The hiring process is broken. It is more than broken, it is a process that treats people as if they are subhuman. In the deepest recession in modern memory companies and recruiters are showing their worst attributes. Mind you this is not all recruiters; I have dealt with some decent ones. Unfortunately, the majority of recruiters are rude, self-serving children who do not extend job hunters even the smallest courtesy.
It is bad enough to be treated poorly by your old company and thrown to the wolves, but to add insult to injury and treat job seekers like dirt when looking for employment is additionally humiliating. Maybe this is a rant since I am going through this hell currently. I want to point out some of the ways the hiring process is broken.
Hopefully some good will come out of this; if I am lucky a recruiter or two will read this and fix their ways (unicorns exist also). Some recruiter or hiring manager may stumble upon tmy post and realize they are doing one (or more) of the things on this list. Read further to see at least a few of the ways the hiring practice is broken and what can be done to fix it.
The Hiring Process is Broken: #1 Resume Scanners
It used to be the manager of a department would read the resumes. Then it moved to human resources. After a while, this job was outsourced to an outside firm or even India. Now, to save even more money many resumes are put through a computer and the key words are matched up. This is done to eliminate those without enough similarities between the resume and posting.
I realize that with the internet and the ease of applying to a job it may be impossible for a hiring manager to read all the resumes. My problem is when you take out human decision making you are eliminating good candidates. It is terrible that your resume will not even be seen by real eyes and you are already eliminated from contention.
The scanner may not pick up some skills making a good candidate miss out on a job they are qualified for. Example, the scanner may read Microsoft Excel, but you have advanced Excel on your resume. A human would see this, but a robot may not know the skills are the same.
The perfect solution to this would be hiring managers reading every resume, but as mentioned, I know this is impossible. You could make sure that each resume is at least glanced over by a human. This way you could guarantee that a qualified person does not miss out on an opportunity because of a machine. Instead of HR creating one more diversity project they can do their jobs and look at potential candidates.
# 2 Ghosting
There is nothing ruder than someone who cannot follow up with a simple email or phone call. Do not give me this “we are too busy”; I worked alongside of recruiters they are not doing that much. The hiring process is broken if you cannot even have enough consideration to let an employee down or tell them where they stand.
Ghosting does not just happen after one speaks to the recruiter; it happens in all aspects of the job hunt. I applied for a job with Campbells soup, they canceled the interview on me (the job disappeared). Afterwards I reached out and contacted the same recruiter about another position and we agreed on an interview. She kindly stood me up for the job interview and she did not answer my multiple attempts to reach her.
There have been instances where I have taken the time to go on multiple interviews and then heard nothing back from the employer. Some recruiters forget me an hour after we talked (or met). The list of times I was ghosted goes on and on. People are cowards, they would rather not talk to you then give you a little courtesy.
#3 Low Balling the Salary
I love when this happens. You find a job; the salary is in the description given on Indeed or you are told the salary by a recruiter. It is perfectly in your range. Get through the interview process and they change the compensation. Sometimes by twenty thousand dollars or so. These days they are trying to get you for a Groupon, even though they “prefer” five PHDs, they want to pay you like you just got out of high school.
I have heard stories where two people doing the same job had a 70-thousand-dollar difference in salary (yes that is written correctly). Personally I worked in a department where my coworkers were all making 20K more than me. I was given a ton of reasons why they cannot compensate me more after I was supposedly promoted. It is a bait and switch; they are banking on you lowering your own value. Every company wants a college degree, then pay their people 30K after they get the job. I would rather be unemployed then pigeonhole myself into a poor salary for life.
#4 Asking How Much Do You Make
Another clear example of a company trying to screw you is the following, the question… “how much do you make now (or at your last job)”? This is a blatant attempt to low ball you given the opportunity. I once had a rather well-nourished recruiter shake her head and wag her finger at me and tell me no one is going to pay me more than 10% of what I currently make. This regardless of what job I got.
Any company that bases their decision on what the company before did has incompetent people working for them. The reason I was leaving the above job was due to being vastly underpaid. I guess according to them, since I took the wrong job during a recession my life should be spent making a mediocre salary.
You should get paid what the job is worth depending on your skills and experience. Your current salary plays no part in your salary negotiations for your next position. I have learned to ignore this question because it is offensive to even ask me. Companies that do this are only hurting themselves, because if you do not pay employees what they are worth they will (hopefully) leave.
In the above example, a couple of weeks after the recruiter told me no one would pay me more than 10% of what I currently make, I was able to move jobs to one paying 35% more. Moral of the story do not let other people pigeonhole you and avoid answering the above question directly. It is better to give a range or keep quiet.
#5 Dumb Red Flags
Like dating, companies use red flags to weed out employees. Using red flags is yet another way the hiring process is broken. Some red flags make sense, such as he has three arrests for murder. Others not so much.
Probably the dumbest is asking why you have not worked in so long. Gaps in employment should not be used against someone, especially in a recession. Why does me not working for four months affect my performance on a new job. I was asked this on a application the other day, “explain your job gap”. I just wrote Covid. Could the worst recession in modern times be responsible for me not finding a job in a week?
