Job Dating
by Fainaaz Ali
Its nearly the end of your semester and you’re doing the all important “Job Hunt”. As you apply for many roles through job boards, you will come across the word “Short List” for example “only suitable candidates will be short listed and contacted”, “Sorry, you have not passed the short listing process” As an international student – have you ever been told what short listing is? How does it work? And why you don’t quality?
I recently had this discussion with my new HR intern, Sunny. Currently at Ecare Careers, we have over 20 students who have applied for a great internship opportunity with a large superannuation firm. I said to Sunny, we need to short list and she looked at me confused. “What does that mean” I thought to myself – what is the best way for me to describe this. Then it hit me…short listing is like….DATING!
So I explained to Sunny. When you are on the dating hunt, many people these days use particular apps to find their soul mates. If you are serious to in your dating, you will look at someone’s picture but also read their profile (I hope!) if the profile says, “I am lazy, I don’t like going out and I am unhappy”. I doubt you would want to meet this person. If the profile says, “I am good company, sometimes like to go out with friends”. You most likely will put that person in your “maybe pile” If you come across a profile that says – I am enthusiastic, fun person. I like sports but I also like my quiet nights. Family and friends are very important to me and I am naturally very caring”. – BING! I am sure you would swipe right on the last profile. The reason why you read these profiles is that you want this person to match you in some way and add value to your life.
This method is applied during the recruitment process for many companies. Like us for the superannuation internship, we started with 20 resumes. We looked at the content of each resume. From 20, we made three different piles. The “No” pile, the “yes” and the maybe.
In the No pile we focused on how badly the resume was written, was it professional and did the skills set meet the description from the host company. Many of the no pile resumes did not have the right skills, had grammatical errors or spelling mistakes which does not show good attention to detail.
The Maybe pile – had students that weren’t really strong in all areas but showed some potential in others. Some had good communication but not as strong technical skills and had good experience but not good communications etc.
The YES pile consisted of students who showed nearly all the required skills based on the internship description. These resumes were also really neat and the students were seen to have more customer service skills which made their communication stronger.
At the end – we ended up with 6 great students. The company then went on to pick 3 to interview. Just like dating, the company is finding their perfect match. A person that can add value, learn also bring the required skills.