[thechat] Application Forms (Was: predictive indexing - is it evil ?)

[Martin Burns]

On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Chris Marsh wrote:

> > > She has absolutely excellent references. This is why these
> > questions
> > > annoy me so much. Can she do the job? Call her referees. She can?
> > > Excellent, give her an interview.
> >
> > The form is a stage before this. Do I want to spend time
> > calling referees of people who are clearly not up to the job?
>
> As opposed to wading through applications forms that may or may or not
> contain genuine information?

Depends who's doing it. If I'm the recruiting manager, I don't want to be
doing it when I've got a day job to do. I'd rather pass it over to a
specialist function.

> If you want to ask an essay type question,
> surely something like "describe why you consider yourself suitable for
> the role" would give the HR person more clue.

So split that out into two questions (which are easier to assess by
someone who has objective criteria to go on) and you've essentially got
"Do you understand the job?" and "Prove you can do it".

Again, you've not suggested a better alternative, only offered steps which
are *already* part of the process.

Cheers
Martin

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