Don't Make Candidates Jump Through Hoops : CollegeRecruiter.com Blog

There's been an interesting discussion in the NACE JobPlace discussion list about the perception by many employers that students who do a more effective job of searching for employment opportunities will have a better chance of being hired.

I agree but caution those who believe that the best candidates are those who try the hardest to be hired. It seems to me that candidates who try the hardest to be hired actually fall into two groups:

Highly qualified candidates who know what they want and go after it with a vengeance. These are the candidates we all should salivate over.
Desperate candidates who don't know what they want (or who mistakenly think they know what they want) and go after it with a vengeance. These are the candidates who send hundreds of resumes and put up with the most brutal application processes. These are the candidates that we should all fear as they suck up a tremendous amount of our time even if we weed them out and do a tremendous amount of damage to our organizations if we have the misfortune of hiring them. They tend to be good people, but poor fits for our opportunities.

I regularly hear employers talking about how they think it is a positive to require all candidates to endure their 20 minute on-line assessment or some convulated application process that is required because of the applicant tracking system they use. These employers are either kidding themselves or too afraid to do what they know is right: force their organizations and their vendors to do what is right for the candidate. Whether we're wearing the hat of a career service office professional, recruiter, hiring manager, ATS, job board, or anyone else in the recruiting world, our ability to be successful has always been and will always be driven by what is right for the candidate.

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