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Ask Slashdot: Why Are Online Job Applications So Badly Designed?
First time accepted submitter GreyViking (3606993) writes Over the past few years, I've witnessed a variety of my intelligent but largely non-technical nearest-and-dearest struggling to complete online job applications. The majority of these online forms are multiple screens long, and because they're invariably HTTPS, they'll time out after a finite time which isn't always made known to the user. Some sites actively disable back/forward buttons but many don't, and text that's sometime taken a lot of effort to compile, cut and paste can be lost. And did I mention text input boxes that are too small? Sometimes it seems that the biggest obstacle to getting a job can be being able to conquer the online application, and really, there has to be a better way: but what is it?
Did you RTFM?
Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
Did you try turning it off and on again?
..seems to be online forms in general. Considering how disparate various forms and their submission mechanisms are I think the only course of action would have to be at the browser level. Perhaps some automatic usage of the LocalStorage api to store text typed into these fields. Though that might lead to some security concerns. Perhaps recalling that cached data requires some form of user authentication for the browser itself (which isn't a bad idea in general).
I dunno, just spitballin' here...
In principle these things are not bad, but in practice, as you have found, the result can be crap. You would think some of the best and worst of web 2.0 interfaces could come together to fix this entirely... autosave similar to the GMail interface, and infinite scrolling of the entire application process to not require going between multiple pages.
Look for the contact us, use it, ask for an application to be mailed (or e-mailed), fill it out, send it back.
Online forms are generally designed and built by the lowest-bidder who promptly closes up shop after a project is completed, I wouldn't expect much from them.
You would expect that you are not being phished?
What annoys me the most is they ask you to upload your resume... and then ask you to fill out a million fields with the exact same information that's already on your resume.
Upload resume. Parse $Fields. Eye-ball check and correct. Submit. Done.
Real jobs don't come from HR. They come from business contacts.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
... there has to be a better way: but what is it?
The first step would be for the job application site to ask their users and listen to the comments about the site.
You know, just like Dice listens to all our comments about beta...
alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" ; # https://pipedot.org/~stderr & http://soylentnews.org/~stderr
Of the corporate owner, Dice.com; their online applications are surely WELL designed...
Job apps are designed to create searchable text for HR. Real people glance at resumes.
Maybe they're just weeding out the people who don't want the job bad enough to complete their terrible application system.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The reentering of resume information is ridiculous.
What if there was a common XML format that represented your resume? You created this using a desktop GUI and just upload the resume.xml to potential employees.
There is no relationship between an online job application and getting a job.
Online job applications are neglected because no one needs 10,000 online forms filled out for 1 job.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
On my Android, the first letter of every word gets capitalized on many sites .. Whats up with that? Is that client side or server side nonsense?
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
Have gnu, will travel.
Maybe being able to get through an application form on a webpage is the first test that weeds out the incompetent.
Applications and confidentials are usually built by people who don't have a clue. That's the norm these days and you should know that by now. The non-sense I've seen in the last 15 years in this area is bizar beyond words, both in type and amount, and I'm sure every slashdotter here has an evening full of stories to contribute on that subject.
I personally wouldn't even fill out such an application. If I can't talk to the team beforehand to evaluate - for both sides - that an application would make sense, I don't even bother. And a short 2-liner E-Mail is enough to lead up to such a phonecall.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Online job applications are designed to make it as easy as possible for employers to trim the list of applicants quickly. There are a lot of people looking for not-a-lot of jobs. The logic here is that if someone can't fill out the application correctly they probably wouldn't be a very good fit for the job.
Now, whether or not that logic is valid is another question to ask.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
2 reasons:
1. because they aren't designed to be easy for YOU, they're designed to be easy for HR to put in a database.
and relatedly,
2. because applying for jobs online can't be too easy because otherwise the signal-to-noise ratio suffers.
Virtually every written form I've had to fill in has sucked just as badly. None of them provide enough space for the information asked. Even with things like phone numbers they won't give you enough room. They also force you to incorrectly summarize things, such as education. Do you have a masters, bachelor's degree, or high school diploma? Check one. It's ridiculous, but so far I've only ever had to fill them out AFTER I've gone for an interview and they only want them for their HR files.
the problem is HR
the *concept* of an online job application is fairly simple from a coding perspective...making some kind of form requires some choices but this is basic stuff
the systemic issue is with the people who define the parameters for the information...the HR people
HR is usually full of people making decisions that affect whole systems they have no understanding of and have no way of receiving feedback systemically to improve, part of the general problem in US biz structure
applying for a job is excruciating in the US today...it's just layers and layers of bad management
Thank you Dave Raggett
If it was so simple to send applications everywhere, people would. It doesn't cost them anything, but it costs you time and/or money to have someone process them. If you make them jump through a few hoops, you'll at least filter away some of the worst spammers who can't be arsed unless they can email their generic application letter and CV. If it's a job you genuinely want, what's taking 5-10 minutes out your day to apply? Personally I've spent much longer tuning my application and CV to show I've read the advertisement and made a good effort to show what skills I have that's particularly relevant to that job. I suppose if I was out of a job it's different, but I don't need to carpet bomb the market. I look for jobs I'd really like and make a few, but serious efforts.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Having developed /. Beta, Dice is experienced in designing the world's most innovative websites.
