When I talk to my parents, they do express that getting a
job was not the easiest thing in the world, however they also explain memories
of their interviews of sometimes a panel interviewing one person to see if they
came across as the right person for the job. To get to this stage they would
send a CV and a cover letter that would be read and a shortlist decided. They’d
hear back from these people soon afterwards to hear about whether they were
accepted or rejected based on the interview.
Nowadays applying for a job has changed. From ASDA to
agencies of the British Government we are subjected to tests on our computers,
worse than just being a test these are multiple choice examinations asking a
person what they would do in a certain situation. From here the most common
thing to get back is an automated response, not even telling you where you have
gone wrong or any advice to make your search for work any more successful but
merely that your attempt for a job has not been successful and often that they
will not accept another application for twelve months. This email can be as
quick at coming through as a minute and the tests can take as long as an hour.
Obviously my issue with this is clear, I regard myself, as a
hardworking, determined individual who can be trained to do a job fairly
easily, regardless of what boxes I tick in a job application. I regard my
achievements in my education, where I have just completed the final year of my
degree in Criminology and the Criminal Justice System with Law and activities I
have taken part in like the Ten Tors, various rowing races, the Crimsoc society
at university and being a Youth Councillor in Bideford to say more than any
multiple choice test can. Maybe I’m not the person for the job, there is a
chance of that and I am aware of that chance, but this test doesn’t really
prove it either way. In fact as far as I see it this test proves next to
nothing.
One group I applied for a job for this summer, was a
government agency. I applied for this more as a stab in the dark, not really
expecting to hear anything back from it. I was actually surprised as not once in my application for
this job did it ask for my Curriculum Vitae, something I have spent a fair bit
of time on improving. I did, I heard they wished me to do these tests, the
first of these was a very simple mathematics exam I would say. In fact it was
simple enough that I could probably have done that test when I left Primary
School (admittedly I was fairly gifted at Maths), the second was a multiple
choice test about situations and so on. Together I would say these tests took
nearly an hour as the multiple choice test was very long with many similar scenarios
and to be honest the answers were all very similar too. Within a minute of
finishing this and having my brain fried by the boredom these tests put on you
when they’re too easy I got an email. I opened this email to find that I had
not got the job and an excuse to why they could not provide reasons to my job
application being unsuccessful.
Left feeling insulted by the fact my job application had
failed due to a multiple choice quiz being answered in a way their computer did
not like and therefore not being asked on the reasoning’s to my answers, I decided
I would reply, despite imagining the scenario other companies have done when I
have emailed them in this instance, where they have refused my email and
bounced it straight back at me telling me the email address is just for
automated messages as this has happened with businesses including ASDA and Orange
and since then the company they have become, EE.
This time I did get a reply answering telling me it was not
in the groups interest to advise me where I went wrong and if I wanted to apply
again, not to do so for at least twelve months. They also talked about
experience which I could have believed to be a valid reason if it wasn’t for
the fact they had talked about experience not being required on the jobs
advertisement and not once had they mentioned experience in their process, they
had based this on a few answers where the options were not too far apart in a
quiz. Answers that could change with only a couple of days of training and with
no means to explain an answer with a text box meant they could not see a
persons reasoning, which may show them to be the appropriate person for the job
with the couple of days training.
I am not saying face to face or over the phone or even a
test where you actually write your answers out would change the fact I did not
get the job in this case, but I am sure I would have been able to show off why
I should have been considered for such a job in a far better way, through
presentation, answers, passion and showing the fact that as mentioned before I
am a hardworking, determind individual who would not mind being trained to do a
particular job. I want to be challenged in the work place and prove myself to
be a good employee, not a bad participant in a multiple choice quiz and that at
the moment is more what is going on.
I am sure I am not the only person with this at mind when it
comes to the process of trying to get employment, I believe myself to be one of
thousands who is left frustrated by these tests. I am also sure that many times
the best possible employee for a job does a test like this and is refused
whilst many employees that won’t reach the same level, that lack the same
drive, the same passion, the same dedication to be a success in a job pass
these tests.
I am somebody who has just come out of university, I have the ambition of the sky being the limit, I have the determination to be the best I can be, the drive to make sure I can prove myself to be the ideal employee and to make an effort to make any opportunity that is made to improve my status in a job, I have developed a mind that can come to reasonable and sometimes important judgements quickly. I want to be the best person I can be in the working world and I am not the only one but the current way the job system works is negative for many people who are like this as well as myself.
