a man should wear a tie when so many offices now dont have a tie in the dress code except for maybe when meeting clients.
It said "Better to wear it and be over dressed for the role than risk not wearing one and be under dressed".
'Dress code' and interview dress are completely different things in my opinion. Always dress your best to an interview.Came across a great line about your approach when attending an interview and whether a man should wear a tie when so many offices now dont have a tie in the dress code except for maybe when meeting clients.
It said "Better to wear it and be over dressed for the role than risk not wearing one and be under dressed".
I haven't had a single job (white collar) to date that requires wearing a tie.
At my public sector organisation, we don't accept cv's. Well I don't anyway. You have to fill out a complicated form online, which if you do it properly, will take a few hours to give decent answers.
If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
xx99xx said:
At my public sector organisation, we don't accept cv's. Well I don't anyway. You have to fill out a complicated form online, which if you do it properly, will take a few hours to give decent answers.
If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
Or maybe your organisation's recruitment process is silly and outdated. A few hours to fill in a form?! Sounds like a burden. Do you think great candidates will bother with such a cumbersome online application? No, they're in demand and they move on. The CV may not be the greatest solution but it's better than a complicated online application which will deter the best people because they don't have to put up with your organisation's nonsense - you are culturally filtering applications and my guess is you attract a lot of non-ambitious, average people. Ironically, I think your application process is lazy - you can't be bothered to read CVs and talk to humans. You want everything filed neatly in to boxes, so you can run a comparison. People aren't commodities and can't be graded like that. But your org can't be bothered to do a bit of legwork and invest some time. Lazy.If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
Have you tried applying to Google? Look how easy their application process is. Is your organisation more attractive?
Public sector organisations tend to be narcissistic (inward looking) and you've provided a great example. Rather than look in the mirror, look out the window.
Edited by silent ninja on Monday 22 October 23:22
silent ninja said:
xx99xx said:
At my public sector organisation, we don't accept cv's. Well I don't anyway. You have to fill out a complicated form online, which if you do it properly, will take a few hours to give decent answers.
If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
Or maybe your organisation's recruitment process is silly and outdated. A few hours to fill in a form?! Sounds like a burden. Do you think great candidates will bother with such a cumbersome online application? No, they're in demand and they move on. The CV may not be the greatest solution but it's better than a complicated online application which will deter the best people because they don't have to put up with your organisation's nonsense - you are culturally filtering applications and my guess is you attract a lot of non-ambitious, average people. Ironically, I think your application process is lazy - you can't be bothered to read CVs and talk to humans. You want everything filed neatly in to boxes, so you can run a comparison. People aren't commodities and can't be graded like that. But your org can't be bothered to do a bit of legwork and invest some time. Lazy.If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
xx99xx said:
At my public sector organisation, we don't accept cv's. Well I don't anyway. You have to fill out a complicated form online, which if you do it properly, will take a few hours to give decent answers.
If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
I worked in the public sector, and this form stuff was the bane of everyone's life. For any job that actually mattered, we tried to make the form as small and easy as possible. Officially we were meant to grade entries on their 'answers' to the forms, but in reality we made sure anyone with a good CV got through to interview.If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
This form crap has stopped me applying for jobs, and I know it stops others. It's a crap crap method of recruiting.
hooblah said:
I've applied for many different roles in my search, not just limiting myself to one industry, or one position. Having to type a new cover letter for each job app is tedious, especially when applying to 10 a day. It might be good for the recruiter, but then again it's their job to read my CV and figure it out.
There might be a reason you're not getting interviews.Your CV (and covering letter) and there to get you an interview. If your CV isn't getting you interviews then it's not good enough (assuming you are competent for the role).
I'm a contractor so I go through the recruitment process regularly. I also often recruit as part of my role.
When I apply for a role I make sure my covering letter addresses every bullet point in the advert. Often the matches are implicit so I need to explain how my skills fit the role.
That way I don't need to hack about with my CV which needs to be a concise and well formatted document (important in my job).
