If You Want Job Candidates to Hate You, Follow this Plan

I’m not opposed to working with machines. Given the opportunity, I’ll generally choose the self-checkout at the grocery store and order from the kiosks at McDonald’s, but for a job interview, replacing the company representative with a computer screen or a bot is a disaster waiting to happen.

The Wall Street Journal described companies who are using one-sided interviews as a way “to streamline the hiring process to nab promising candidates before they can get away. For some, that has meant rethinking the tried-and-true phone interview, rolling out one-sided, automated exchanges in which applicants give recorded responses to a series of questions.”

I get the logic–if I’m interested in you as a candidate, I can set up an automated interview that you can do when you have time. We don’t have to coordinate schedules–and this is a huge benefit for someone that is currently employed.

To keep reading, click here: If You Want Job Candidates to Hate You, Follow this Plan

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6 thoughts on “If You Want Job Candidates to Hate You, Follow this Plan

  1. This reminds me of my sister (1 of 5 siblings) who is one of those “don’t call me – just text me” kind of people. Her lack of interest in actual back-and-forth, real-time conversations consequently means she’s the one of the six of us that is often left out of the fun, spontaneous sibling get togethers. She’s the one that misses out on the detailed family updates & amusing stories because no one wants to text that kind of stuff. And now with job interviews! Such a sad state we’re coming to when people fail to see the value in face-to-face and real time conversations.

  2. I have more than ten years’ experience and the only jobs around here are entry-level. I’ve run into this automated phone screen twice now, both times with law firms, and I bailed both times. You ghost me after an interview and you end up on my Forever No list. You do automated phone screens and you end up on the same list.

    It’s bull spit. It doesn’t save time; someone still has to listen to all the recordings. I can’t ask questions, which is also spit because I have dyscalculia and I need to self-select out if there is accounting involved. A company that doesn’t have time to talk to me probably won’t treat me very well as an employee, so BUH-BYE.

  3. It all comes down to cutting labor costs. A company that overuses this technology for getting employees has little regard for employees other than a body to fill a specific job(hopefully not a customer oriented position). Maybe the future younger generations of workers who are more attuned to quirks using technology will find this process easier. For those of us who still feel face to face conversation is needed to fully present ourselves, this is problematic because it limits the response.

    1. I don’t think it’s an age issue. I have friends and family in their 20’s who find ordering food at a kiosk or purchasing groceries at the self scanner annoying. You still need human intervention to intervene if there’s a problem or to watch for fraud or whatever. And using the kiosks doesn’t make it any faster. So why not keep the human element involved in the whole process? Same with hiring. JUst that 30 minute interaction with a real person can tell both the interviewer and the candidate way more than a one-sided robocall.

    2. I Skype-interviewed for a technical role at one of Kroger’s backend-infrastructure sites a couple of years back. The interview-coordinator read some questions and recorded me and my answers for the hiring manager(s). It was interesting, but as you noted it’s difficult to “read” the interviewer and ask questions. I probably learned enough to figure out I didn’t want to be a cog in the Kroger company, even if they had pursued me further.

  4. Another turn off are automated reference checks. Have your references fill in something on-Line vs a person calling them. Ran into this last year when I switched jobs. Bizarre given this was a senior, specialized position and a human might have found out something beyond pure pablum.

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