Inept young applicants have hiring managers struggling to fill jobs

New York Post ^ | 10/24/11 | Virginia Backaitis

[Haiku Guy]

He doesn’t think it’s too much to ask of a job seeker. A resume, a statement of salary expectations and a single written paragraph that answers a question like, “What do you believe a good customer service representative’s attitude should be?”

(snip)

Stories are legion of inept or half-hearted applicants who submit resumes marred by misspellings, show up at interviews dressed for a beach party, make inappropriate jokes, fail to learn basic details about the job and company in question, and otherwise leave hiring managers aghast.

(snip)

“Who the hell is going to hire these people?” asks Heinemeier Hansson. “Who is going to read some of these atrociously bad applications and say, ‘Yeah, that’s the person I’ve been looking for?’ ”

[Ellendra]

Some employers try, if they're short staffed enough. Unfortunately that causes other issues and the person often has to be let go anyway. I had to help term somebody last week because he disregarded all the training and then tried to argue that he knew better than everybody what the company's policies *should* be. He was a seasonal trainee but he seemed to think he was CEO.

[who knows what evil?]

i>I had an applicant that I placed 4 ones and four quarters in front of, then produced a fiver, and asked her to make change for a $2.50 purchase. She started to cry, as she did not know how.

...and yet; there are people who STILL support the public school system...

[Crichton]

On the off chance that your bossman is listening:

It would have been my bossman's boss's boss's boss's boss. Or something. Who knows? But if I remember correctly, I did do coins and bills separately. I got out of cashiering as quick as I could -- it's brain-deadening work, and I now have tremendous sympathy for the folks who do that for a living.

I have to admit, prior to that job I would question the mental competence of the cashiers who slavishly did whatever the machine told them - until I started doing it and found that after an hour or two I could no longer think coherently and was on the receiving end of those stares. A humbling experience.

[sniper63]

I have been looking for liftruck drivers and warehouse people for the past two months, 80% of the job applicants have 8th and 9th grade circled for highest level of education completed.

If they don't have the drive to finish high school what kind of drive would they have to show up for work.

[Penner]

He doesn’t think it’s too much to ask of a job seeker. A resume, a statement of salary expectations and a single written paragraph that answers a question like, “What do you believe a good customer service representative’s attitude should be?”

He's been brainwashed by NAFTA and GATT.

Things haven't changed - You offer a rock-bottom wage, you get a rock-bottom applicant.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Look on the bright positive side about the wonderful kids!

Don Imus had a love-in this morning with this music-industry guy, author.

Steve Stoute was on with his new book, The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy.

Wiki-graffiti reports it's the embodiment of cool "hip-hop morphed into mainstream culture." Mr. Stoute can "relate to a new generation of thinking."

Mr. Stoute is involved in a variety of civic causes. such as he had "a key role in the development of minority recruitment campaigns for both the Fire Department of the City of New York and the New York City Police Department."

This morning he bragged about how white, Hispanic, and black kids are now cool, man. So not to worry about qualified employees. Wait! I do not recall him mentioning Asian kids! I guess they are lost.

Employers will be forced to hire the now mainstream kids. Count on it. IMO.

I just googled Mr. Stoute. I guess I am now for sure a racist and guilty of violating current and future hate crime laws.. I disagree with Mr. Stoute a liberal black man.

[Noumenon]

Same thing bugs me. It’s especially bad if they’re handing you shange at a drive-in window. Typically, you get the receipt, the bills and the cois stacked in that order. This allows the change to slide smoothly off the paper and onto the pavement underneath your vehicle.

I usually try to interrupt the process by politely saying, “change first, please!”

[who knows what evil?]

Some of those applicants may have got through anyway; I see young people in my office dressed like that for work.

A Vermont insurance company I once did business with allowed female employees to walk around barefoot. I don't mean women who had slipped hose-clad feet out of heels or flats for the sake of comfort; I mean BAREFOOT...8 to 5.

Ick.

[momincombatboots]

I cannot believe the insanity here. This is simply another plea by businesses to get “ more qualified” foreigners! I call bs! They are saying they don’t have enough engineers... Um not likely! I have spoken to s handful of ...unemployed engineers. They are competing with the insanely high costs of employing Americans. My oldest is an MP and my youngest works at walmart. I am darn proud of them both for being responsible adults... Please stop categorizing the youth in such denegrating terms. You don’t hear about them cuz they are working and part of the 53 percent.

[Kratos]

“I saw nice looking (18-20?) man; big, muscular…and with a penis tattooed from his ear lobe to the corner of his lip.

What a dickhead!”

Reply post of the day! Hilarious!

[Ellendra]

I had college grads come in and all but announce that they would be working in the front office or engineering lab within a week.

