Job Market Bullsh*t

Sniffing out the bullshit. This week, I'm concentrating on the absolute nonsense that I am seeing in the job market right now. I think it's absolute tatters. Like, I mean, so many big guys have laid off such a large proportion of their staff. Like, double figures, they've all kind of laid them off. All the big guys have. Meto, Google, like, you know, they've all kind of done it. And you'd think that there's a bunch of super talented people out there who are desperate to get a job because they've been laid off. But it doesn't even seem like it. It seems like most of these companies have over-hired in the first place, and have really regretted it because they just had a bunch of people who weren't really doing anything, who were just sitting around, you know, twiddling their thumbs for most of the day, and the company's so large, and no one really noticed anything. And now they've realized because they had to cut their purse strings, and they've got rid of them. But these people, which you'd think who were, when you see Google and these guys on their CV, you think, oh, they must be amazing. But all they've done is sat in a big company for a long time, and not actually gained a lot of experience. Obviously, there's some fantastic people out there who have been laid off, and, you know, obviously, I feel sorry for all these people who have been laid off, but, you know, there's a lot of people out there who don't know what it's like to actually work in a business properly. So now, they're sort of applying to all these smaller companies. I'm not saying small agencies like ourselves, but it's, you know, smaller companies that could still be multinational companies. But when you are in a smaller company, every time you don't work, it's really obvious, because you're in a smaller team, and you're a larger percentage of that company. So you can't get away with the laziness that you maybe have been able to get away with at a big, big, big, big, big corporation. So we've got a funny situation in the job market. I consistently speak to other business owners, small business owners mainly, and they are constantly complaining about the lack of talent out there, which is what led me to look into this and talk about it, because as I said, I'm very surprised. I thought the market would be filled with amazing talent, but it seems that people have got a different impression of what they expect from a job.

So now, because of the buzzwords of work-life balance and mental health, everyone is expecting a certain way of working. So now, as standard, as an employer, you have to be providing flexible working environments, a hybrid sort of work situation. If you are fully in-house, you are going to massively reduce your talent pool. You need to provide mental health support, and whether that's mental health days off or therapy, you have to be providing tons of different benefits like this and a personal development plan with training, all this sort of thing, which may not have been such a big thing several years ago. So it's hard for small businesses to compete with this sort of stuff. Now, as a result, what we're seeing is a lot of bullshit from both sides, from both employers and from employees. Now, I'm gonna highlight some of this bullshit so that people who are applying for a job or people who are recruiting at the moment can be aware of it. So let's start with the employer bullshit because there's a lot of them. And as I said, you need to stay competitive at the moment. So people are advertising jobs and listing a bunch of benefits that don't even exist. Now, I've had poor people come to me saying, you know, they went to a job, they listed a bunch of benefits, and actually when they got there, none of that was true. They didn't get all the stuff they were promised. So for example, classic is unlimited holiday. That sounds so attractive. Imagine going to a job and it's like unlimited holiday. And people paint a picture of that saying, oh, I worked really hard, so now I just want to take three weeks off and just go sit in the cabin on the beach and just have a break and everything. But the reality of it is that when they put their request in for the holiday, it was declined, because employers can still decline your holiday request. And so whilst you may have unlimited holiday, you never actually get to take it, which is actually ridiculous. So what they do then grant is statutory holiday, because that's what's legally required. And so all they actually do is grant the statutory holiday. So it balances out, and it's never really what it actually seems. And this is like so many things. You see all these different benefits, and they put it on social media, they glamorize it, they make it look super fancy, but actually these benefits don't even exist. And then worse still, the people who are listing their benefits, which are all statutory requirements. So it's like, oh, we offer 28 days a year holiday, which includes your bank holidays. Okay, that's not an offer, that's required by law.

