AI / Bot Rejection of Job Application!
Discussion
Spent four hours yesterday applying for a job (and that was starting from a lot of solid “here’s one I did earlier” material). Online application to fairly prestigious public sector organisation, application front end clearly pooled with slightly illogical grouping of other public sector employers.
100% fit for the “Qualifications” “Essential Requirements”, etc.
Rejection email within 60 seconds, so definitely automated: “We regret to inform you that we will not be taking your application further on this occasion as you have not met the minimum criteria for the role” . . . . . as a professional analyst I’m confident that is objectively wrong!
No that bothered (being an entrenched introvert, I would normally have taken a rejection badly, but I had a magazine article accepted for publication the same day!) as I already have an offer for an equivalent, third best job, and a second interview for a preferable one next week.
So . . . logic / criteria / algorithm has been populated badly by someone? Plus utterly unnecessary - these are very specialised, not entry level, roles, so I can’t believe they have so many applications that they need to machine sift them?
AI has the potential to really screw up sifting for interview!
100% fit for the “Qualifications” “Essential Requirements”, etc.
Rejection email within 60 seconds, so definitely automated: “We regret to inform you that we will not be taking your application further on this occasion as you have not met the minimum criteria for the role” . . . . . as a professional analyst I’m confident that is objectively wrong!
No that bothered (being an entrenched introvert, I would normally have taken a rejection badly, but I had a magazine article accepted for publication the same day!) as I already have an offer for an equivalent, third best job, and a second interview for a preferable one next week.
So . . . logic / criteria / algorithm has been populated badly by someone? Plus utterly unnecessary - these are very specialised, not entry level, roles, so I can’t believe they have so many applications that they need to machine sift them?
AI has the potential to really screw up sifting for interview!
Sometimes people checking applications are worse, a friend was rejected for a maths teacher job as she didnt meet the minimum requirement of at least a C in GCSE maths, apart from having A levels in maths and further maths which she did list, plus a degree in maths from Manchester plus almost 10 years teaching experience with great reviews. Speaking to the HR team they cant accept an application for a year after they have rejected her, even though the person who checked her application obviously made a mistake,
Her nan has moved into an old peoples home and as the only grandchild is being left the house so has already moved, as it is shes having to keep doing the nearly 1 hour each way drive for another year until she can apply again, in the meantime they have have temp teachers in that arent specialist maths teachers, but rules are rules.
Her nan has moved into an old peoples home and as the only grandchild is being left the house so has already moved, as it is shes having to keep doing the nearly 1 hour each way drive for another year until she can apply again, in the meantime they have have temp teachers in that arent specialist maths teachers, but rules are rules.
The first line of the recruitment process, human or AI, likely has very little knowledge of the job. This sounds especially true in the OP's case. I do not say that as a criticism of the team doing the recruiting. It is a reality and most hiring managers do not appreciate this. As a result, the additional detail you may put in your resume/c.v. that you think is the slam dunk will not be read by the person that can understand it.
We tested the success of our recruiting team by having people in the role apply for open positions. They did not get selected. That said more about the content of their c.v. than the recruitment process. As technical people, we often struggle to connect through words to anyone but those that understand us.
An example would be the job posting requires extensive knowledge of distributed messaging in an enterprise environment. If you write 5 years working with WebSphere MQ then the human recruiter may not know you mean 5 years with distributed messaging services including WebSphere MQ. They may think What's WebSphere MQ instead.
If you want to almost guarantee a phone screen with a human, ensure you answer each component of the job listing linking the request to the technology making it clear what the link is. You will hit the key words by doing this and help the person reviewing thousands of c.v..s.
I am not an expert, I have been a hiring manager for 20+ years and seen the failings of the system. ROG on here is and offers c.v. reviews. Take him up on his offer.
We tested the success of our recruiting team by having people in the role apply for open positions. They did not get selected. That said more about the content of their c.v. than the recruitment process. As technical people, we often struggle to connect through words to anyone but those that understand us.
An example would be the job posting requires extensive knowledge of distributed messaging in an enterprise environment. If you write 5 years working with WebSphere MQ then the human recruiter may not know you mean 5 years with distributed messaging services including WebSphere MQ. They may think What's WebSphere MQ instead.
If you want to almost guarantee a phone screen with a human, ensure you answer each component of the job listing linking the request to the technology making it clear what the link is. You will hit the key words by doing this and help the person reviewing thousands of c.v..s.
I am not an expert, I have been a hiring manager for 20+ years and seen the failings of the system. ROG on here is and offers c.v. reviews. Take him up on his offer.
I’ve been in IT for 35 years, 21 of which as a contractor; I’ve applied for a lot of roles. I also spent a couple of months in IT recruitment (don’t ask!).
What I used to do in order to get past the automated box checking apps was to paste the job advert text at the end of my CV in 1pt white text, thus ensuring that every keyword was present. No idea if that’ll still work.
Recruiters can be absolutely ridiculous - let’s say I have 15 years in HP UX, Solaris, TRU64 plus Linux flavours etc and a recruiter will blow me out because “the company want six months AIX”. It’s like being an experienced truck driver and being refused a job because you haven’t driven a Scania or something.
Similarly having a decades experience in automated QA plus two degrees but you cannot get past the brick wall of the recruiter because he insists you have a Foundation ISEB, which is very basic and at this level worthless (but will cost hundreds). The actual company didn’t want this, it was a recruiter thing. I had a fake certificate to get past them.
