Dumpling in a Hanky

Now, I thought I'd come up against every permutation of a bad application process. There's the traditional application form that has been created in Word, and looks very pretty, but goes to pieces when you actually try and fill it in - the text boxes that are too small to hold the information, but the size can't be adjusted; the tables that have margins set beyond the edge of the page so your text disappears; the layouts that dissolve into incoherency and random page-straddling tables when anything is actually typed into the form. Or the forms that only allow for 3 previous roles, and are set so that no extra areas can be inserted. Or the job that was advertised once with a strict warning that the guidance notes must be used to complete the form...without the guidance notes available (that one was re-advertised, and the epically complex guidance notes magically appeared that time). Or the company that required application forms to be printed, signed, and scanned for submiss...

Now, I've recently had to make a full time job out of applying for jobs (although thankfully the end is now in sight), and as I've stated previously , there's all sorts of ways you can do it well, and also a whole lot of ways you can do it wrong. Recently, I've been on the receiving end of a recruitment process so epically bad, that I'm actually genuinely surprised that the HR department involved are somehow still employed. It became so convoluted that I'm going to reduce it to bullet points, for easier reading. I am advised by a colleague to send a prospective CV to A Certain Workplace (ACW), on the basis that a friend of theirs at ACW advised them a vacancy was available. I checked with another contact within ACW, who advised me that this was an acceptable way to proceed, as certain staff types were recruited in this way. I send my CV and a covering letter. I get a response, thanking me, but advising me that this was not an approach they accepted. I wa...

Ah, times change, and things happen, whether you're prepared or not. So, last month, I unexpectedly ended up having to look for new employment. Having been pretty happy and settled in my old workplace for almost 8 years, I didn't really have much in the way of recent experience of looking for work...now, I seem to have plenty! Luckily, I'm finding that there are actually quite a lot of interesting vacancies out there, and plenty of roles where I think "ohhh, that would be great to be able to do" and I'm keen to apply for. I have such a wide range of interests, that I'm finding posts in all sorts of sectors where I think "yeah, I'd really enjoy doing that", so perhaps this is my chance to explore some other professional areas. Silver linings, an' all that? However, what I've also found is that some employers are not very good at creating a coherent and easily navigable recruitment process. So, here are some Do's and Don'ts, a...