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[choppedwood]

I know this is a contracting board but do you ever run into that phrase?  Do you hate it as much as I do?

I just bumped into it because a local employer put out a 6 month opening and one of the reqs mentioned who it was.  They're a very respected company so I figured I'd get the resume on file, especially since it's a mile from where I live. 

Online resume submissions, for me at least, are a 100% miss.  And, usually you have to answer some stupid questions that take far too long too fill out.  But I took a shot and what terrible, terrible software that is.  It must rock behind the scenes or something because that front-end could be out-done with a few weeks of work by a couple of drunk monkeys.

[The Gorn]

We deal with career issues for IT people. And anymore, most of us here believe that FTE jobs and contracting have converged with not many differences in compensation or role.

Yes, most of us here feel that web site based job applications are a key way to make the job application process as dehumanized and as commoditized as possible.

[DG9]

Companies like this are to FTEs somewhat like borks are contractors.  Borks keep companies safe tax status wise, these companies keep the employer in compliance with eeoc.

[Walter Mitty]

Drunk monkeys are high maintenance.  They have too high self-esteem, and they demand lots of perks, like more fermented bananas.  Besides, if you deny them medical care, you are going to have the ASPCA on your case.   

So, even if they produce better code, they are not competitive with the folks who wrote Taleo.

It's much better to work with people who cannot complain about anything.  Taleo will find them for you.


 

[Carrie Cobol]

Lol, two points for Walter!

Yep talleo is pretty sad.  Even sadder?  After a few months of job hunting, talleo began to look good compared to some of the home grown pos's that some companies use. 

[DarkHumour]

I hate g.d. Taleo.  Actually I complied the portal "top 50 Chicago companies" and posted it here in 2008 I think.  The criteria for being in that top 50 was murky to me when I gleaned that data.  I noted whether or not they had a direct link on their own pages or was it shuttled off to some third party purgatory.  What annoyed me is that after you've typed in all 200 years of experience for employer one using Taleo you'd have to do it all over again for employer two.  Not to mention creating a username, account, and password for every freaking company.  Maybe there is an 'import/export' function now but I doubt it.

Maybe I should dig that up and see if I can find the top 50 for 2011/2012 as Q4 is ending and maybe new hiring will start soon. Heh. Sure.

Inspired by the gorn's statement somewhat, "If you're not dehumanizing the candidates you're not doing it right."

DarkHumour

PS.  The one thing I remember from constantly checking the openings of those 50 companies was the pretty but melancholy expression of the model on the banner page of one of them.  They changed it some years ago.

[The Gorn]

Inspired by the gorn's statement somewhat, "If you're not dehumanizing the candidates you're not doing it right."

I said that?

Yeah, I guess so.

I can make it cuter in the LOLSpeak way by changing it to "ur not doin it rite".

[choppedwood]

What annoyed me is that after you've typed in all 200 years of experience for employer one using Taleo you'd have to do it all over again for employer two.  Not to mention creating a username, account, and password for every freaking company.  Maybe there is an 'import/export' function now but I doubt it.

I've heard that gripe and I'm sure it's still the case.  One thing that ticked me off is that I have a lot of certifications.  Each one is a separate block, instead of a single text field I could list them in.  When I finally rolled through them, and it took about 10 minutes because I had to look up my cert #'s and issue dates, I started getting errors about not filling stuff out, one error at a time (submit, new error, submit, new error) as if it didn't know that there were 3 fields I'd missed.  My favorite error was that they wanted me to answer a question about what geographical area I was in but the city I live in wasn't listed.  Did I, or did I not, submit an address?  The latter may not be Taloe's fault or it could be that the software is so screwed up that the customer's can't implement it.

[Carrie Cobol]

My favorite ones are when they mandate X many references before the form will submit.  I provide references upon request, not to stuff in some moron's database.  (And I'm not talking about headhunters, there are companies that do this, too.)  I came across a few that mandated 4 or 5 references.  Buh-bye!

I also hate how redundant it all is.  After you spend an hour filling out the stupid profile, which duplicates your resume, then they want you to upload/import your resume.  A few enlightened companies let you upload FIRST and then fill out the profile for you with as much as it can parse from the resume.  But some do it the other way around.

And the net result of all this work:  you get one phone call out of something like 100 submissions.

[The Gorn]

Just to balance out and analyze this justified ranting from a broader perspective:

I can see the employer's point of view. They want to receive resumes from motivated candidates. They really don't want SPAM.

Allowing a candidate to easily copy their information from another employer's web site resume submission would encourage some applicants to spam out copies of their resume.

However, this process of filtering-by-motivation level used to be accomplished by mandating applicants to walk into businesses and fill out applications in person, and by not permitting mailed in applications and by not looking at (EG, shredding) mailed in resumes.

The likelihood of receiving a call back from an application submitted online to one of these vendor sites like Taleo is extremely low. The likelihood of receiving a call back from an in-person submission was probably quite a bit higher.

Basically, huge odds against the candidate's application receiving any human scrutiny cause the online application process to be very time and labor intensive for candidates while providing less chance of follow up.

[DarkHumour]

Gorn: Your words inspired me to think of what evil hr's (Catbert) mantra must truely be...

And yeah maybe it is just another roadblock or hurdle for people to get through, e.g. 'only the worthy (or stupid) would drudge through this stuff' but when there is NO feedback it feels like an unwired button or worse.  A few years ago I finally sat down and compiled every single job / contract to a spreadsheet I can cut and paste the skills, certifications, etc* from as some applications required a 10 year history...  I also tried to find the salary information as well only to keep to myself.

Your resume will be in our database bla bla bla... 

I always think its funny when I thought certain recruiters/agencies knew I thought they were scum or idiots but still send holiday spam or call with the usual 'hot opportunities' years later.

DarkHumour

PS. *Gornix is still a skill I list on dice.com.

[The Gorn]

It's definitely in Catbert's repertoire. By making job application so impersonal and demeaning and distanced, you discourage job seekers from even applying.

[choppedwood]

No Taleo, this was a home grown app but another name brand company.  I went through it, spent a good 20 minutes, answered their questions, then, and I kid you not, 10 pages of questions about whether I qualified for certain government programs.  I'd never heard of any of it, then, after all that, please submit your references.  I just fired the app at that point and, of course, never heard a thing. 

I really had no chance of getting it, I'm a perfect fit except for the buzzwords, but I did it because of where their corporate offices were located.  My last employer, during my first stint with them, had their corporate offices literally across the street.  It was a good location to work, and such a fluke, that it was too good to resist.