What I used to do in order to get past the automated box checking apps was to paste the job advert text at the end of my CV in 1pt white text, thus ensuring that every keyword was present. No idea if that’ll still work.
Recruiters can be absolutely ridiculous - let’s say I have 15 years in HP UX, Solaris, TRU64 plus Linux flavours etc and a recruiter will blow me out because “the company want six months AIX”. It’s like being an experienced truck driver and being refused a job because you haven’t driven a Scania or something.
Similarly having a decades experience in automated QA plus two degrees but you cannot get past the brick wall of the recruiter because he insists you have a Foundation ISEB, which is very basic and at this level worthless (but will cost hundreds). The actual company didn’t want this, it was a recruiter thing. I had a fake certificate to get past them.
Edited by Dog Star on Thursday 1st February 15:23
Dog Star said:
Similarly having a decades experience in automated QA plus two degrees but you cannot get past the brick wall of the recruiter because he insists you have a Foundation ISEB, which is very basic and at this level worthless (but will cost hundreds).
That's where you've been going wrong DS, ISEB hasn't been around for years, it's all ISTQB now! 
Mammasaid said:
That's where you've been going wrong DS, ISEB hasn't been around for years, it's all ISTQB now!
Ah - well I went contract -> perm a decade ago now. Honestly - it wouldn’t surprise me to have a recruiter say “sorry, I can see you’ve got a phd in computing, but the manager says you need an HND” (or whatever they’re called now).
Octoposse said:
Spent four hours yesterday applying for a job (and that was starting from a lot of solid “here’s one I did earlier” material). Online application to fairly prestigious public sector organisation, application front end clearly pooled with slightly illogical grouping of other public sector employers.
100% fit for the “Qualifications” “Essential Requirements”, etc.
Rejection email within 60 seconds, so definitely automated: “We regret to inform you that we will not be taking your application further on this occasion as you have not met the minimum criteria for the role” . . . . . as a professional analyst I’m confident that is objectively wrong!
No that bothered (being an entrenched introvert, I would normally have taken a rejection badly, but I had a magazine article accepted for publication the same day!) as I already have an offer for an equivalent, third best job, and a second interview for a preferable one next week.
So . . . logic / criteria / algorithm has been populated badly by someone? Plus utterly unnecessary - these are very specialised, not entry level, roles, so I can’t believe they have so many applications that they need to machine sift them?
AI has the potential to really screw up sifting for interview!
There can't be that many public sector organisations that use AI to scan applications. Yet it clearly wouldn't have been reviewed by a human that quickly.100% fit for the “Qualifications” “Essential Requirements”, etc.
Rejection email within 60 seconds, so definitely automated: “We regret to inform you that we will not be taking your application further on this occasion as you have not met the minimum criteria for the role” . . . . . as a professional analyst I’m confident that is objectively wrong!
No that bothered (being an entrenched introvert, I would normally have taken a rejection badly, but I had a magazine article accepted for publication the same day!) as I already have an offer for an equivalent, third best job, and a second interview for a preferable one next week.
So . . . logic / criteria / algorithm has been populated badly by someone? Plus utterly unnecessary - these are very specialised, not entry level, roles, so I can’t believe they have so many applications that they need to machine sift them?
AI has the potential to really screw up sifting for interview!
Did you accidentally tick the 'i need a visa' box or answer no to the 'are you a British citizen' question? The online application systems can filter out certain checkbox answers like that.
xx99xx said:
There can't be that many public sector organisations that use AI to scan applications. Yet it clearly wouldn't have been reviewed by a human that quickly.
Did you accidentally tick the 'i need a visa' box or answer no to the 'are you a British citizen' question? The online application systems can filter out certain checkbox answers like that.
Good thinking! Just checked and that bit looks OK.Did you accidentally tick the 'i need a visa' box or answer no to the 'are you a British citizen' question? The online application systems can filter out certain checkbox answers like that.
I think the rejection came within 90 seconds of submitting the application!
t like that. In reality the quality of the employees won’t be any better for using this system anyway. What a load of tosh, glad I’m nearer the end of my career than the beginning cos I couldn’t take this type of thing.This is mainly down to very poor software and AI programming.
Sadly these sites often use this all the time, sites like Indeed are a shocker, I cant recall the number of times when I have uploaded a new CV and am then called by people detailing my last job years ago, or a different location, these sites are a joke
I will simply add CV LIbrary seems to be a lot better. I use both of course when needed by get hardly any issues when using that
Sadly these sites often use this all the time, sites like Indeed are a shocker, I cant recall the number of times when I have uploaded a new CV and am then called by people detailing my last job years ago, or a different location, these sites are a joke
I will simply add CV LIbrary seems to be a lot better. I use both of course when needed by get hardly any issues when using that
matrignano said:
Sorry but, the words AI seem to be bandied around a bit too much.
What is AI exactly about a piece of software that reads a CV and scans for keywords?
Natural language processing, maybe, but AI?
Case when 'keyword' in cv then true else false end as offer_interviewWhat is AI exactly about a piece of software that reads a CV and scans for keywords?
Natural language processing, maybe, but AI?
I bet once they use LLMs to filter things will get even worse, especially if they don't clean the output so you have to hit the keywords but also hope the seed isn't one that replaces "yes" with "decision: yes" and have a system automatically reject you.
essayer said:
Next will be interviews where we speak to an AI algorithm over video and it rejects you because you said ‘erm’ too many times
Ah! I’m all for it. I interviewed a chap the other day and he kept saying “like”. I got my colleague who was just listening in to count them. Two hour interview. 164 “likes”.
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