Online job application systems aren't intended to find good candidates.
They're designed to allow HR and recruiters to select the specific set of buzzwords they're looking for but have no understanding of, all while doing the minimum amount of work and the least amount of understanding.
You don't really think HR reads and is capable of evaluating all of those resumes, do you?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This is a recurring problem when making software, especially business-to-business.
The problems are invisible to the managers of the company buying the software, because THEY are not the ones finally using it. They are probably not even aware that they can influence its usability (by providing usability requirements), or use it as a criteria when deciding what solution to buy.
Thus, they exert no economic pressure on the providers of said software. These providers, in turn, somewhat fall into the same trap - they never see the problems themselves since they are B2B. The struggles of their users affects their bottom line way less than, say, an e-commerce site, and they do not sell to their users anyway, they sell to an intermediary.
This is a solved problem - use a user-centered design process, iterate over mock-up prototypes, and do a usability test of the final product.
The ones who are hurt by this is, in the end, the companies looking to hire, but they won't ever realize the problem lies with bad usability of their recruitment software.
It simply doesn't matter. The job applications process doesn't affect corporate branding and is intended - primarily - to weed through a huge number of candidates and reject the vast majority of them. There's simply no value to spending time making these systems good. One might say they even serve to weed out people not dedicated enough to deal with the bullshit.
The one exception is if you are web shop looking for developers. Then your application process better be flawless or you're going to attract some pretty terrible applicants.
This really does sound like a push for dice. At the very least, they should be listening and require their clients to use a dice supplied application system. This would make it possible to pull profile info directly and eliminate redundant entry between applications.
For sites not using dice or monster...get with the program. If the application process is robust and cost effective, it would solve a lot of problems.
There is no pressure to make the process simply-- if you could not figure out how to apply for the job but hundreds of other people could, then maybe you're not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Why fix something that screens out those who lack effort or intelligence?
Why Are Online Job Applications So Badly Designed?
Um... Because, while not rocket science, good software and human-interface design is often hard?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
People just got to XYZ's job portal to apply for job, they don't rate or complain about the product. The job portal doesn't generate any revenue. Nobody says that they are not going to join/interview for a job at XYZ because their online job portal sucks. There is no competition in the space at all. Why would the portals be any better?
HR is the problem.
Totally useless dept set up to provide jobs for airhead daughters of executives 50 years ago.
Now it shits all over everything.
A lot of companies use Oracle E-Business Suite as their HR and/or payroll system. An EBS module is iRecruitment, which includes candidate web application capabilities.
Pretty much everything this article highlights as wrong with modern recruitment sites applies to iRecruitment. Even by EBS standards it's a horrific unusable mess and Oracle would do the world a favour if they deleted the code base and demanded all their customers remove the binaries.
Basically for input it helps to do small things, round the edges of the box by 0.25ex, set font size correctly at 1rem, ensure it has padding of 0.25ex, width of 10em, and also make sure it has a hover (generally transform:scale(1.05) ) ensure it has a focus, ensure it has a default when not hovered or focused. However these types of things are NOT part of asp.net and are not taught very much in schools (teachers teach, none of mine ever actually designed a website before taking my money thats for sure). It really has to be a passion that goes beyond asperger syndrom like repetition and into creation and detail, which quite frankly these companies don't care about.
It's also a giant red flag that the company does not aspire to quality but to a baseline function that's 'just enough' sort of like atari did when they released E.T. if they cannot get basic logistics like hiring together then you should realistically know to keep a super careful eye on your paycheck. Also expect them to do ridiculous little stupid things like put you outside in hot sun for hours on end without sunglasses, proper clothing, water, or sunscreen etc.
Organizations NEED a whole lot of people and most people just don't get to that baseline calmness required to truly carefully artistically create a thing, these people must be quarantined from the creatives because they WILL disrupt such a delicate process. Since this is not part of the 'we are a giant team and must be personally and physically close to each other' its never actually done and so the process is tedious frustrating and full of failures that were pushed into half assed function to git 'er done.
If you are dealing with online job apps you have already lost.
Over my 35 year technical career I've never found it necessary to use one of these.
I've always wondered why so many places expect you to fill out lengthy form fields when most applicants are going to be rejected anyway. Why have them enter their address and schools they attended and other minutiae that isn't needed to weed out candidates. I don't even understand why you always have to supply your race, disability, and veteran status in the US if all you're effectively doing is submitting a resume rather than formally applying for the position.