Or we don't have a uniform, neither do most people. Or we have all these sort of things, like we offer free coffee in the office. Oh my God, big groups, doesn't everyone? Surely you should do. I was like, I'm looking at one now just for, just a curiosity, I'm flicking through some of the jobs on LinkedIn here. And it's got like benefits, opportunity to learn from experienced team members. Wow, really nice office environment. Great, thanks for that. Welcome gift. I mean, come on, like this is stuff that is, should be available to everyone. Look at another one, pension. Again, required by law, that is not a benefit. And so, like fine, you can list that on there, but list the actual benefits that other people aren't doing, and that's an actual benefit, not just your, the real statutory requirements. So it's actually ridiculous, which I find bizarre that people are allowed to do this. So that is crazy, but advertising a job with, you know, not as glamorous as it may seem is one thing, but advertising a job that doesn't exist is next level. Now, yeah, I've seen employers do this a lot, and I've spoken to business owners who do this, and they say, oh, I want to do this because I want to see what talent's out there. I want to test the waters. So I'm doing this on purpose because actually I want to see, you know, whether people will be interested in this sort of job or not. And you're just basically messing with people, and you're messing with their time, which I find bizarre. But that's, you know, you'll find yourself applying for jobs that don't even exist. So you think that you're being ghosted. You're not, they just want to see what's happening. And sometimes they're going through and they're doing interviews even with you, and they're making you do trial tasks and everything, but there's no job at the end of it. Maybe there'll be a job later down the line because they're thinking, oh, I can, again, they don't want to hire ahead of the curve because that's risky, especially in this financial climate. So what they're doing, they're kind of waiting and building up a list, and then maybe they'll get in touch with you later. But fine, I get having conversations with people and keeping a nice bench of really great talent is a good idea to have. But don't promise them a job as a starting date in a few weeks' time and promise them all these sore things when it doesn't even exist because I think that's messing with people's mindset.

And not everyone has the luxury to be able to go months without unemployment. And those candidates which are good are probably getting offers elsewhere and they might be turning it down because they're waiting for yours. It's not right. So I don't think that's good. And also I don't think, the fact that lots of these jobs, I'm flicking through half of these and I can't see a salary on most of these ones. And I think again, job boards probably need to change this. I think that you cannot advertise a job without a salary. I've never done this in my life. I just think it's such a waste of time for both people. Now, not even thinking about the employee for a second, but think about yourselves as an employer. If you advertise a job and you don't even put the salary down, you're gonna get so many applicants applying to you. You're probably thinking, oh my God, this person's so good. Look at their CV. You speak to them. You love them. And then suddenly, but their expected salary is 20 grand more than you can budget for. So you just wasted everyone's time. Surely that's so frustrating for you as an employer. So why wouldn't you put a salary down? It makes absolutely no sense. So for me, any job that doesn't have a salary on it is a waste of time. And the employer is also a waste of time because they're not considering your feelings. They're also not really thinking ahead, because if they haven't thought about how stupid it is for their sake as well, what are the bad decisions they're making? So I think that's crazy. Now, let's talk about some of the trial tasks because I get this a lot. Now, we have a trial task within our job application process, but we advertise it from the get-go. So straight away, we say ours is a three-step process. We have initial screening. We have a trial task, and we advertise that it should be one hour, maybe two max as their choice, but it should be about an hour, some of them a lot less. And then we have an interview, a full interview in the office so you can meet people, and it's for your benefit too. We disclosed it at the beginning, so if people don't want to do it, they don't have to. But we believe that we need to see some of their work, and so we offer this as trial tasks. Now, the problem is, I think that trial tasks are fine, especially for just an hour or two. I think that's very normal. I think how else do you get to assess them? People do exams, people do all sorts of things.

We have to produce some sort of thing for our clients, and we don't agree in doing free work, but we have a big portfolio, and actually, again, with certain things, you can offer portfolios. But when we go into the next section about what candidates do, you can see why we often use a trial task. The problem is, some employers use this as an opportunity to get free work. Now, I know employers who have got projects coming up, and they put a job out in order to get free work. Imagine this. Imagine a copywriting agency. They post the job saying, senior experience copywriters required. They get a bunch of talented people come in, and they've got a big client piece of work coming up, and they have to batch content, a ton of stuff, but they don't have the resource for it at the moment. So what do they do? They make all the candidates do it as their trial task. So say if they have 20 blog posts to write, they get 20 decent candidates. They each give them the trial task. They write them the blog, give them the blog post, write, give them the brief, get the work coming in. Free work! That's what they do. That is actually what they do. And I've seen this happen with design work, and I've seen web design agencies do it. And they're like, okay, so they give one candidate a home page, one candidate a back page, one candidate a services page, et cetera, et cetera. And they give them the brief, and they get them to do the work. And it's disgusting. And that sort of stuff is different. Whereas our trial task is usually more about application and creativity, and they could do their own thing. And it's all their copyright. But instead, people don't look at this, and they don't understand the level of copyright involved. And if they did, it's difficult to then take this to court and actually fight it, because it's going to be very costly, and most people won't do it. And you never know in the terms and conditions who's going to read those. Actually, it says in the trial task, all copyright submitted belongs to the company. You don't know, because you haven't read it. It's really, really, really bad. And beware of this. So there's a difference when it comes to trial tasks. Think how reasonable it is, and then ask a few questions about how it's going to be used, and the copyright, and who owns it, and because you don't want to be used. Absolutely not.

