If you really want the job, this is a bad idea. The form is there so that HR (who usually knows nothing about the technical details of the posted jobs) can match base requirements against what the hiring manager is looking for. If they get a match, they just forward the resume to the manager. Doing stuff like this on the form is likely going to result in them just moving on without looking at your application further. And it doesn't mean it's a bad place to work; the company and the manager might be great.
Pretty much.
Maybe I'm some rare unicorn. But I have NEVER successfully got a job filling out forms like this. It's a huge waste of my time.
Places like this probably get 2000 submissions so they are indeed a waste of time.
You aren't. I was just hired for a great position by not filling out their form. Then they emailed me and asked if I wanted to finish. I said "I won't fill out something that is already on my resume". They had a couple of interviews and a substantial offer. I started last week.
It depends on the position. If it's entry level or some retail job, yes, fill it out. But management or some other position where it's highly specific, this is an absolute waste of my time.
I got a job once that was like this, except on paper.
It was 2017.
And they can't do that with a resume? Most things seem to be able to do that automatically these days (fill out forms with info from a resume that is); just the not damned employer.
They could absolutely attempt to parse the resumes, then ask you to verify the information instead of just having you enter it all again manually, but that would probably cost slightly more.
Also, it's hard for a computer to parse a resume, and most of this stuff runs through a computer before a human sees it, so filling a form makes sure the data is correct.
You also don't have to worry about corrupted or unsupported files.
You're telling me that computers are sophisticated enough to drive cars and create new antibiotics but resumes are just too much? Nah.
If that's the case then don't ask for a resume and only have the form to input job history that can be easily handed over to a manager using a printable template.
It's lazy on HR's part and on the HR software they use.
The fact that you have people that know nothing about the technical requirements of the role means you have an idiot deciding on whether or not you fit. Your chances are crippled from the get go.
These are red flags to me. This is just a tip of the iceberg and a great indicator as to how dysfunctional the company is.
If you’re THAT detached from the hiring process then you’ll never find a good candidate because you don’t know what a good candidate is.
All that means is that if you some how manage to get hired you’ll be working with idiots that can’t do their job because they were hired by an idiot.
I work for a company that makes rocket engines. It makes no sense to teach the folks in HR about all the disciplines that go into the business - mechanical design, combustion devices, materials and properties, electronics, software, etc. It makes way more sense to make sure they know how to do their own job, and for a hiring manager to be able to tell them something like, "Send me all the applicants who have a computer science degree and at least five years of experience." Then I can evaluate which of those applicants is the best fit based on the resume. The form facilitate that.
just because somebody typed this stuff and took a photo doesn't mean that's what they submitted.
Understood, but I didn't want anyone to think it's a good idea.
Would actually love to do that. I just have an extreme aversion to knowingly shooting myself in the foot
Me too. The only jobs I apply to are ones I really want (obviously), so doing this just hurts my chances of getting them.
But I absolutely hate this bullshit.
Yeah its annoying as hell most times
But you would edgily shoot you in the foot!
As a hiring manager, I am absolutely floored how many people do not actually have this information on their resumes. So while most people would assume a lot of redundancies between the form and a resume, I can assure you that many people do not have this information readily available on their resumes.
K so....don't hire them?
That's easy to say when you aren't bombarded with 800 resumes submitted from headhunting call centers out of India for every job.
The purpose of these forms is to figure out which resumes are worth reading. It puts all the relevant information for a first-round elimination in a standard format.
Once the 80 percent of applicants that aren't worth any consideration are eliminated, you can start looking at the actual resumes.
I don't have it on mine. I finished high school (college) 20 years ago. There are way more relevant things to put in my resume than that.
Sorry to say but you hiring managers don’t know jack shit about hiring people. You have zero clue as to what qualifies an employee. Always asking the wrong questions.
The reason why corporations have a hard time finding talent isn’t because a lack of talent. It’s because the hiring process is a joke. But then you’ll complain that no one wants to work anymore.
The amount of top talent you toss into the bin because you don’t know what questions to is staggering.
Truly abysmal.
then why ask for both things? just have a checkbox to indicate that the information is in the resumé, and if it isn't then obviously they shouldn't be hired since they either can't read or don't give a shit.
Why do you need to know where I went to school if I have years of job experience showing that I can do the job? Education seems only to matter if someone is newly graduated and without real-world experience. And high school? Wtf?!
Why do you need to build a system to capture this information from people that can't read rather than just rejecting those applications?
Then why do you need the resume if you just ask for it all again
I'm seeing some hostility towards you as a hiring manager which is rough, because hiring manager is not necessarily HR. It often means the manager of the person being hired. So the person on a specific team responsible for filling positions on that team. I'm not sure if you directly hire for your team or it's an HR term in your case, but just adding this here in case it helps someone not be rude to a random person on the internet.
Also, as a person who hires people on my team (I don't use the hiring manager title, but yea) it's ridiculous how awful some resumes are. We don't use hiring software, and I personally review all the resumes, but we are a small team so I totally understand why that would be used. The overlap of people who don't like filling out the forms but who also want to be evaluated on who they are rather than what's on their resume is a circle. I don't want to dismiss anyone who doesn't have a degree, but just because a degree isn't on the resume doesn't mean they don't have one. Plenty of people leave off the years they worked at a specific job. I can assume months or years, but the form would help clarify that without wasting anyone's time. Decisions have to be made somewhere and if people want to be judged by people in their field, then their full time job will likely not be hiring, so sometimes they use these forms for standardization purposes. I don't like them either, but they are not this evil thing they are made out to be.