To be clear is only the jobs I fit well that get a specifc covering letter. Those that are only a reasonable match get a generic letter with the recruiters name pasted in (looks like I made some effort). Jobs that are only a slight match get a CV only.
Edited by 98elise on Wednesday 24th October 17:43
brickwall said:
xx99xx said:
At my public sector organisation, we don't accept cv's. Well I don't anyway. You have to fill out a complicated form online, which if you do it properly, will take a few hours to give decent answers.
If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
I worked in the public sector, and this form stuff was the bane of everyone's life. For any job that actually mattered, we tried to make the form as small and easy as possible. Officially we were meant to grade entries on their 'answers' to the forms, but in reality we made sure anyone with a good CV got through to interview.If anyone sends me a CV, either speculative or in response to a vacancy, it's straight in the bin. The advert says fill in the form online. Sending a CV is just lazy and already showing you can't follow simple instructions.
This form crap has stopped me applying for jobs, and I know it stops others. It's a crap crap method of recruiting.
One of the reasons we dont accept cv's is because we do blind sifting. Our system takes out any personal information that relates to their age, ethnicity, name, nationality etc during the initial sift. You get to see the full info once you've shortlisted for interview.
That's the government equality agenda for you.
I actually read the covering letters when recruiting for the last few companies I've worked for. I don't give priority to those with covering letters but would bin any that had the wrong job role written on it. Like for a sales role someone might put "looking to build my career as a chef"... straight in the bin.
xx99xx said:
Yep, our system we have to score candidate answers to the (minimum of 3) competency based questions on a scale of 1-7 and give feedback in the system for each one. (Which takes a long time). They also have to provide education history and employment history with summary of roles and responsibilities.
One of the reasons we dont accept cv's is because we do blind sifting. Our system takes out any personal information that relates to their age, ethnicity, name, nationality etc during the initial sift. You get to see the full info once you've shortlisted for interview.
That's the government equality agenda for you.
Sounds like they’re paranoid about unconscious biass by practically neutering the candidate...One of the reasons we dont accept cv's is because we do blind sifting. Our system takes out any personal information that relates to their age, ethnicity, name, nationality etc during the initial sift. You get to see the full info once you've shortlisted for interview.
That's the government equality agenda for you.
phil-sti said:
Cover notes are utter rubbish. Just read the CV’s
in the freak times where i have got an interview or telephone interview you sometimes get asked questions where if they read the CV they would find the answers quite easily. either they havent bothered to read them or quickly forgot either way it smacks of sausage machining the applicants........like NEXT!gets on my nerves. poor prep by the company. the landscape really has changed for the worse.
ToothbrushMan said:
in the freak times where i have got an interview or telephone interview you sometimes get asked questions where if they read the CV they would find the answers quite easily. either they havent bothered to read them or quickly forgot either way it smacks of sausage machining the applicants........like NEXT!
gets on my nerves. poor prep by the company. the landscape really has changed for the worse.
Having interviewed a few people, I have asked questions that would be easy to find on the cv. Yes I know the answer, but sometimes what comes out of the applicants mouth is different to what they put on paper. Sometimes it's good to hear a candidate explain what they did so that they can put their personality in their answer, sometimes it's good to hear them elaborate on what would be a short description on the cv. Sometimes you even find that what some people put on their cv's wasn't exactly truthful. gets on my nerves. poor prep by the company. the landscape really has changed for the worse.
Tired_Peter said:
Having interviewed a few people, I have asked questions that would be easy to find on the cv. Yes I know the answer, but sometimes what comes out of the applicants mouth is different to what they put on paper. Sometimes it's good to hear a candidate explain what they did so that they can put their personality in their answer, sometimes it's good to hear them elaborate on what would be a short description on the cv. Sometimes you even find that what some people put on their cv's wasn't exactly truthful.
The last person I interviewed for a role couldn't expand on a lot of what he'd put on his CV. He even claimed to have done a project but when quizzed on it, he did it with someone else and the bits I was interested in were the bits the other guy did. 
Gassing Station | Jobs & Employment Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff