Consider the case... I've got a stack of 100 resumes and 2 hours today to select the top 10 candidates from that stack. I'll be ranking those 10 and give them to HR at the end of the day today. Tomorrow, HR will take the top 5 who are available and schedule interviews for next Tuesday. One of them will be selected from those who interview next Tuesday.

What can you do to increase the odds that you're in the top 10 (and preferably top 5)?

It's possible that a superficial reason was used to separate number 10 from number 11 ... and maybe number 11 would have been a great candidate and future employee. What I don't have is three weeks to do all day 9-5 1h long interviews for every candidate.

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legitster 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That makes sense for the opportunities that actually close after they are posted. I'm talking about jobs that disqualify you as a candidate same day, then repost the same listing next week. And next month. And next year. These are clearly ghost jobs.

Regardless - it would be nothing to show some basic human decency and respect:

- Review them more often until you get the 5 quality candidates to interview (there's no way in hell you actually review all 100 resumes fully - quit sitting on them for weeks and weeks)

- Take down the posting after resumes are reviewed

- Submit a basic and honest response for the people who's resumes didn't make the consideration

- A simple human note for the candidates who were considered but didn't make the interview

- Timely closer for the interviewed candidates who didn't get the job

None of these add any substantial time to the hiring process, but can go a long way to remember the human in a job market that's an absolutely brutal and soulless Leviathan right now.

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shagie 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I work in the public sector. There's a requirement (i.e. law) that the job posting is available for the public to read for two weeks. No selection may be made before all applications are received.

After two weeks, the posting is taken down.

> - Submit a basic and honest response for the people who's resumes didn't make the consideration

If you have 200 resumes in the pool and 100 of them weren't passed on for additional consideration because they didn't meet the requirements (education, needing visa sponsorship, outside of the country, not following the instructions for the application), how long will that take?

Furthermore, in the litigious nation we live in, that information when provided honestly has tended to lead to lawsuits ("I wasn't considered because...").

> - A simple human note for the candidates who were considered but didn't make the interview

That's another 100 candidates. Three minutes each to write the email? That's three hours of someone's day. Again, this gets to the litigious situations. It only takes the allegation of bias to lead to a lawsuit - that costs way more than three hours of my day.

This is the public sector, we don't pay a lot - that's why it's only 200 applications. In the private sector it wouldn't be hard to multiply that number by 3 or 4.

> - Timely closer for the interviewed candidates who didn't get the job

This is something that we're good at. The people who were interviewed know by the end of the week. Job posting opening to the selection being made is four weeks.

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legitster 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The simple and honest response can be an automated email that says you didn't meet the requirements - you would be amazed at how many job postings don't even do that.

I can understand the justification for all of the other choices. But it doesn't mean I have to like it. The whole process is degrading and dehumanizing, and it's something that has gotten much, much worse in the last decade.

	▲	johnnyanmac 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The GP said the quiet part out loud. They are so worried about lawsuits that they'd rather make the job market worse for everyone (including themselves) than risk a lawsuit over the most basic feedback. The product of a low-trust society.

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johnnyanmac 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's why feedback is important. If the reason was "we are looking for X experience and X is not on your resume" I can adjust that for later. If it was even as honest as "we found enough qualified candidates to interview and didn't look at your resume", that's still semi-actionable feedback. I either apply earlier or just accept that I was unlucky and it was not my ability.

Generic rejections like "we moved with other candidates" tells me nothing. So noise remains because candidates don't have feedback to improve upon. All because HR wants minimize lawsuits through obscurity.