Thanks for this completely sane interpretation!
I appreciate your response. I am a cog in the machine and I work within the limitations of the system in which I work. My organization requires data entry into fields such as this example. I have no control over this. I would assume it is to have some sort of standardization, as there is no "standard" format to resumes. I have seen resumes come through that is a narration of their job experience, one that had a sentence or two, one that completely left off any relevant job experience, many that don't have call back information. As I mentioned in my original post, I have been absolutely floored at what people believe to be acceptable. I hire for professional jobs, ones that require degrees and licenses, so these people should "know better," especially as I have nothing to go off of except what you share with me. I want to give qualified people jobs! But if your best foot forward is a sloppy mess, what makes me believe you have the skills to do the job?
Because I know if a hiring manager talks to me, they are likely to hire me, but if I write down that I didn’t graduate college, then they aren’t going to talk to me.
Same. Didn't even finish high school because credits wouldn't transfer and I'd graduate after my peers. Got a GPD and started college while my friends were in their senior year. Didn't finish, but I took some classes.
The greatest lie ever told to me was that without a college education, I'd be worthless. Thanks Dad. That really fucked me up in my twenties. I'm extremely qualified and I learned to recognize it, but boy did it create some imposter-syndrome for a while.
I'm relieved whenever candidates demonstrate that they are less likely to correctly complete important tasks.
"Pick up this can..."
seems to me like this would be the kind of information that you would clarify IN the interview. But what do i fucking know. I'm just a person.
We all, deep down, understand the exploitative of the employer/employee relationship. They are setting the tone for the rest of your life doing bullshit work that doesn't matter at all.
If you ever get through to a person high enough to answer your question of: "why did you ask for my resume?"
...the honest answer is:
"There are two things that look at you, the candidate. For cost cutting reasons, we put your answers you fill in all these blanks into a computer which eliminates you if you don't match our basic criteria. We save money by never actually even knowing your name. If you pass the computer filter, your resume is needed because actual humans look at it. So thats why we ask for both."
Unfortunately this computer filtering step tends to be highly inaccurate and game-able, but I’m not sure what to propose instead.
Unfortunately this computer filtering step tends to be highly inaccurate and game-able, but I’m not sure what to propose instead.
Game-able, as in, entering specific answers (even if they are inaccurate) gets you through the computer and put in front of a human? Working as intended.
Ever since the social contract was broken with employers where they'd give you a job for decades if you stayed there, there's been an ongoing "arms race" of how job applicants can get noticed, and how employers can get usable candidates out of the massive tidal waves of applicants they get. The first step computer filter doesn't have to be perfect, if it even filters out 80% of the candidate that don't meet basic criteria, leaving only 20% for humans to review that is massively better (to employers) than requiring humans to look at all 100% of applicants.
So yes, its game-able to get through the computer filter, but if you still don't match the basic criteria, you'll be eliminated by the human reviewers anyway. The difference is only very small number of candidates will figure out the game-able answers to get through even if they aren't supposed to. This is...until the next round of the arms race where nearly all candidates are getting through. That hasn't happened yet.
There's actually an easy technical fix for this. All we would need is a common format for resumes that is machine readable, e.g. an XML schema that defines what fields should be in there. Then you just need a simple tool with a nice UI for inputting the info. So what are the chances of this happening? That's right, exactly zero.
The EU actually has something like that:
https://europa.eu/europass/eportfolio/screen/profile-wizard?lang=en
Interesting. Never heard of that.
This is about what I imagine would happen.
Once when I was in High School, there was a test that had a fat block of instructions at the top. But buried in those instructions it said "You don't need to write any answers, just write your name and hand the instructor the test, and you will receive 100% credit." It was more a test to see if people would read and follow instructions than it was for knowledge. Needless to say, many people did not get 100% credit.
I can only guess that job applications are like that test in this regard.
My version was the last question of the test. She wanted us to read an entire test and then start answering after we finished reading it.
Lady, was I supposed to read an entire section of the SAT before taking it? That sounds so nutty.
I had something like that in military school except it was group graded...and we couldn't talk, so once myself and like 5 others saw the instructions, we watched the others 25 finish the test. We got lit up for the worst class out of 5 in the current year.
probably not read, but maybe just look at
We had this kind of test, too. I guess it's a popular way of teaching this lesson of "read the whole f*cking instructions! That's why someone wrote them down for you!"
While it is good to filter through people who are unwilling or uncapable of reading/following instructions, it still feels unnecessary.
It sometimes feels like the whole world refuses to stop testing you. It's an endless gauntlet.
I'm so glad I was able to establish a career and become well known in an industry before applying for positions was so demoralising and exhausting. I worry about what things will be like in another few years when my children enter the job market.
Recruiters consistently use bad practices like this and use AI to search for keywords.
Then they get upset when candidates use AI to apply for jobs.
Rules for thee, but not for me!
“nO oNe WaNtS tO WoRk AnYmOrE!!”
This is one of the rare spaces where AI could be genuinely useful if it can accurately pull this data out of mass uploaded resumes.
You won't get hired but it was funny
We've airgapped the employee database from middle management resume double-space-n-font-checkers. Don't ask how, it just happened.
- HR, Marketing sub-team
Employers do this partly to make sure you can follow simple instructions, and so they know you're paying attention to the job you're applying for.
Red flag. Stay the fuck away from any company who thinks this is acceptable. It only gets worse from there.
If you can't handle data entry for the job application how the hell are you going to handle anything else in your job.
