[thinking4real]

You know good on you for doing the screen instead of an hr standin. Someone who will also happily ask what questions there are, but then fail to be able to answer anything but trivial non questions which are the same for all screens

But honestly, what’s actually the point of this call?

“What do we do here? How do we work? What will the rest of the interview process look like?”

Is any of that really worth it’s own call? The interview process should already have been established in the damn job posting. Why 99% of job postings in an industry that prides itself on intelligence is beyond me… It’s not complicated. X rounds, y and z hoops, done.

As for what we do and how we work, I imagine you can either express it in the posting or you’ll need a real call

I just don’t see the point of this step that everyone wants to do. It seems like a giant waste of time, inefficiency, and I can’t help but feel it’s interviewers flexing some weird ego thing

[ozim]

Unfortunately no one reads job descriptions.

Basically second half of 2022 I was doing initial calls.

All the information has to be repeated at least twice. I always sent an email to ask for best time to have 15min intro call. People send CVs to multiple companies and even if I sent email that they could prepare by checking the posting lots of time I was having the same conversation.

People don’t care about my job posting, lots of times I have to sell them position/company.

Initial call is also to make sure they understand the offer like compensation/perks and work arrangement. Even if it is written out in the job posting people had sometimes weird ideas that needs to be addressed before we waste everyone’s time.

[thinking4real]

Ok and do you know why people don’t read job postings?

Because the attitude you and OP and honestly nearly 100% of companies and hirers out there take is “fuck it, we don’t want to do this the right way. we don’t want to respect potential employees time, we want to be vague about what we’re seeking and unreasonably selective as we put candidates through a meat grinder”

No I won’t read the 500th repetitive job posting with business hr speak and no clue what actually lies ahead

I’m not blaming you in particular, this is an industry wide thing. But the problems didn’t start with people seeking a career, they started with entitled hiring practices that are more often than not outright abusive

[ozim]

You saw my job posting? You seen my hiring process?

I wrote everything that is relevant in our job posting.

Salary range, perks, technologies. Maybe 3 sentences about company would fall into hr speak.

My process is super light and easy - I don’t grind people and our company keeps employees happy for years.

It is not my attitude that people are bad because they don’t read job posting.

It is realization that me and my company is not the most important part in their lives and that is why I put work into explaining everything diligently over the phone.

I got offended by this comment but I know you did not have any idea about who I am and what really is the process. So I also understand you read my previous comment through your life experience.

[lazyant]

I disagree. A 20-30 min interview that filters 37% of candidates (for his case) while selling the company to the other candidates is the most effective interview in the whole interviewing pipeline, saving a lot of time downstream.

The alternative is to do basic filtering within a more expensive interview, ie to include basic salary/visa requirements while doing a "regular" interview, then for bad candidates you either cut the interview short (effective but rude) or go through the interview wasting everybody's time.

[majormajor]

If your company wouldn't take the time to let me talk to a human and was just like "just read the damn job posting" then... no thanks.

Documentation is often out of date and/or lacking important context, job postings included.

[zo1]

Edit: moved this comment to a more apt spot in the thread.

[dudul]

People don't read job descriptions.

9/10 of the questions I get from candidates during phone screen are answered in the job descriptions. Our stack, our main tools the job's responsibilities and day to day, etc.

[bilsbie]

To be fair I’d ask those questions because I don’t really trust the job descriptions.

Do you really use X?! What exactly is involved with being on call?

[b3morales]

As a candidate, trying to gather as much information as possible in a short time, it can actually be really useful to re-ask a question that you already "know the answer" to. Different people will offer different perspectives on things, and you can end up with a fuller picture.

That said you should phrase it in a way that doesn't sound like you're just asking for the same information that's already available: "So the posting said the team uses Agile; how does that show up in a typical week?"

[zo1]

At this point I don't even know what is "real" about a job posting vs copy-paste boiler plate that the poster/team/HR-person included. I assume it's all crap except for some portion of the required qualifications or experience. You really have to read between the lines, and if I'm just firing off CVs, then I couldn't be bothered to put effort into deciphering your HR-departments specific "hip" way of describing the job that they think is unique but is really just muddying the waters and wasting everyone's time.

tldr: I'll start paying attention to job postings when they stop including vague non-sense like "must be a team player", "should thrive in an energetic fast paced environment" and "be a go-getter".

[mhb]

So are you able to eliminate 90% of candidates since they aren't interested enough in the job to read the description?

[dudul]

No because sometimes they received an "edited" version from a recruiter and it wouldn't be fair to eliminate them for that.

But also yes, if I know you applied directly and start asking me "so what do you guys even do?" then we're pretty much done.

[ryandrake]

From the candidate’s point of view, job descriptions are often dry and generic, and it might be difficult to get an idea about what the company does even from their web site. “BigCo: We provide business solutions for increased sales and customer satisfaction!” OK, I’m gonna have to talk to a human there to understand what these people do. Plus, your company is number 58 on my list of 80 resumes I’m sending out today. I’m not going to read your entire web site and earnings report.

If it’s looking good, like this is a real job and I’m not ghosted, and I’ve passed at least one filter, yea, I will do deeper research on what the company does.

[csydas]

Search your job title on a few job aggregator sites or on the job pages of a few companies in your field; how closely does your day to day get represented in an intelligible and understandable way from the postings you find?

The Job Search process is fraught with a lack of clarity for both sides; businesses "fluff" their positions just as much as candidates "fluff" their CVs because the wrong wording, incorrect wording, misleading wording, or wording that sounds less appealing than what other businesses use makes you less competitive in the eyes of potential candidates.

Talent Acquisition teams can only go so far; I work with a great TA team who meets with us frequently to discuss our needs and to ask for help interpreting questions/comments from potential candidates and how to best represent our needs to some of the challenging (but good!) questions potential candidates have. I am well aware that I am quite lucky in this regard as many TA teams do not work closely with the teams they're finding candidates for.

I wouldn't fault a candidate for explaining their understanding of the position but asking for a more clear picture of common activities they might do during a week, or about team/reporting structure, advancement prospects, etc. That's different than if they come to a position and balk when being asked about their experience with elements directly on the posting or normal/expected for the given position.