All they need is name, email, phone, and a resume/CV. The rest can be pulled out with software that scans for relevant info.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
1. Link to Facebook, etc. for the basics.
2. Play a game to test skills qualifications
Perhaps by design they make the application difficult. It's tough, it's demanding, it's the hardest thing you will ever do. But if you have the perseverance, the skill to do it, then maybe you are worthy to join.
mfwright@batnet.com
I work at a fairly large business that wants to add online application capability to its website. We have the in-house expertise to design a fantastic experience to applicants. Instead, we're going to go with the lowest bidder that can put a check next to a list of bullet points we provide. Later on it will cost us applicants and data management in the hundreds of thousands, but today it will be cheap.
Race to the bottom isn't just for Walmart customers.
The majority of these online forms are multiple screens long, and because they're invariably HTTPS, they'll time out after a finite time which isn't always made known to the user.
You realize that normal forms only open a connection to the HTTP{,S} server when you click the "Submit" button, right? You can sit there for infinite time because there's no open connection to time out until such time as you request it. What you're seeing is a combination of client- and server-side timers that have nothing whatsoever to do with the transport you'll be using to upload your information. And yeah, I'd mildly prefer my HR information to be encrypted en route, TYVM.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Those are often driven by HR policies / databases / data retention policies / privacy policies.
There's a local company that asks a more fundamental question, which is "How can you help us?" This must, however, require a person to sit and read through every submission. To avoid spamming them, the entirety of their application form is:
Name:
Email:
Website:
Phone:
"How can you help us?" <== text box for free form entry. You could paste in a resume link, github, etc.
This approach seems more interesting.
Michael C. Hollinger
How do the Recruiters/Agents submit their chosen candidate applications to HR? What value are Agents adding in the process to earn on average 1/3 of the fees paid by the client, for the contracted I.T. worker? Isn't it perhaps worth the effort to avoid recruiters at all costs and try to reach HR directly, using their broken application form process no matter how bad it is, because that directly broken process is preferable to involving Recruiters?
p.s. Aren't the bulk of jobs advertised on Dice from these Agents/Recruiters, in which case has Dice ruined itself chasing the low-hanging fruit?
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
The object is to relieve HR of responsibility and accountability. The gullible - and here I include upper management along with job seekers - believe the system was designed to match skills with positions, or, alternatively, to provide an unbroken stream of labor matching business needs. Those are only secondary considerations. "But the computer says there are no qualified candidates! And computers are never wrong!" And HR doesn't need to spend so much time reading resumes or doing interviews. Plus it helps when you hire that H-1B engineer since HR can demonstrate that they tried to find someone in US but couldn't.
It's just another scam.
also poor questions / choices and feilds where they don't tell you what data format they want the info in.
What about questions where they say have you worked with A, B, C, D, E, F. Yes / no with out putting each one on it's own line.
Questions that have no room other then yes / no that you have to lie to pass / both yes and no do not fit you.
Basic yes / no questions that have the number of years and skill level for each that is a poor fit questions like do you have a car. Or things like do you do have X certification.
Skills Matrix's that have lists of old stuff / the same thing listed 3-4 with small name changes / poorly named ones as well.
All to often, in business (of all types), the whole concept of designing something to be useful/usable is ignored, overlooked, and generally considered a waste of time. When presented with the idea of 1 hours to throw a crappy form together, or 1 day to lay it out properly (size text fields accordingly, put things in a logical order, set up server sessions to save data between pages, add decent validation, etc), most people at the management level will choose quick and cheap any day of the week. They don't care one bit how things look or work, as long as it doesn't affect them.
Here is what I have done in the past. I call them. I tell them I do not want to waste their time or mine. e.g. I tell them what I want to earn and if that is in scope of what they are willing to negotiate about. Or where the company is located or something else I did not pick up from their job at and that I know somebody from HR will be able to answer.
I then also tell them my mini-resume (Last or current company, when I could be available) in 10 to 15 seconds and ask them if they are still interested in receiving my CV. If yes, I get the email adress.
To me this has several advantages. First they can easily say no if e.g. my asking price is too high. No need to waste time. The second is that you get a better treatment that others who just send it in, because there already was a contact. This means when they look at your CV they will remember that you already past the first test (otherwise they would have saidf they were not interested.
As you have spoken to the person who handles them and often send it to them personally, it will be read.
And again, if they say no on the phone, I thank them for being honest and not wasting either of our time. When I say no, I also tell them the reason (e.g. not the specific job I was looking for) and on various occasions was invited for another job opening that was not even online (and in 2 cases known by anybody but the manager and HR)
Sending CVs is not only what you you write in them. The main thing is that it is being read. That is however only the first step. The second is on getting an interview.
Has it happend that they said "Fill out the form!"? Yes. Not often and what I said I would decline of working with them. My explanation was that I was looking for a company that has a more personal aproach to people and still thanked them for their time.
Obviously looking for a job is selling yourself and as each person is different, what works great for one might completely not work for the other. In the end it is about both you and the company finding a common ground to work together
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'm going to have to go with the same answer I give at most project post-mortems when asked the question "What was the root cause of our problems?"
