This morning I had to register for a service on Yahoo and I was presented with the above CAPTCHA in order to prove I wasn't a computer program pretending to be a human being. I had to correctly decipher the above image into a string of characters, then type it back to the web-page I was on or else I would be denied access. The image was SO unreadable that I saved it just so I could share my pain with all of you.
What do YOU think it said?
More importantly, have you followed your company's own resume submission process from start-to-finish? Do you know what, exactly, candidates who want to work with you are going through?
- One of my clients this week discovered that--due to an administration error in their IT department--she had been taken off "the list" of recipients for resumes sent to the company's jobs@ email address... the problem is, she's the only one on "the list". (She only found this out because an applicant had the tenacity to call after submitting and ask if it was received)
- My own company's website had a bug recently where it would erase your recently-uploaded resume if you also filled out our online application (oops)
- Another client of mine didn't inform their front-office staff that they were hiring again. The receptionist-as-gatekeeper followed her previously-given instructions and politely turned away somewhere between 20-50 people who came in the door responsding to the job ad.
At the end of the day, making it easy for people to wave a red flag and get your hiring manager's attention is a critical part of your recruiting process.
What are you doing to make it easy?
What are you doing to make it easier than it was last month?
How many incredible candidates are walking away from you because your submission process is broken/annoying/confusing/too restrictive/too secure? Will you ever know? Time to hire some secret-shoppers, if you ask me.
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