Now, I want to go about ghosting for a second, because I hear this a lot, and candidates complain that they're being ghosted by employers. But think about it. Employers have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people apply for every job. It's going to take them time. And we try to make the effort to speak to people, but obviously, you can't speak to every single application that comes through. So I feel like if you're not heard from application, that's okay. But as soon as you start getting down to the screening process, you absolutely should hear from them, and you should get feedback from them. And I think that employees don't give feedback at a later stage. It's bad, and I think that you should make the time to do it. But I would also say that this is what candidates do now, which we're going to get to in a minute. But I want to speak to some candidates first about the fact that I know some people who message previous employees to find out whether the company is good to work for. That's fine. That's what Glassdoor is for as well. Obviously, check all that sort of stuff. But you have to also bear in mind, former employees of that company may have been fired for poor performance and they may hold a grudge. So if you're speaking to a disgruntled old employee, you're not going to get a good kind of image of what it's like working at a company. You're better off messaging a current employee and seeing what it's like and seeing the vibe and obviously getting some insight of who you're going to be working next to. So remember that. I mean, you might get some insight, but it is a bit scary. I mean, if they've you message five previous employees and they all say a similar red flag, then obviously that's a big problem. Say if they all said, oh, you know, we're expected to work really late nights and we've got no pay, that's definitely a red flag. And I say, obviously, but do this at your caution because same as any sort of views online, you're going to find disgruntled people. And so it is hard and you can't go by that. But obviously do your due diligence. And absolutely, absolutely as a candidate, you should be doing your due diligence on the company, which leads me to employees bullshit, well, candidates bullshit, because not everyone does their due diligence.

Not only do they not do it, they don't even research at all about the company, which is ridiculous. Like we've had people, and I've got to the interview stage, and they don't even know what we do. I mean, like honestly, they have no idea that, oh, sorry, do you guys actually do like design work? Or, you know, if they're like applying to be a developer, they're like, oh, so do you do design or what? Like they have no idea, they haven't even been on our website. They just turn up for an interview. That is outrageous. And that should be an immediate fail, because they don't even care about the company they work for. It means they just want a job, they don't actually care about, you know, what sort of environment they want to be in, or, you know, who they're working for, it could be anyone. And they're not the sort of people you want on your team. And likewise, harvest people don't even read the job description. So many times I've had candidates write to me and go, sorry, what was the job description again? You applied for the job. If you don't know the job description, or you ask me questions about information that can be found in the job description, you haven't read it properly, and you're not prepared for the job. Because if you're gonna do this for a job where you're supposed to be at your best and putting the most effort, then what are you going to be like when you're actually an employee? So this is absolutely outrageous. And going back to ghosting. Now, big warning for all employers, because whoever's doing your hiring is gonna have a lot of time being wasted. Because at the moment, people are just applying for hundreds and hundreds of jobs a day. And all these job platforms are making it easier and easier for candidates to apply, because they're trying to help them. But all they're doing is not reading it and just hitting apply, apply, apply, apply, apply to all these jobs, and they're not even caring. So when you try to go through and you spend a good amount of time going through their CV, checking out the profile, to do the background checks and deciding whether they should be going through to the next stage, you actually contact them and they

don't even bother applying. And they don't turn up for the interview, they don't submit any screening stuff. They don't care because they never wanted the job in the first place. And it's unbelievable. And obviously you can see this from the amount of people who apply for a job and they don't even have any experience. It was a senior developer and they don't even know what HTML is. It's unbelievable. So at the moment, the job market is so skewed and candidates are just going for anything and they're not looking. But then as an employer, you're getting ghosted. We've had this so many times and we scheduled interviews in the first stage and they don't turn up. So that's why we stopped this first stage of interviews because people just don't bother turning up. So now the interviews are only at the last stage and it's a screening process where people still don't do the screening and majority of people don't actually go through the first bit. We recently had a round of applicants and for several jobs, I think we whistled it down to just over 200 people in the screening and that was for several jobs, obviously. And all they had to do was submit their five minute video answering three questions about why they want the job and all that sort of stuff. And out of those 200 plus people, three people submitted that video. That's the sort of stats that we're getting at the moment because people don't actually want the job. They just applied for the sake of it. And usually a follow-up and they go, oh, sorry, I forgot or no, they don't actually say they forgot. They did forget, but they usually say that they had a death in the family. They were traveling. There's some excuse for it. And that's the problem. They're not really paying attention because they've applied for so many jobs. So this is the bullshit that's going on now. And employers need to be worried about it. So I think that candidates are doing all sorts of things to get a job. It's brutal out there. I don't envy those people who are looking for a job, but you also need to have some respect to your potential employers. And there are people applying for jobs to us who have applied previously and don't even remember they've applied. That's how bad it is. Then other red flags and other pieces of bullshit that employers need to worry about are those who are just looking for visas. We've had this before and people haven't disclosed it.