"Lax hiring practices."
They're like that because they work "well enough".
I hate sigs.
I have filled out some applications that if the start date and end date of different jobs overlap, it kicks it out and doesn't allow it. Some people work more than one job at a time, I have one job that I had over five years, and periodically took on other side jobs for extra. It is impossible for me to list those side jobs on such applications, Or, if I do, I no longer have one job that lasts five years. Then they ask me to attest that the information is complete and accurate and that I've listed all jobs I've had in the last 10 years.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
~ Here's what I think of your form, Ms. HR Rep! (attach screenshot with dickbutt drawn on form with MS Paint) (send)
~ (bing) You stood up to us. That was the test. Congratulations, your hired.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I am on expert on my field, with a CV longer than my arm, and some interesting technologies under my belt. I am not actively looking for a job. If someone calls me and ask me to fill up a form, I would say "next!".
You've demonstrated you have no problems making stuff up about things you clearly know little about - possibly these forms are designed to weed out such people?
The job positions do get filled at some point I assume, so there are people who can manage to work out how to fill out a form and jump through the hoops, Losing the few good potential employees who don't bother from the pool is probably worth eliminating the huge numbers of terrible employees who can't work it out.
Always use command-click when submitting a form, or whatever the key combination is to create a new window or tab. (might be shift-click, or control-click ... or right click, and select from the menu)
I admit, this won't always work in the 'one page' applications built exclusively in JavaScript, but when it does, it means that the failure page is in a new window, and you can go back to copy & paste the content after you re-authenticate.
Some of the nastier JavaScript 'enhanced' forms will try to make callbacks as you're typing, and when THOSE time out, they redraw the screen and you lose everything ... but luckily, in the case of HR applications, most of those were written 10+ years ago and never updated.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Because ninety percent of everything is crap. This is not limited to job applications.
I was signing up for an online service just this morning. The page made no mention of password requirements anywhere, nor did it have a colorful JavaScript "weak/OK/strong" indicator, which is pretty standard and I'm sure can be done with a line or two of jquery. It's not an essential account so I used a simple password -- just a series of lowercase letters. I clicked submit, then got a message that my password must have a number. I added a number, clicked submit, and was told that I need a special character. I added one, clicked submit again, and this time the message was that it must contain both upper- and lowercase letters. Fourth time was the charm. :-\
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I certainly understand the frustration with filling in an online application, but if that's the biggest obstacle to getting the job, it's not that great of a job. Look at the fields required, copy them over to a text file, take your sweet time filling out the responses, and the online part can be a quick copy/paste. It's not that hard. Sure, find better ways to do it, but don't pretend it's this insurmountable challenge.
After a lot of job seeking online, I came to the conclusion 99.9% of online job listings were just for show. The companies needed proof that no American was qualified for their position, so they could hire on a VISA at a much cheaper salary. Making your online applications shoddy and hard to fill helps that little cheat come into play.
HR doesn't want to hire Americans, they want to show no Americans are available meeting the qualifications.
In general, the hiring PROCESS has become an end in itself with HR departments and outsourced resume collecting. The process has become the be-all and end-all focus of HR. They'd rather follow their process than hire great people. The HR department has no stake in the outcome. They are paid to implement a process. At some point, this will catch up to these companies, but probably not for a long time.
As someone who has worked in the area for almost 20 years:
1) As the original author of one of these systems, I can only tell you how we got here. In one word: age.
The system was written in the late '90s and has had a lot of hands in it since. We are very responsive to customer requests, and so the application has gotten more and more complex over the years. Schedule pressure and entry level programmers resulted in some bad code. A lot of the usability issues are due to code rot and a UI that was designed even before CSS was useful. We were writing for IE 4 and NS 3, both of which were very buggy and required a lot of workarounds.
Our system is driven by requests from customers (i.e. employers), not applicants. So much of the usability improvements we make are oriented towards the administrative UI. I think that is a problem we need to fix.
Don't get me wrong. We have a good product and most of our customers love us, but we definitely pay for our code's age. In the last few years we have been doing heavy refactoring and are getting it up to modern standards. We can't do a complete rewrite because so many features have been heaped on it over the years, it would not be economically feasible for a company our size.
2) Also, I've seen a lot of companies try to implement their own HR systems. Often they've done it with in-house resources. Of course, the result is often a mess, with lots of bugs and vulnerabilities. I've seen it done well, but only when they contracted out most of the work or threw a ton of money at it. These home-grown systems are often replaced by our product which is usually a huge improvement.
but I thought the human resources department reads and is capable of evaluating the resumes. Then who evaluates the resumes?
Simple - there's a lack of competition. It's the same reason renewing your driver's license or passport or whatever sucks, they're the sole vendor, so there's little incentive for them to make it easy or convenient.
