CavemanLynn Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 45 minutes ago, gmoney said: Intensity, Integrity, Intelligence. Courage, understanding, nous, and tenacity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RancidPunx Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 I got asked that before : I said Perfectionist Workaholic Compulsive Liar..... Technically 4 words but they got a laugh out of it and i got the job..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members marc2j Posted May 18, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted May 18, 2021 To counter with the best one we had, one bloke said 'makes good tea'. We are onboarding him as we speak... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MPDTT Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 9 hours ago, marc2j said: I got promoted in March after being at my firm for seven years. I work in asset management and I'm now a manager. I will have an intern start reporting into me from next month, which is great. But its proper shone a light on our process for me. We are a global firm and 3/5 of the applicants were relatives of people who already work here, with some pretty pushy calls from some senior people asking me to see their particular relative etc. The thing we do, that is really good, is we are forced to give feedback on every interview we do which is available to provide back to our candidates who dont get through to the next stage. So, Ive spent some time writing that up, which hopefully will help. Which brings me to my favourite interview bits. One of our scripted questions was to ask 'describe yourself in three words'. Not ONE of the youngsters could do it. Not one. Every one of them gives it 'I'm a very dependable person'. Or my favourite one was 'I'm a great listener'. No. No you aren't. But my very favourite was a youngster who clearly had no business being in my interview process as he didnt really have relevant experience and it didn't make sense but HR pushed him through anyways. 'How have you improved efficiencies and processes in your current role?' 'Well, when I first joined I noticed how full up the filing cabinet was. So I went out of my way to ask the boss if we could buy a SECOND filing cabinet', Oh. I see. He didnt get the job. Bless him. You should speak to your HR dept about a nepotism policy....it's a real bugbear of mine. You should only be interviewing the strongest candidates, not the relatives of senior leaders just to keep them happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars85 Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 Are gimmicky CVs a thing now? My brother in law has been interviewing people recently. One person had a big #READYTOWORK at the bottom of theirs and another had a YouTube link to a music video they'd made, in with their address and phone number. It was for a waiting job in a restaurant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted May 18, 2021 Moderators Share Posted May 18, 2021 10 hours ago, marc2j said: One of our scripted questions was to ask 'describe yourself in three words'. Noel's House Party. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 30 minutes ago, lars85 said: Are gimmicky CVs a thing now? My brother in law has been interviewing people recently. One person had a big #READYTOWORK at the bottom of theirs and another had a YouTube link to a music video they'd made, in with their address and phone number. It was for a waiting job in a restaurant. They work for some industries I reckon (creative, tech). I remember seeing one that someone had done in the form of a Spotify playlist, and Spotify hired her (it was brilliant), but for a waiting job? Possibly a bit of overkill. But each to their own. I'd rather see something different than the same old shit. But I'd draw the line at comic sans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted May 18, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted May 18, 2021 (edited) As someone who has been occasionally involved in hiring in our department, what I've learnt from others who've done it for a lot longer is that the people looking at CVs what to see where you've been and what you've accomplished there. So you should put that on there as concisely as possible and then you can use your cover letter to make a case for why your experience is a good fit for the job. Gimmicks count for fuck all in most places that aren't creative industries, and in fact hint to your prospective employer that you'd probably rather be doing something else than copying a set of data from one spreadsheet to another. Edited May 18, 2021 by gmoney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members choccygirl Posted May 18, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted May 18, 2021 (edited) 12 hours ago, neil said: This is the complete reverse of the current software engineering market. I'm hiring right now and even contacting people after reviewing their CV a lot have already accepted a position elsewhere. If you do get someone in for an interview and you like them then you basically need to make them an offer within a day else they are gone. Different industry but same thing I’m finding. People are turning down jobs, not getting back to us to even arrange interviews, already accepted other offers by the time we make ours... it’s exhausting and I’m so fed up of interviewing. People will throw a well paid, good, job away for a tiny thing (even in place and with nothing to go to). It’s not especially out of the ordinary what we look for so I don’t think the job market is as bad the media make out (from what I see anyway), it just doesn’t add up. My biggest interview advice is to listen and not lie. Don’t pretend you’re the tits and cope with anything