And we've got all the way down to the last stage or about to make a job offer. And only when I ask for their right to work in the UK, they go, oh, we don't have one. We need you to give me a visa. And I'm like, what? They lied about where they were and all this sort of stuff. And again, come to the lying bit in a minute, but they just, they don't tell you, which is wrong. Again, it's wasting people's time. I think that should be done at the beginning. And we're open to sponsoring people, the right people. And obviously we've had people from all different walks of life come to work with us, but that stuff should be disclosed earlier on and not just landed on the plate right at the very last minute. Especially when we're expecting the peonies to be able to work the next week, but actually they're in a different country and they can't even get a visa to come to the country. So it's ridiculous. And on the lying front, we've had so many candidates hand in fake resumes, so obviously don't even have the experience they're talking about. And to back that up, they have done fake references. And I know it should be difficult these days, but it's not. So they not only just get their friend to phone up, but they spoof email addresses and all these sort of things to produce a fake reference. And do you know what? Some of them are quite talented. And I feel like, why don't you put that talent to use? Actually do something with your life instead of doing fake stuff. So my advice to employers is to really, really be careful when it comes to references, because I feel like that's where we've been let down a lot. Like the references just don't add up. And I think that no one should start work until they've got all the referencing done. But I feel like a lot of the time when you're trying to employ people, you rush into it because you've got a space and you don't do all the due diligence that's required. So a lot of people are doing that. Another one, I feel like, again, because of COVID and everything that's happened with that, the hybrid stuff is nonsense. As I said about the visa thing, you get people applying from all over the world and all over the country. And we're still hybrid. And when we even weren't, people were saying, oh, they'd happily commute in. And these people live 300 miles away. And they're like, yeah, yeah, it's fine, we'll commute. I'm like, no, you won't. You're not doing that.

I'm also not allowing that, it's ridiculous. But there are people who are saying that I would fly over or get a train from miles away each day. And I'm like, that's just not possible. And I know other people who have hired these people. And it's a hybrid thing. So it's supposed to be three days in the office, two at home. But because they live so far away, they did promise they'd come in. They don't ever come in. So they come in like once a month. And it causes problems. And obviously it's expensive for an employer to then, get rid of them and have to rehire. And it's just a nightmare. So that's why a lot of employees lie about their living situation and about their commuting or where they're based, so they can get the job and then deal with it later. And you'll start to notice this from the very beginning, when they're sort of like making excuses of why they can't come in. People are sick or other things are going on. They've got to look after a sick relative and something suddenly happened, but that's not. They just live far away and they're just lying about it. So again, you need to really do your due diligence because there is so much bullshit out there. So now obviously, like, this is from both sides of the spectrum, and it's a really crappy time for everyone due to the state of the economy and everything like that. And it's not ideal for anyone, but I just think everyone needs to step up and be a bit more respectful to both parties. So candidates need to understand that employers also take a lot of time. Like, you take 10 seconds to hit that apply button and just automatically set up, you send your profile. But employers actually in return spend a good half an hour, maybe even an hour, going through all your application process and your CV and screening you and writing to you and doing all that sort of stuff. And actually, it's not nice. And scheduling interviews, don't bother turning up and all that sort of stuff. It bites me in the arse later on that night as well, especially if you're applying for your sector. Everyone knows each other, so it's not worth it. And then employers, again, respect to the people who are suffering and going through a lot of stuff with the job market. And then we've also got some proving to do when it comes to that as well, because we have so many applicants and we want to get back to everyone, but just be respectful, be honest.

So if you're applying, if you're advertising a job, make sure it exists. Don't toy with their emotions. Put your salary, put real benefits. Don't abuse the work, the trial task situation and all that sort of stuff. Actually offer them true opportunities. That's all we're saying. So I wanted to highlight some of the bullshit that's going on in the job seeker industry at the moment and just make both parties aware and learn how to be more respectful of each other. And then hopefully everything will be okay. But for those out there who are recruiting and who are looking for a job, best of luck to everyone. I know it's not easy and hopefully everyone can find a job that they truly love. Thanks everyone. I'll speak to you guys next week.