Also, it cuts down on spam. If it's hard to apply, then only the most enthusiastic applications will do it - or so one line of thinking goes. (That can backfire; talented and in-demand applicants might not find it worth their time to bother.)
First and foremost, Applicant Tracking Systems are built primarily to be convenient for Recruiters, Human Resources professionals, or candidates. They are built to track compliance. EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs) audit employers for compliance with applicable laws about equality in hiring process. Simply put, all candidates should reasonably have the same opportunity for any position. The only way to compare objective candidate qualifications and prove that the "most qualified," candidate was hired is by collecting this data.
That said, why aren't these systems any better? I would forward that the comment about B2B software is near the mark, with an additional wrinkle. Human Resources isn't a portion of business that drives revenue. It is primarily an oversight and risk avoidance function. Because there hasn't been any money to be gained for a company in having sophisticated HR systems, there hasn't been any market for vendors to consistently create innovative products. With no innovative products, everyone involved in the hiring process suffers.
It's because the company broke one of three rules you should never break. Specifically, they let a web designer design their web site or in this case, their job application form.
In an effort to show how relevant they are, how edgy and cool they can be, web designers will throw everything they have at what should be simple projects when in reality, all they need is the kitchen sink.
No point having something simple when you can make it as complex and convoluted as possible. After all, this form isn't about the person who has to fill out the form, it's for web designers to show how much cruft they can throw at the system.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
they are designed by HR.
HR doesn't know jack about interface design.
HR gets the cheapest person they can because it isn't considered critical.
Web entry forms are usually farmed out to people just getting into the industry.
No one has to learn engineering techniques to become 'qualified' to write software.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There is no relationship between an online job application and getting a job. Online job applications are neglected because no one needs 10,000 online forms filled out for 1 job.
It is well established (through most of history) that direct contacts and personal networks are the most likely way to get jobs. A few seconds on Google pulls up many research studies and sites that maintain real statistics (rather than just made-up numbers) on the topic. Like this one among many.
That one linked to is interesting because of the various charts. For those companies they track, direct referrals are only 6.9% of the applicants but represent 39.9% of those actually hired. Job boards and web sites account for 74.9% of the job applicants and 35.8% of the hires. This means that while it is still important to apply through the web because they pull many workers through there, it is far more effective to get an employee referral. In other words, one hour of working your social network looking for a referral is equivalent to roughly 12 hours of submitting web-based job applications.
The Internet is great for research and finding people in the organization, great for learning about openings. But when it comes to actually applying for a job, spend your time farming your social network to find someone who knows someone at the company rather than just applying through their site.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
I find it humorous that most of the comments are decrying the "HR" departments, when in reality a number of businesses using applicant tracking platforms are small business and do not really have any HR department to speak of.
They (and I, as I am a small business owner myself) use them so that I can 1. have one place that IS NOT my inbox to manage candidates, and 2. I can ensure that I am getting consistent info across all candidates.
And while I do not ask people to upload a resume and then fill out previous work experience fields, I can understand the necessity for such things, so that the small business owner can quickly scan over each applicant quickly, rather than trying to decode various resume layouts.
Because at the end of the day, my time is valuable, and any system that let's me spend less time doing things is going to be a boon to me, even if the downside is that I lose an applicant here and there in the process.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Invariably, hospital application forms make a big deal out of what high school you went to, what type of diploma it was, what your high school GPA was, and whether you can drive to work. It's inappropriate for people with advanced degrees.
Or perhaps better:
The job is a lie.
The online apps are just to prove that one is actively looking for applicants. In most cases, someone is already selected for the job, but they merely go through the motions of processing other apps.
Install the Lazarus plugin and you'll never have this kind of problem again, whether it is a job application form or any other form for that matter.
is probably worth eliminating the huge numbers of terrible employees who can't work it out.
Maybe it's like making pre-meds take organic chem. It's not very useful to them as a physician (c.f. biochem), but if you can't make it through organic chem you're never going to make it through med school. It's a well-known 'weed class'.
If you combine this with the fact that most high-level employees don't come through the front door, it starts to make some sense.
And, yeah, Layer6/7 confusion isn't the best way to get a tech job.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Most web sites are badly designed, why should online applications be any different? I swear site designers never actually use the sites they design.
If you can not put up with a BS online job application from Target, how could you ever possibly work for Target?!? Supposedly the best way to get hired, is to answer all of the questions as if you were Ned Flanders. Hard working and honest, but not too ambitious, compliant.
... is when they call you, you don't call them. Then you need to worry less about the bureaucratic crap.
I usually do read the manual, to exasperating those around me, and I usually also double-check that what I do matches the manual if it somehow doesn't perform as expected. These forms... are varied in their brokenness but that they're broken does vary very little.
The result of dealing with too many of them is that I'm never going to deal with such forms again. If I can't find an email address to send my CV to, they're not getting my CV.
More people should do this.
Applicant Tracking System - This is the buzzword for an "apply online" type thing. I work for one of the big ones.