and have all the experience of everything being mentioned. You’ll only get employed and then look shit when you can’t cope. I’ve lost count of the number of people we’ve taken on and they are nothing like what they said during interviews and it always goes wrong. I don’t understand people who don’t take interviews as a chance to hear about the role either and assess if it’s for them. We give some pretty heavy warnings in ours about what jobs are like and every time people say they aren’t put off and they can do it (then they can’t and round it goes again). I sometimes wonder if I’m talking a different language but our process is robust so it seems to be the applicants. I’m almost at the stage of hiring the people who do badly in interviews! Oh and CVs with a bit of colour or a decent (not obvious or common) template really help them stand out. I don’t need to see photos though. Creeps me the fuck out. Edited May 18, 2021 by choccygirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Your Fight Site Posted May 19, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted May 19, 2021 11 hours ago, lars85 said: Are gimmicky CVs a thing now? Only if you want to work at Shopify. I applied for a role a year or two ago that my experience and skillset was literally perfect for. Right amount of experience, used all of the technologies listed day-to-day. Didn’t even get an interview. So asked why my application didn’t progress when on paper, it was perfect. Answer was basically “CV and cover letter were great, but we want people to do the stupid shit like make videos and whatnot”. This was after applying via their site which only had fields for the usual suspects like name, CV document, cover letter document, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members unfitfinlay Posted May 19, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted May 19, 2021 On 5/18/2021 at 12:27 PM, neil said: This is the complete reverse of the current software engineering market. I'm hiring right now and even contacting people after reviewing their CV a lot have already accepted a position elsewhere. If you do get someone in for an interview and you like them then you basically need to make them an offer within a day else they are gone. I've just had this in this in the care sector. I applied for a bunch of jobs last Monday. One contacted me Tuesday morning, interviewed me on Thursday and offered me a job on Friday. It was crazily fast. The rest are only just getting back to me now. On 5/18/2021 at 12:35 PM, SuperBacon said: I have never ever understood why businesses have such long, drawn out hiring processes. After 3 or 4 rounds, what are you looking for? Honestly. It quite rightly puts people off, and just maximises the risk of buy back/counter offers. All you need to know is can they actually do the job and culturally would they be the right fit? If it's that difficult for you to do that in one interview, then make the interview slightly longer and include all the major internal colleagues they'll be dealing with. Or make it quicker. I once had 4 interviews for a process, but it was all done within 4 days. Couldn't meet my manager, so met another Director and he hired me. Streamlined and simple. The worst I've heard was the mobile phone shop my mate worked at. Hiring was all handled by Head Office who made applicants go through a really lengthy process - including multiple interviews and a 20 minute presentation - for a 15 hour a week sales job. My mate was doing seven day weeks by the time he quit, because no one could be arsed to go through it all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted May 19, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted May 19, 2021 I had a group interview at Currys for a sales assistant position (20 hours per week) where we had to do a group role-play about what we'd do if we were stuck on a desert island. There were about 20 of us, including a bloke who seemed like a particularly bad Apprentice candidate who thought it was a test to see how good a survivalist we were, rather than a quite obvious basic (but excruciating) test of teamwork. I got through to the next round (FUCKING CURRYS SALES ASSISTANT, 20 HOURS A WEEK) but thought better of it and looked elsewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King Of Swing Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) If they put up with all of this shit just to get the job, we can make the fuckers do anything. Edited May 20, 2021 by The King Of Swing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ReturnOfTheMack Posted June 12, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted June 12, 2021 Taken a massive chance and quit my job to take a fixed term contract with my local council. The money is better and has a lot more scope for advancement, and the job satisfaction is higher for me (I've been working with them on secondment for a while). Fingers crossed it was a good call. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted June 12, 2021 Awards Moderator Share Posted June 12, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, ReturnOfTheMack said: Taken a massive chance and quit my job to take a fixed term contract with my local council. The money is better and has a lot more scope for advancement, and the job satisfaction is higher for me (I've been working with them on secondment for a while). Fingers crossed it was a good call. Well done - I hope it's worked out. I'd have done the same thing. Work is absolutely awful for me at the moment with no end in sight and if I had anything at all lined up I'd quit first chance I get. Edited June 12, 2021 by HarmonicGenerator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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