These are not the only red flags companies use. I have been turned down from jobs because I was not in the exact industry. In finance the skills are transferable and the industries were not that different. Then there were the multiple times I lost out on employment because I was overqualified. That only encourages me to dumb down my resume. Dear Hiring Managers: Hire the most qualified, intelligent person first. It is better to have someone competent than someone who checks idiotic boxes. The company is better in the long run to have smart, proven people, not only someone who avoids irrelevant alarms.
#6 Wasting Our Time
Think about all the time that goes into preparing for an interview. Dry cleaning your suit, researching the company, printing out resumes etc… it is not a small amount of work. The effort is worth it if you finally can snag a position, especially if it is one that you want.
Unfortunately, so many of these interviews are knowingly wasting our time. All the work and hope that you put into means nothing to them, the company has no intention of hiring you. They already know who they want to hire. How many times have you heard; “we went with an internal candidate”? That is right, you are competing for a job with someone the hiring managers knows personally and sees on a regular basis. It is also assumed they like each other, or the internal candidate would not even apply to begin with. You never stood a chance and they know this.
I believe human resources puts a position externally because it is a check the box policy. This means they have to be able to say they interviewed a certain number of external candidates. It is all a game, but your time, money, and mental state are the victims. Once again, I will reach out to hiring managers and say, please if you know you will be going with an internal candidate, DO NOT WASTE OUR TIME!
#7 Multiple Extensive Interviews
Yet another example of how the hiring process is broken. I understand wanting to get to know a candidate, but there is no reason to put this person through ten hours of interviews. I have, on multiple occasions had 4-hours’ worth of interviews in one day. This was after two or three other interviews. If you cannot figure out if I am a good candidate by reading my resume and talking with me for over an hour, then maybe you should not be working in a recruiting capacity.
I feel as if the hiring managers want to do the impossible task of removing all risk from the equation. All it really does is burn out the candidates. Once I lost my voice after 4 hours of talking to multiple people. The best is when these giant interviews are combined with ghosting the candidate. Proof again your time means nothing to these people.
# 8 Jobs That Never Materialize
Another common occurrence, you apply for or go on interviews for jobs that do not really exist. This is one of the ways the hiring process is broken, and I have no idea why this is being done. More than once I went on interviews and then was told “sorry they decided not to backfill the position”. Was I interviewing for a job that was unnecessary? If this is the case, why have the position at all? There are many unanswered questions in my head.
Regardless of why, it is another way that candidates are having their time wasted. Related to this is when a position will be on a job board for 6-months…it may disappear for a week then come back as new. Meanwhile we are spinning our wheels trying to get hired applying for something that will never materialize. Early in my career, I was showed my desk during the second interview. While waiting for the official offer my recruiter calls me and says they are not filling this position. It is another way corporate America treats men like garbage.
# 9 Unrealistic Requirements
Have you ever looked at a job description and asked, “who the hell can possibly have these attributes?” You could have been doing similar work for years and still not have half the qualifications. Numerous times, for example, company specific computer systems will be on the requirements. That pretty much rules out anyone who does not work for the organization
Most of the time it is filler bullsh*t that has no real relation to the position. I cannot tell you how many jobs I got that had very little to do with what was on the description. This is what happens when millennials from HR fill out requirements.
Another note to hiring managers, hire someone with relevant experience and who is intelligent. I know you think you can get away with not training a person, but it takes time to learn a new job. This brings me to the next point.
#10 No Onboarding Plan
Once you get employment many times the companies do not know what to do with you. I have sat in more than one position where on my first week I did not have a computer. Heads of departments have no idea how to use new employees once they get in the door. These days in corporate America there is almost no training or support.
Just a warning, most of the time you will be figuring it out for yourself. This is especially true today when everyone is working from home. Many times, I do not think even the hiring managers ever knew what they wanted. Maybe get a couple of reports off their plate, but there is little direction. You must create your own path once you get hired. This is why, there is so much busy work, because most jobs are not necessary to begin with.
# 11 Discrimination
Why on every job application is there a box for race and gender? What difference does my race play unless you want to use it to disqualify me from a job? Yes, there was a time when women and minorities were the victim of these practices. These days it goes both ways and sometimes men (especially of European descent) will be openly passed over for characteristics they cannot control. This may rub some people the wrong way, but I have seen it happen (it happened to me as well)
Companies more than admit it today. They have diversity training and initiatives to hire more minority candidates. Well, if I am not being hired because I am not a minority candidate, that is discrimination. It was wrong in the past and it is wrong now.
I have a friend who was told flat out the job he was being groomed for will be going to a minority woman solely because they wanted a more diverse company. He was basically doing the job but was being passed up because of something he couldn’t control. This is yet another obstacle in the broken hiring process. How about we just hire the best person for the job?
Conclusion: The Hiring Process is Broken
Trying to get a job reminds me that I must work harder on my side projects. Being treated like cattle is not conducive to being a free man. The process is enough to break someone especially in times of economic downturns. We are expected to grovel and beg for a job where we are killing ourselves while making the organization richer. All most of us want to do is work hard and get ahead in life, yet we are degraded by a group of people that never added any real value to their companies. The hiring process is in a sad state and it is only getting worse.