Here are some excuses
1) Employers can get sued if it isn't done a certain way. All of the laws are based on horrible paper applications.
2) Employers are scared of "the cloud" so you have to fill out a new application every time you apply to a new job even though the last 10 places you applied were using the same software
3) The perspective employees "candidates" are not the customer, the HR Director is the customer.
4) Statistically, longer, harder application processes result in higher employee retention rates.
that last one is a big one. My software can do all kinds of pre-employment testing for all kinds of things... skills, personality, mental alertness, etc.
The longer the testing process, the more "candidates" quit before completing. HOWEVER, the longer the testing process, the more likely an employee will be successful at their job.... To put it frankly, if you will wade through the shit to get hired, you will wade through it to stay employed. It doesn't even statistically matter what the results of the test were. Simply testing for anything at all will reduce employee turnover. The same can be said for unwieldy applications. If a candidate is not serious about filling out an application, they will not be serious about work either.
That said... I promise our applications are better than most, at least our javascript works, and progress is automatically saved... Still it all sucks (blame the lawyers), we just try to suck less.
The old world job applications were not designed to let you highlight your skills or paste specific sections of your resume. The text boxes were built too small, and it was intentional. That’s because the objective of the old world job application was not to learn about your skills and competencies. To put it bluntly, they were designed to see how well you follow written instructions.
The technology we have now was inconceivable when these old job applications were created, but the objective of the application stays the same whether you’re writing one out on paper, or filling out an online form. If you've reached a point where the form is timing out, you’re either over thinking the thing, giving answers that are too thoughtful for the context, or you’re not going in prepared.
I can tell by the wording of the question that you've got entirely the wrong mindset. Applications are not resumes. Think of it like the good parts version, know that ahead of time, and you should be able to fill out just about any application in a few minutes.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Why? Because programmers don't design products -- they throw wrappers around APIs.
Usability testing? Wuuuuuuut?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Never bother with online forms. It's a waste of time. If you apply for dozens of jobs, do you rip apart your CV and copy/paste the parts into individual text boxes each time? I rather send the same PDF to a list of email addresses. Done with. Nobody has time for that crap!!!
Business need first???
You've never worked for the government.
No brain, no pain.
The ability to catch up with technology and protocol is directly proportional to how forward thinking the practice is. You are not going to see a witch doctor with a carefully created and compliance list of potions. Similarly, you are not going to get an HR department to care about technology enough to build a compliance website.
Does the government even have an HR department? My experience gave me the impression that all hiring was controlled by a HAL 9000.
Despite all of the years, no one implements the W3C spec 100%. So you still get different behaviors on the different browsers. That and most of the forms I've seen for HR are either the result of sloppy generated WYSIWYG code or overdesigned by someone who understands client side technology but not how to write to a friggin' database.
Build a small XML form process in the browser language, JavaScript, .NET, etc. Let the user enter all their information into the XML file.
This allows the applicant to complete the form in their own sweet time, hours, days, weeks, etc. They can go back and tune the data again and again. When done -
Connect with the company application site and submit the XML file - done!
Simple, quick, painless and complete.
The majority of these online forms are multiple screens long, and because they're invariably HTTPS, they'll time out after a finite time which isn't always made known to the user
I wonder why I even bother visiting Slashdot any more, when the basic workings of the web are not understood by the submitter nor the editors.
>one hour of working your social network looking for a referral is equivalent to roughly 12 hours of submitting web-based job applications
You have a very well phrased expression there. Communicates very effectively!
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
About a year ago, I actually found a company that used online questionnaires well. They were all relevant to the job and would have excluded the unqualified with a minimum of fuss. I later interviewed in person and accepted the job. They turned out to be a great company and I'm happily working from home right now, very satisfied with my job.
So it's true that many companies are clueless about this, but if you find the rare gem that's actually clueful, it may be a signal that they've hired smart and competent people and are, therefore, a great place to work.
At least, that's how it worked for me.
I've tried time and time again to get Kforce to fixed their fucked up form and accept zip+4 as a valid zipcode! How long has zip+4 been around? Since 1983! That's 31 fucking years and so many forms will not accept zip+4. Stupid.
My resume is on my web site. I just point people there. It's also under GPL!
Here's a neat tool: http://jobscan.co/ (don't know why it's .co but it is). It scans your resume and the job requirement and tells you how much of a match you are.
I think the problem here is a lack of standardization. We had a standard for job applications in the pre-digital age: the resume. It was compact, allowed for customization and some expression of design sensibility. It was portable, blah blah blah it was great. There is no digital resume standard. If there was, we could upload it, fill in any missing info and be done. I'd like to see Yahoo, Craigslist, Monster, Dice, Indeed, and LinkedIn get together on this and make it happen. None of them have the market share to make it happen on their own, but together they might just be able to pull it off.
Just standardise a format. XML, ODT, LaTeX, whatever. Perhaps a protocol to pull from a self hosted server.
and because they're invariably HTTPS, they'll time out after a finite time which isn't always made known to the user.
