Let's start with one of my biggest frustrations throughout the application process: "Entry Level Jobs".
If I asked you to define 'entry level', what would you say? Probably something about being a beginner or having little-to-no training. Essentially, a role someone can enter a career at.
So why do recruiters seem to have a different definition?
I cannot tell you the number of times I have clicked on jobs which are labelled either as 'entry level' or 'graduate role' only to be disappointed when further down, in the Person Specification, there is a long list of the experience I'm meant to have. What part of '2-3 years experience' makes someone think they can categorise a job as entry level? I have 2-3 years experience of studying for a degree, gotta be honest, there's not been massive amounts of time to brush up on CRM, CMS, or B2B (we'll save a discussion on abbreviations for another time).
What makes this so irritating is that the level of the role is one of the first things I check. It's a quick way to know if I should bother reading the role description: if 'graduate' is in the title, or the seniority level is 'entry', this instantly indicates whether it is worth my time. The whole point of having a section in the advert for the seniority level is to streamline the process. When adverts are labelled wrong, I'm wasting my time. Usually I read the explanation of the role and think 'yeah, I'm interested', so to scroll to the bottom and then be disappointed by the appearance of that dreaded word 'experience' is a real cherry on top of the job hunting process. It feels like I'm being misled. In fact, I am. Someone somewhere has messed up and labelled it wrong.
If I tick every box except the ones focused on experience, is it worth me applying? Probably not considering almost every response I've had has told me that my lack of experience is the reason my application won't be taken forwards. Usually I still apply: you've told me it's entry level so I'll take you at your word.
The other problem with mislabelling jobs, however, is that it also doesn't reflect well on the company. I think I'll write a whole post on proof-reading job adverts, but I have to mention here that the inability of recruiters to correctly categorise jobs is not helpful to anyone. It suggests a lack of thoroughness and incompetence on the part of the company, and if you can't be bothered to write the advert properly, candidates will definitely be put off applying.
I appreciate that training new staff takes time and money, but people aren't born knowing things - even university doesn't necessarily offer all the opportunities needed to gain experience in the ways businesses want. Somewhere along the line, someone needs to take a chance and hire the inexperienced candidate. You never know, they could be a quick learner and by giving them that chance, you build loyalty in your employee.
UPDATE:
This post was partially sparked by this thread on Linkedin. It popped up again on my dashboard today, and I thought I'd add a paragraph to my post, addressed to those people in the comments telling graduates that they have plenty of time to gain experience throughout uni - either by working, interning, volunteering, or just training themselves. In my anger, I have a few choice words for these people which I shan't write here. Essentially, you're wrong. First up, personally I might not have had many contact hours, but many degrees are incredibly demanding upon a person's time. It's like working a full time job for some students. Add on any extracurricular they want to do: sports, politics, plain old hobbies. And obviously you're allowed to socialise, and even students who don't enjoy the wild nights out still like to go out with their friends every so often. Add to that taking care of oneself and their home - cleaning, cooking, having some quiet time to just be by yourself. Maybe add on a part-time job because that student loan may not cover all your expenses. I realise a lot of these are the demands of everyday life, but are you telling me you can get through work, socialising, hobbies, and self-care (and you know, minus roughly 15 hours of part-time work a student does that you don't have to do) and still have time to intern/volunteer on top of that without becoming completely frazzled? Didn't think so.
On the same note, a lot of people don't have any choice about the kind of experience they pick up. For so many people, any kind of retail or service job that can reliably pay them is the priority, not one which fits the industry they later want to work in. I had a job for 4 years and whilst I may have gained transferable skills from it, cheffing and serving in a cafe don't exactly feed naturally into working in a creative field. You're assuming that volunteer work or intern role in a relevant field are easy to find but they aren't - and even if you find them, I guarantee that once you're there it's difficult to get all the experience you want instead of just doing admin for them. Furthermore, many internships aren't paid and it might be a joke online that students are always poor but it isn't exactly funny when you think about it. "Come work for us and gain relevant experience" companies say, "but don't forget that we aren't paying you for your labour." (This is a whole other can of worms which is also very infuriating). My point is that not everyone can afford it. Not everyone has the time or ability to get the experience you want them to have. So how about you just make an entry level job that is entry level.
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