10 Things You Dislike / Find Challenging About Applying For A Job or Recruiting A New Team Member

I read a post on LinkedIn today by a woman who had withdrawn another job application because she had been asked to complete a very time consuming project in order to progress to the next stage on interviews. This was the 3rd application she had withdrawn in a few months.

It got me thinking about all the times I'd been a job hunter and experienced many frustrations. Here are my top 10:

- Ridiculous job descriptions (some businesses really are looking for a unicorn)

- Wanting a unicorn that has the skills and experience to basically turn a business around or increase sales but only willing to pay a pathetic wage

- No response to an application or after an interview

- Hiring managers who don't understand what the role is or what the person will need to do

- Asking for a resume in Word format (WTF!)

- Job adverts that say nothing about the business/company

- Finding out after getting the job that the company / boss is terrible to work for

- Job interviews that start with "so tell me about yourself".

- Needing references but your best one is your current boss who you can't put down because you don't want them to know you are applying for another job

- Still following the same old recruitment process > post job ad > job seekers send resume and cover letter > 2 or more rounds of interviews (tell me about yourself, what are your strengths and weaknesses blah blah blah) > a winner is chosen.

I also regularly hear how frustrated managers and business owners are with the recruitment process and how challenging it can be.

I'm curious to find out if my dislikes are the same as others and what is so challenging about finding new staff.