A button that symbolizes a ‘Gateway’ or passage through to the massive Online Casino that is the modern day recruitment process.
With a quick review of the Job spec, and Company, the Candidate feels certain enough to throw their Credentials and History onto the table, ingest the ‘All bets are off’ call, and then sit back and wait for that wheel to turn and the mouse pointer of the undisclosed recipient Recruiter to hopefully stop upon their CV.
Candidate Care begins from the second that ‘Apply’ button is pressed.
It is from this moment that a Candidate has completely revealed her/himself. And it is from that moment that the Company is in a relationship with the Candidate.
All the anxiety of finding a new job has led to this moment, that push of a button signifies for the Candidate that they are not only Ready for a change in their lives, but have begun it.
Then suddenly a Beep, an email has arrived; an automated Email response stating ‘Thank you for your Application and Interest in our Company….’ The Candidate is jolted with excitement that there is proof of receipt, or even better a tracking process for their application.
It is unfortunate though that the feeling is short lived. That spark does not ignite a flame of confidence and progress development, instead the Candidate is left staring at their mobile or computer screen.
Days go by, sometimes weeks. The dog needs another bath, the curtains need a good vacuum, another paycheck gets diced up, ‘time is relative’ becomes an understandable term.
Then in the back pocket the Candidates mobile vibrates. It’s from No_Rely@dreamcompany.com. Everything comes to a standstill.
Another automated Email response ‘Thank you for your Application and Interest in our Company….’,
their eyes skim through the email, ‘Unfortunately we will not be taking your application further.’
And that’s it.
The end.
The Candidate informs their spouse, and the guessing begins around the dinner table.
‘Was it my CV Layout? Should I have mentioned the project I worked on with Debra?’
‘Something will come up.’ Is the only response.
With no concrete answers or direction, the Candidate feels betrayed by the system and its impersonal, mass processing nature.
And so human nature kicks in. ‘Fight fire with fire!’
The Candidate now revamps their CV to be as Generic as possible, logs onto every Job Portal and Recruitment Agency’s portals and starts the ‘Spray and Pray’ approach.
Masses of emails are sent to Companies, some that are not thoroughly researched and others that are simply known in popular culture.
‘Detail is not for the modern day Candidate! The more bets I place, the likelier my chances are of something coming up.’
A couple of weeks go by, but this time the mailbox is stacked to the brim with automated rejection responses.
The battle continues for proving one’s self-worth in a world where everyone is so connected that the term ‘it’s who you know’ means absolutely nothing, because everybody knows everybody, and once that happens, the algorithms of Search engines, automated responses and Job Portals kick in!
The battle is lost for the Candidate. Having received a plethora of rejection emails the Candidate now takes a seat.
But the war rages on, the need is still there to find a new job, so what does the Candidate do?
After trying to beat the massive online casino at its own game, the Candidate has realized that the Casino always wins.
'I think that I am not fit for any Job!'
'It is now time to admit defeat and lower my expectations. I am thinking to highly of myself. I just got lucky at my current job, and that's why I was entrusted with responsibilities. No other Company would even consider me, I have the emails to prove this.'
'Something will come up.'
Sitting on their bed, spouse asleep, the Candidate continues to scroll through Job alerts and posts, but this time where the title ‘Manager’ or ‘Senior’ appears, the Candidate scrolls on.
Their thumb taps only on entry level jobs.
‘I can work my way up! I will have to prove myself.’
Again the ‘Apply’ button is pressed, over and over again.
The fiery spirit builds up, the battle can be fought, after all it is a lesser enemy this time.
Some time passes, but this time with less anxiety.
The Candidates phone vibrates.
Electricity runs through them once again.
The Email header: ‘Application Progress.’
The email is opened, and the message is read, ‘Thank you for your Application at the Company, after careful consideration, we regret to inform you that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.’
‘How could this be possible, the position is lower than what I am currently doing?’
Throughout the week the Candidate receives emails, one after the other the rejections begin to pile just like they had when the application was on
spec with their current job description.
‘I can’t believe how stupid companies have become! They treat Candidates in mass. There is no process, there is no personal touch! I cannot believe that Recruiters could be so naïve so as to ignore my skills set. What do you think?’
‘Something will come up.’
Annoyed, and disconnected from their career the Candidate now resorts to turning their back on the world of work just like that work did to them. The whole process now seems futile.
The Candidate will remain in their current state of affairs as the world does not want to recognize, never mind invite them to join the team!
Their phone vibrates, the Candidate now rather blasé about what news their phone delivers, squints at the screen, ‘Job Alert – Interview’
‘What nonsensical Job Alert is this now?’
The Candidate thumbs the email header.
‘Should you still be in the Job Market, we would like to conduct an interview with you. We had your CV on our database and have matched your skills to a position that has just opened.’
The Candidate freezes.
‘Could this be happening?’
The Address is authentic, as it is from a Company that the Candidate had approached, some months back.
The Candidate clicks reply and in the most professional language that they could muster up in their flustered state, responds with, ‘It would be a pleasure to explore this opportunity at your Company. Please could you send me the details thereof.’
‘After all that time the Company had kept my CV’
The Candidate boasts to their friends, feeling special for being selected.
What the Candidate did not realize that throughout their entire job hunt there were recipients of those Applications, and those Recipients, if trained correctly, are there to build up a pipeline of Candidates, a Database that is full of cleverly categorized Candidates, which are retrievable to them when the correct job opens.
Recruiters and the software that they use are always going to appear as ‘none responsive’ or ‘robotic’ as the large majority of people that apply do not get the job, however this does not mean that the Candidate is deemed as unimportant, or irrelevant, but rather unsuitable at the moment.
And this is an ‘ok’ status to have, as suitability through a Recruiters eyes, is not a negative reflection on the Candidate but it is rather a Candidate for another time or position.
Trust me, if Recruiters could just forward the first few CV’s that came
across their desk they would have been replaced by programs to do so, but Companies would fall apart as the Recruiting of an individual is imperative to the Companies success, after all a Company is simply a team of people.
Amor Legere
Konrad Bryczkowski
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