HTTPS has nothing to do with server session timeouts.
Obviously this person is not trying to apply for IT related jobs.
I second that. Our ATS system is primarily designed to make the HR hiring process more efficient. A user friendly interface for the applicant is secondary.
The ATS system is designed by management not by Interaction Designers.
I'm just telling it like it is, not how I think it should be.
Simplicity
ouch..."talent managers"...
maybe it is the middle managers (managers who are above both the HR person & manager of the position being filled) sometimes
my second point was that there was no feedback mechanism for improvement
some HR people are great...I can think of two specifically in my life...both for mid-sized companies in publishing
Thank you Dave Raggett
Would a master job / skills matching system be too Orwellian for the Slashdot moderators? See my rant on my start-up that doesn't start! http://wp.amdgtechnologies.com...
the problem is HR
Who does HR work for?!
Huh!
WHO DO THEY WORK FOR?
Management.
Go it?
They are our (PHB's) bitches and you people - you "smart" people - do not fucking get it!
God!
You might be right.
HAL after all his memory had been removed.
No brain, no pain.
The HR application system is vertically integrated with the rest of our strategic software CRM. Only those smart enough to figure out how to apply for a position can possibly be taught how to use our in-house developed open sourced vendor package from Oracle.
Dice and Monster have the user interface down pretty good. A big problem, though, is with those employers who use those sites but then redirect applicants to their own broken application system -- or even worse, some broken application system provider like taleo.net. The first time you use that site, it fools you into thinking that once you put in your stuff, you'll be good for any other business that collects resumes through taleo.net. Not so. Each and every time you have to go through an account setup, then type in all your information, answer a bunch of questions, etc.
Requiring untrained people to enter data into your electronic forms and subsequently into your database is inherently flawed. Do you deploy a complicated new internal system and expect your staff to use it flawlessly without any training? No. Then why do you expect the untrained masses to cope with your forms and procedures?
Take a structured narrative, say a CV with a cover letter from the person that isn't trained in your procedures and get someone who is to put it into your database.
...we (IT) were mandated to implement an online recruiting system by HR. At this level, as a concept, so far so good.
However the specific system chosen was in use in only 3 sites worldwide, had entirely inadequate security, and HR seemed to be 100% OK with that. Oh, and did I mention that HR needed cooperation and coordination with IT but failed to obtain that? I don't mean that IT obstructed unnecessarily, I mean that IT objected to the system attributes and HR did not have authority force the implementation.
That system did not go ahead and thank goodness!
I came to the conclusion that the reason HR was fine with inadequate security was that IT would have to cope with the results. And not HR. This appalling conclusion is brought to you by the phrase "I'm all right Jack!"
My point is that HR itself could be uncaring about the user experience. If the job market is relatively tight and job openings are oversubscribed (a pretty common situation for much of the last 15 years in N.A.), then the brutal fact is that this is the job seekers problem. Oh, you might get an enlightened HR department, or an enlightened organization. If so then your user experience might be grand (or not, recruitment systems often seem to me a bit of an afterthought).
Ultimately an RMS has an audience of non-employees. Yes, OK, some of those will become employees but not a very high percentage. As such they just don't... quite... get the same priority... as people on the inside. I'm generalizing but in general this is true. IMO.
For a multiple step data entry process that ends with a single submit to a database, I use an SPA that steps through partial views. To start I issue a URL with a new GUID, then it's all post-redirect-get to the same URL, so you have none of the forward-back state screw-ups, or the nonsense of F5 asking the user to "re-submit". I store the entered data in memory server-side, accessed via cache keyed on the URL's GUID. This way if the user hits F5, they don't lose everything. And POSTs are only what the user just entered, not the whole freakin form.
Sometimes I get a protest that you can't use the browser's back or forward buttons to navigate the data entry process, but if your UI makes doing that easy and obvious, it's really not that big of a deal.
I don't see a lot of other developers using SPA, but it's worked well for me.
The job app forms are created by companies like Taleos. They are absolutely awful.
I have become enraged by statements found on this site like "Some sites actively disable back/forward buttons but many don't" and "because [the forms are] invariably HTTPS, they'll time out after a finite time which isn't always made known to the user", both contained in this one submission. Yet we see these blatantly incorrect pieces of information spewed forth from Slashdot every single goddamn day.
Don't trust what you read here anymore, if ever you had such trust. At least with programming-related submissions, far too many of them apparently come from B-list or C-list programmers who don't understand the technology they're discussing. This internet of ours needs a peer-reviewed forum for discussion - just not actual "forums" per se. I really need to stop coming back here, I can't imagine how many false new "facts" I've picked up reading shit on this site.
Badly-designed application forms are a bug, not a feature. Unless you're advertising a job nobody wants, like hosing sheep guts off the carcasses at the sheep-skinning yard, you're going to have more applicants than you can deal with. People who can't deal with a boring or infuriating but basically brainless task are weeded out by the online application process.
