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As a Chemistry grad I got to see all the most awful abusive behavior from companies from permatemps, to salary games, to HR gone wild psychobable to all sorts of HR nonsense including pseudopsychometric junk science tests, to interview you as a horse and pony show because we already selected a candidate but need to meet HR/EEOC requirements.
I'll never forget graduating and expecting to go to an interview and have intelligent discussions about science and how I can add value to the team only to find myself in front of an HR bimbo asking me humiliating psyche and canned stupid questions and thinking this is really how companies hire candidates for a job? No wonder they are always compaining about incompetent hires and talent shortages.
Needless to say I have zero sympathy nor credulity for companies complaining about talent shortages or trouble hiring or retaining talent.
Have you thought about changing fields? I'm in engineering. I've worked for 3 engineering organizations so far, and each one is better than the last. For example, the first engineering firm I worked for gave me a company car for work only. The 2nd gave me a company car and told me I could use the company car for personal use as long as I paid for the gas. My current company gave me a company SUV with a gas card and told me to treat it like it's my own. That's just one aspect of this field. There are many other benefits. And people are generally super friendly and accommodating. For example, when I started with my current company, I had to take a couple days off because my husband was going to have surgery. I put in PTO request. My boss came by my office and asked what the PTO request was for? I told him. He gave me back the request and told me to take my laptop with me and log into the server a couple times a day so he could put me down as working from home.
My husband is in PR/Marketing. His company is super easy going also. Flexible work hours and lots of good benefits.
Both our companies are fortune 200.
My previous career path was computer programming. The company I worked for was not accommodating at all. Actually, it made my life kinda miserable. That's why I quit and looked for something else to do.
Just keep searching until you find something to your liking. I'll tell you this. My current company is so good to me that I actually have a sense of loyalty to them. Last year, I actually had a job offer with better pay. I didn't apply. May be I was an idiot for turning it down, but to me the benefits and overall feel of my company is irreplaceable.
Don't give up. Keep looking until you find something better!
Wouldn't you rather they find out it's not a good fit by an application instead of wasting your time bringing you in for an interview? Would you rather they bring you in for an interview and you do hours of personality and mathematics tests on site?
Wait, did you just say that you wished that we had MORE insane applications like that? I get that you want us to know if the company is insane, but I think that them using this shows that they are nuts and that we don't need the insanity spreading to the point where it becomes standard practice and thus a standard entry requirement like the stuff the require in hazing to get into a frat in college.
I use Indeed Easy Apply almost exclusively if I'm not in a crunch. I could get fifty applications in for the time I'd spend on that one. Volume, not tailoring each entry unique to the post for a couple hours per single submission, is key.
I've tried both approaches, where I did a ton in a single day and where I did one per week or one every other week. The response rate of actual callbacks or, even rarer, interviews, was the same for both approaches, so, of course, I took the one that involved less effort.
Also, I've done a bunch of those 60+ question personality tests with the invasive questions (SSN, if you are on government aide, your race, your gender, etc) and found that the response rate was about the same (or even lower actually!) for them than the bulk five-second ones on Indeed, so, again, I don't usually bother with the long applications anymore unless I REALLY want the job. (And since most of the industries that have the long applications aren't at all usually my ideal job anyway, I almost NEVER bother with the long applications anymore.)
OP, when you don't have a job, your job is to find a job.
I'll tell you this. My husband just graduated this past december and found an awesome job right away in PR and marketing. He works an average of 5-6 hours a day, if that. They don't care as long as he gets his work done. He has the option of working from home, so sometimes he stays home to crank out a few things and that's it. His boss in the main office told him to leave half an hour early every day to avoid traffic. His health insurance plan is the best I've ever seen (I've been in the workforce for 15 years) and it only cost him $120/month to cover both of us. And last week, his VP took everyone in his office out to the Cubs game all paid for on a work day. Suite with food and drinks. Oh yeah, when he got the job offer, they offered a salary about $10k above what he was asking for.
It took him 3 hours to fill out the app and tests. Closer to 4 if you count all the breaks he took.
3 hours of effort was a small price to pay for all the benefits we both have gotten from his job.
The job you mentioned is probably $100K/yr or up. The ones we often refer to pay $20-30K/yr, if that.
And this shows that the companies using these long, tedious applications benefit from them, as they have planned. It weeds out the casual applicants that don't have the self discipline and/or ambition to do the work required for the reward of the job, reducing the number of applications to go through, and those left have demonstrated that they really want to work there.
I was willing to spend 30-40 hours doing a skills test related to a job (in part because I got one interview and was likely to get a second interview) and this was for a job that I wanted.
I'm not so eager to spend 2-3 hours on a silly personality/ask invasive questions about your life (possibly to sell some info, including references, to companies, etc, for leads) that have NOTHING to do with the ability to do the job just to get a the chance for the "privilege" of getting an interview (possibly one of five) for a low wage job.
Wait, did you just say that you wished that we had MORE insane applications like that? I get that you want us to know if the company is insane, but I think that them using this shows that they are nuts and that we don't need the insanity spreading to the point where it becomes standard practice and thus a standard entry requirement like the stuff the require in hazing to get into a frat in college.
I'd rather see it in an application where I can do it at home than drive to an interview and waste time doing it on site.
I would hesitate to take a job that doesn't have 3-4 interviews and/or tests like that anyway. It takes time for you and a company to get to know each other to the point where you can find out if it's a good fit or not. The more effort up front, the less chance of being hired to a job you end up hating.
You seem to be pretty angry at how companies choose their hiring procedures. And I'm not just talking about this thread. May I ask what happened to you?
Even Nick Corcodilos, the famous headhunter, sides with MSChemist
I'm glad you found a blogger who backs up one particular point....did you read the responses to some of the questions asked in those links though? The applicant in the first link alone was snarky and sarcastic when responding to a standard question.
I'm not sure how that speaks to anything bad by a recruiter.
The last link literally says to TAKE tests and that they can add valuable information (the exact opposite of what MSChemist said).
Don't give up. Keep looking until you find something better!
Frequently but I currently have a really nice job in a niche (food) industry and it is very secure and I am satisfied with the pay, benefits, and working environment. I hate living in Illinois but I'll tolerate it for now. I am determined to just ride this job out and save like crazy so I can get out of the field if anything happens to my job or just retire early.
Besides, the idea of going back into the job market and having to suffer HR bimbos again is not to appealing. I wouldn't do it unless I had to.
Even Nick Corcodilos, the famous headhunter, sides with MSChemist
Give it up. One of the things you see over and over again in the food industry and life in general is how easy people come to believe in total and utter nonsense and how difficult it is to convince them otherwise. Half of what we do where I work is basically humor the malinformed consumers.
Cocsumer:We want this chemical compound removed from the food.
Company:It is a naturally occurring compound that has been shown clinically to be safe and your own body can synthesize it because it is important in several metabolic processes.
Consumer: We don't care because my cousin's uncle's former roommate says it caused him to get a hangnail and go bald.
Company: Removing it will cause the price of the food to rise and make it taste worse.
Consumer: Just F'ing remove it.
Company looks at a long list of compounds that the consumers refuse to accept and face-palms.
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