Online job application form question for any HR folks on here please.

My 17 yr old son has applied for a few part-time jobs recently and we’ve noticed a timer on several of the company sites which appear to be registering the lapsed time on each section.

Does anyone know if this is the intent? Is the elapsed time taken in to consideration when ‘discarding’ applicants, even when it’s for a shelf-stacking Saturday job?

HR Advisor wife looked at me funny when I put this to her… not as far as she has ever heard!

It would be a pointless thing to include – just fill out the application twice with the answers pre-prepared on a separate page for the ‘proper’ second go if there is any inkling that it is the case.

Yeah, I immediately said ‘cut & paste’ for super-quick form.

That’s great, ta!

I thought you could have a lapsed catholic, but I’ve never heard a lapsed time.

Sounds more like a technical consideration. Because the way web pages are delivered to your web browser is “connectionless”, a few tricks are used to know who requested a form and who is sending it back. It used to be a bit of a fudge and a lot of websites will “forget” they sent you a form if you don’t submit it again within a set time, often only 15 minutes.

The counter is probably there simply to stop you clicking send, just for the website to say who the hell are you and losing all your hard work…

Rachel

**elapsed**

Thanks Rachel that makes sense