Anecdotal evidence: I have probably gotten hundreds, if not thousands of phone calls from various companies and recruiters, some of which have hired me.
I have NEVER gotten a single phone call from ANY 'online form' I've filled out, including ones for large companies.
I imagine all input on these forms is ignored. Don't waste your time. Post on Dice, Monster, etc. If you can, have your friends enter you into an employee referral system at the company they work for. Referrals are the best filter for companies.
What you aren't taking into account is that it can take years and hundreds of person-hours building up that social network in the first place. If you are new in town, just starting in an industry, or didn't spend four years at Stanford carefully planning who you partied with, then that whole "work your social network" rap is practically worthless.
Because they can be.
People want the jobs, so they use the awful online systems. It's their first step in hating the company they may eventually work for, so it's a head start anyway.
The real issue is that the job match market is so crowded, you have dozens of competing companies selling crappy SaaS job-app systems that various companies use to auto-sort applicants. The problem is that each of these wants to be the only one in the market and, thus, don't want to share information with any of the others. So you end up having to enter, edit, etc. the information for each crappy system and company you want to apply for.
HR departments, job-app sellers? You want to be my friend? You want me to like your company? Here's how:
Always send an auto-response letting me know my application has been received and is under consideration. If possible, send me a response if I'm no longer under consideration, too. There used to be a thing called common courtesy - if you can't handle that, you're going to look like jerks (and most of you and, by extension, your companies look that way right now).
For those of you looking - just be aware that it's not personal. The people who make or run these systems are just relatively incompetent fucks. You'd have better luck using networking, anyway.
That is all.
How do the Recruiters/Agents submit their chosen candidate applications to HR?
They don't, if they're smart. They may start there, but they parlay their contacts there into contacts in the engineering department whom they start to contact directly to find out about openings. Really, it's all about networking now from the top down. Positions have become too specialized to allow random people to apply. Chances are your manager also knows enough people who need jobs that he doesn't have to go through HR (except for the final paperwork), anyway.
That is all.
It is well established (through most of history) that direct contacts and personal networks are the most likely way to get jobs.
And what is one to do if there is no available GOBN to troll for a job? In my last search, pestering everyone I know about job openings got me nowhere. What did get me hired was applying for a position via a company's online job site. A well-designed LinkedIn profile is also valuable, though it does result in being spammed by offers for worthless contract jobs.
This means that while it is still important to apply through the web because they pull many workers through there, it is far more effective to get an employee referral.
And whose butt are those employee referrals supposed to be pulled from? I did once get a job this way, in 1989, though that was a bit of an anomaly. It's a different world now and a different market.
I think there's little incentive (and therefore corporate resources) for these systems to be user-friendly. The value to the company is in the data they get from them; How long it takes applicants to create this data doesn't matter.
I've seen a few onboarding systems (the website you fill out forms on after you're hired) that were utter disasters, worse than any online applicant tracking system... Only works with IE 7 and Adobe reader 9. etc.
If you want the job, you just have to deal with it.
Contacts, and sometime headhunters will get you interviews. My current job was introduced to me by a headhunter and then my existing contacts inside the organization did the rest. Not online forms. I have had two recent contacts from company HR departments that already had my online application. They were calling me to say they had found me on LinkedIn and wanted to know if I would submit a resume. One of them had accepted my online application back in February and sent me a generic email response the same day saying I would not be considered for the job. They are still trying to fill the job and called me because they were "impressed" by me. I told them they had my resume, and had already rejected it. They spent another two weeks just trying to arrange a phone interview and I simply stopped answering the emails coming from several people in HR. How hard can it be to pick up the damn phone and call me? The other one which is based outside the US has had my resume in their system for ten years, which I have regularly updated, and has even interviewed me twice before. HR called me to see if I would send them a resume and interview for a job. I knew they would not hire me for because I am too old (this company has a mandatory retirement age of 60). The HR rep sheepishly confirmed they do in fact have a mandatory retirement age of 60, that is set by the Kingdom, and not their company (who cares?). They used to tell me they could not hire me because I did not have enough experience. Now I have all the experience they want, but I am too old. They had no idea I was already in their system and that they already had my DOB. How hard can it be to run a query on job applicants that have exceeded the mandatory age of retirement? Obviously LinkedIn is their go-to system, not their internal resume database. I agree that the online forms are maddening, but I always approach the task with the knowledge that it will never make a difference. It may be used to cover due diligence and get some disclosures out of the way, but chances are they will make you sign all that stuff again because they know their online system is a digital version of the round file. It will never get you an interview in my experience.
http://blog.smartbear.com/development/can-anyone-design-a-job-application-platform-that-doesnt-suck/
Agreed. The same thing happens with online registration for doctors' offices, etc.
can job seekers complain ????
even if hired, as new hirees, are they gonna rock the boat ???