At the place I work at we sometimes get people doing that. If they put a time on it like that, they usually don't last. But, if they say "I want to become a trainer" or "I want to move into Accounting" then we (I'm a training coach) make a note of it, then watch them. If they're willing to put the work in, show up on time, respond well to correction, etc, my company is really good about promoting people.

Sometimes ambition can be a promising sign in a new hire, but they've got to be able to back that up with something other than arrogance.

[Betis70]

>>I got out of cashiering as quick as I could — it’s brain-deadening work, and I now have tremendous sympathy for the folks who do that for a living.

Really? Working at that gas station was one of the most fun, low-end wage jobs I ever had. Always busy, time flew by, and I got to chit chat with some of the town’s most interesting people. Plus we were on the local route to the beaches, so there was always some eye-candy for a teenage guy to check out.

The only thing that stunk was standing all day on a concrete floor. And waking up at 3AM, esp in the dead of winter.

Beat digging ditches, which I did later during summer breaks for college money, even if it paid about 1/2 the wage.

[Liberty1970]

As a hiring manager, I have to agree with this. Many younger applicants that apply for open positions are unemployable. As a result, I end up hiring a lot of older people who have been around the block and know how to handle customers, pressure and have a good work ethic.

I can appreciate that, though I just had the opposite experience. We needed a new quality engineer to fill an opening and ended up hiring a an older fellow (55-60ish). He never did get any of the QE tasks done, though he managed to shuffle them around for four weeks. He was supposed to do some auditing on topic A; instead he audited topic B (something completely 'other'), and managed to aggravate a bunch of people with a bad attitude.

A month after hire my manager called him in to say it hadn't worked out. From comments he made on the way out, a light bulb clicked on: you have to work one month to renew your unemployment comp. And there he was getting walked out precisely one month after hire. Talk about working the system. I'm used to expecting little of some young people these days, but he was a real disappointment.

[Roccus]

While our positions require a "college degree" according to the application, that is really to weed out the worst of the candidates. We will happily hire people regardless of education who display a good attitude, a willingness to work hard and learn, a firm handshake and have a clue about customer service.

How would you find these people you would "happily hire" if they have already been "weed[ed] out"?

Back when I used to apply for employment (I'm now retired) I would not waste the employer's or my time with an application for a position that required a degree I did not possess.

[Rummyfan]

.... resumes that show an inability or unwillingness to write a competent sentence, and communiques (“here u r. resume attached. We can talk $ l8r”) that read like they were texted from junior-high recess.

Unbelievable!

[RikaStrom]

“I’m always stunned at the inability to follow simple directions. “Send your resume and a cover letter to this email address.” How hard is that? And we still get people who submit their resume through the online application process. Then they call me, “Did you get my resume? I used the online process.” I always ask them, “Did you read the instructions on the job application?” And these are people who are applying to teach at a university... *Sigh”

They never bother to learn do they? I honestly prefer to email my “employemt equipment” (as I like to call it) to companies rather than fill out a tedious online application.

My favorites are the ones that have a stock cover letter that's emailed to every ad they are applying to. I have not, nor will I ever be, a pharmaceutical company. The person didn't even read the ad, I called to ask him why he had applied, he said he applies to every "sales" role and doesn't read the ad. OY.

My next favorite, my name, and my phone number are in our ad, the ad says to call me. I will get a ratio of about 50 to 1 on the people that email me instead of call.

We finally got lucky and recruited to really great candidates, they followed instructions, showed up on time, were enthusiastic, didn't ask WIIFM (what's in it for me), and they're are knocking it out of the park. They're going to make great little capitalists once they figure out how much they're getting paid in commissions. :-)

[going hot]

I wonder how many employees get suspected of embezzlement when in fact they simply make mistakes and give away cash.

[SamAdams76]

We get plenty of candidates that do not meet the college requirement. We still get plenty of applicants that haven't been to college but they sell themselves on their experience their confidence and their enthusiasm.

Most books these days on finding a job will tell you to ignore the "college requirement" when job-seeking.

[RikaStrom]

to should be two

Wireless keyboards, they’re not all they are cracked up to be!

(shakes head)

[pabianice]

When I earned my initial CFI (certificated flight instructor certificate) from the FAA, the fail rate was about 30% on the first try. It has recently been approaching a 70% fail rate on the first try. More than coincidence? Yes, it is.

When I passed my master technician in TV servicing license, the fail rate on the first try was about 20%. It now approaches 50%. More than coincidence? Yes, it is.

When many colleges created the BDIC (bachelor's degree with individual concentration) in the 70s, they created college groupies that spent four years learning almost nothing and were severly limited in job prospects.

The Liberals have created a society wherein at least of third of adults are unemployable. Of course, this is exactly what you want when you force socialism down peoples' throats. It will be decades after we fire Obama before this can be turned-around.