What Does Your Application Process Say About Your Company?

Okay, so have you ever went to a company's web site to apply for a position you have seen posted somewhere and you are greeted by question after question after question, and then more questions you have to answer before you can click on the "Submit" button?  Or, how about this one:  Your are greeted by "Upload Your Resume" and once you've selected where your resume is stored on your hard drive and clicked upload and then you still get all of these questions like: what is your first name, what is your last name, what is your address...please fill in your employment history, please fill in your education history etc.  Is the year still 1998?  Parsing data from a resume should be the simplest of things for applicant tracking systems to do, yet why are so many still not able to do this?  I remember several years back when I was trying to apply for a position with Shell, to be a recruiter in Houston for them, by the time I was finally towards the end of their electronic application process, it had taken almost 30 - 40 minutes online, several restarts or refreshes and practically writing a discertation for a Ph.D.  I finally thought to myself "Why would I want to work there, if they treat applicants this way - how do they treat employees"  Needless to say their applicant tracking system at that time had been setup by their Headquarters which is overseas so they had all kinds of questions which was a pain in the neck to try to complete.

What about your Job Descriptions that you posted?  Do they correctly reflect the duties and minimal skill requirements that are required to perform the fantastic career opportunity that you are trying to hire someone to do everyday, or did you just throw a bunch of your wishlist thoughts together - in hopes you can find a Purple Squirrel?

Whether you use an online Applicant Tracking System to post your positions, or you pay to run printed advertisements or put up a sign out in the front of your establishment, here are some key thinks to think about:

• How long does your electronic application process take? - an initial process should not take more than five (5) minutes to create a basic profile:  Name, Address, Phone, Email, and Upload their resume (.doc, .docx, pdf, txt formats) Login ID (typically their email address) and a user password.  The rest of the information should be able to be parsed from their resume: Work Experience, Education etc.  You can add a couple of screening questions but they should only focus on being able to do the work required or having the experience required (we typically call these knock-in / knock-out questions).  At this point, anyone making it this far, is called an "Applicant"
• When you are setting up functions and features in your Applicant Tracking System, it may be great to have all the Bells & Whistles right away, but if you overcomplicate the application process, you may find a decrease in the quantity and quality of applicants, and you may find that your system errors; leaving would-be applicants frustrated after many attempts to select an answer from a drop-down list you built in, only to be told time and time again "You Must Select An Item From The List".  Anytime you implement new features or change a function, it is best to run it in a test-bed or a sandbox version first, before going "live".
• Setup the Application Process to have 2 - 3 stages: Stage 1 - a minimalist application and upload their resume. Stage 2 - After the recruiter screens the applicants resume and basic profile for meeting the minimum qualification, the recruiter can send a link to the applicant to request they complete more details (this is where you can have them complete the self-identify forms, electronic applications your organization may require, or any other legal forms required) if you plan on moving them forward.  At this point for the sake of OFCCP, you could now call the applicant a "Candidate".
• What is your Job Description Saying?  While your job description may have the job duties required, minimal education and skillsets required to perform the job, what about errors, font type, font size, spacing, bulleting etc?  If you are posting a job through your applicant tracking systems, most of these use a DHTML editor and they are in no way close in what we enjoy about using MS Word.  Seriously - alignment never aligns correctly, bolding may or may not bold properly, if you are pasting from an MS Word Document and it has any special formatting - you may be in for surprise when you select "paste".  Always check your job descriptions on your career posting portal or job boards you are posting to for errors - never take it for granted that your ATS did it correctly.

Yes, there is much more one can write about Application Processes and Job Descriptions, so please feel free to comment on your experiences.  - Thank you.