Are employers lazy?

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I've been hitting the pavement for months now, and I've yet to obtain a job.

My first job was when I got hired at McDonald's in June 2011. Since then, my hours have been cut to three a week and I've been relegated to lobby boy. This barely pays my car insurance every month, and nothing else.

In my recent job adventure, I've had numerous interviews, but that's as far as I get. These employers seem to love taking their sweet time doing anything at all, and some even brush you off as if you're just some thorn in their side. Most of these employers act like they're anxious to hire people, but when you actually do the effort on your part, they can't seem to do it on their end.

Does anyone else experience this with their job hunt?

Yes. Looking at CV's is boring, a lot of small companies don't have a dedicated HR person so someone else has to do it on top of there normal job so it gets sidelined. You might exactly call them lazy but from your perspective yes. That's they you need to prod sometimes.

I do prod them, usually every two days. It never gets me anywhere, though.

Still can't find any work.

Some are lazy, some are just accepting resumes but not hiring. (We aren't allowed to do this where I work)

Sometimes though, stuff happens. I was leading a search committee and after we completed the first round of interviews, we had to deal with the opening of the school semester. We are working 8-10 hours of OT a week.

No one had time to think about the search.

Another time, in the middle of a job search a hacker got into our systems. Everything had to be suspended to deal with that.

Hi!

I was on contract for three years.

Now I am on the other side of the table.

1) Sometimes an internal candidate applies. So, the job has to go to the inside man.

2) Sometimes the funding fails. Or there has been another change, so there has to be a change to the job. Yes, once I did go for an interview thinking it was for one thing, and they changed the description. So, my print copy had been updated since it was posted!!

3) Sometimes none of the candidates meet the score necessary to hire the position.

4) One or two occasions, there has been a domino effect. This is sometimes with government jobs.

Sometimes they just don't get back to you. And it can be rude on their part. I always (the one time that I had to do it anyway!) try to get back, because I know what it feels like...

One job, I had to complete a two hour exam, an hour long interview (where part of it was in the dark due to an electrical storm outside), a project, and my references were submitted to 45 minute interviews all three of them. After 10 months since the initial applicate deadline date, the job was cancelled due to funding. You are not alone.

From family working in local government there is a "redeployment" list which contains staff who have been displaced from elsewhere in the organisation. When recruiting they have to interview anybody on this list who applies and would have to justify why they are not offered the job. In a lot of cases they would want to avoid the people on the redeployment list as they are often poor workers (if another department had to cut a member of staff they would not choose their star performer).


Which is why so many job descriptions include a clause to include any other tasks that the company decide on.


A lot of people apply to jobs that they don't meet the basic requirements specified in the job description.



It is often easier to take CVs and keep them until you need to recruit staff, then go though the top (most recent) ones to look for staff. To write back to speculative applicants would be a lot of work. This is often better for the candidates as it is easer to email in a CV as opposed to fill in a long application form. The difficulty is knowing how often to resubmit the CV.

Prodding every two days would probably result in them rejecting you as it would just annoy the person dealing with applications. Most employers would wait until after the closing date before looking at any applications (to avoid bias towards those submitting early or late), the most they could do would be to confirm receipt.

You have to realize that employers have WAY more important things to worry about than looking over resumes and job applications, and even when they do take the time to look them over, there are hundreds of thousands that they have to dig through.

Managertina made some really good points, a lot of internal issues do affect the hiring process. I've applied to jobs where they told me they were going to set up an interview for me only to cancel the position a week later.

In this economy especially, a few months is nothing when looking for a job. After I was laid off from my job in 2008, it took me over three years before I got a decent job with a company I really wanted to work for. Note that I have a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting, which you always hear is a high-demand field and companies always need accountants, but it was almost impossible for me to compete since most job postings were asking for candidates with at least 5-10 years experience, and unfortunately I was competing against a bunch of out-of-work CPA's with 15+ years experience just for basic bookkeeper and accounts payable positions that don't pay much more than minimum wage. Since I needed a job just to make money, in the beginning I had trouble just getting a seasonal temporary overnight stocking position at Target that paid very little over minimum wage and was an hour drive away from where I lived. Under normal circumstances, no one would want that job, but at the time a bunch of people were willing to sacrifice their first born children for it. I had to go back and get my Master's Degree and make myself well known, and even then I was still having a lot of trouble getting a job. I still had to HAND MAIL (you get a better response if you do this) 200-300 resumes at a time just to get a handful of interviews.

Interviews a lot of times are arbitrary. I've been on interviews where the company already decided who they wanted to hire before I even set foot in the door. Sometimes employers just hold interviews in case someone will be leaving the company, but doesn't.

This. It's not laziness, it's time management. If you can find a way to think from their point of view, it might also help you with the interviewing process. They don't want to know how things are for you. They are intent on getting someone who will help them with their concerns. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but that's how it is. In a tough job market like the one today, it pays to at least be aware of that.

Laziness and incompetence can at times work in your favor, but I dont think this is what is going on.

Maybe its a supply and demand thing. Too many willing to work for McDonald's and few actual jobs.

Let's solve the low pay problem. Are you ready to work Noodlebug?
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