Treating People Like People

When you apply for a job in most big companies these days it goes like this:

1. Create an account (username, password, email) on their website
2. Upload your resume(s) and cover letter(s)
3. Fill out a lengthy questionnaire that is largely a duplicate of your resume
4. Possibly take some competency tests

All that can take hours to go through at which point you might get a "thanks for submitting an application" form email. This is then followed by weeks of silence.

If they like you they will then subject you to weeks of intermittent phone and email questions interspersed with total radio silence. Eventually it culminates in an on site interview. These usually aren't so bad, but they often aren't the most pleasant either. This will then be followed by a few more weeks of silence.

The big day finally comes and they give you an offer! After weeks or months of dealing with the process they will most likely insist you respond to the offer in 2-3 days. A week at most.

That of course is if they like you. If they do not like you chances are you will hear nothing else ever after that initial email. If you are lucky you will get a second form email saying "thank you for applying but we have found other candidates who more closely fit the job description" or some other legalese verbiage. That email might not get to you though for months and I have gotten them over a year after I applied.

Why is it such a dumb and painful process? There are a lot of reasons that go into it, but one of them is a lot of companies are ignorant of how bad it is. When you are applying for a bunch of jobs you can literally spend days going through these painful forms. If all that work led to meaningful interactions it might be ok. But it is met with little or no communication.

Imagine now if a company looked at its hiring process like it looked at its sales and marketing processes. What if a company tried to make the hiring process fast, easy, and enjoyable? The one-click equivalent of recruiting. They would increase the quality and quantity of their candidates. It would make the people applying for the jobs feel valued and important. Even if they didn't get an offer.

I applied for a job at Google a few years back. I didn't get the job, but I got an email from a real live human telling me this. That was win #1. Win #2 was that he responded to my application within 10 minutes of my application. That floored me. There was no waiting and wondering. I was able to move on and look for something else. Win #3 was that I responded to the rejection and asked why. He responded with a meaningful answer that showed he actually read my question. So while I didn't get the job my already high opinion of Google was increased and I would be very willing to apply in the future.

Compare that to the frustration I experienced after applying for jobs at places like Boeing or Northrop Grumman. I'm not sure I'll ever apply for jobs with them again.