So I am currently working through an agency, sent in CV had interview and was offered the job. The job is inherently not that secure, I have done this job for nearly a year and according to my manager I am doing well at it. So you would think when they are looking for permanent staff members that me (and others who already work here) doing the job at a proven reliable level would be the obvious choices to recruit/interview.

But no the policies in place mean as we are “external” to the company we can only apply when is opened up to the public. This means I spent many hours filling in a very very long application form to the highest possible standard I can, then only when you have submitted this you are invited to do an online 25 minute test, I have taken this and failed to meet the required standard so my application has been rejected (along with everyone else who already does the job and applied)

I know people will say ” do the test better” but i find it incredibly stupid that nobody will ever even so much as read my application for a job I already successfully do because an automated test said I won’t be good at it.

My main points are:

Why not make me just do the test first so it can reject me before I wasted my time filling in a tedious form nobody will read.

Why not interview/sift people based on their CV/actual experience like they did when I was given the job in the first place?

If the tests are so good then how the hell are 6 of us successfully doing the job when the test says we will be crap at it?

I hate my life.

IF you read all of that you should consider spending less time on here reading a load of bollocks but I just needed to get it off my chest.

(1) Do you not think that would be better directed at your ’employer’
(2) Is it possible that they don’t want you BECAUSE you aren’t at the level they are seeking to hire, even though you are doing OK in the current post – or that your recruitment company’s temp-to-perm fees are a disincentive
(3) CVs are a poor way to assess skills.

(1) It has been and many agree with me but they cannot recruit outside of the current process.
(2) They have directly confirmed I am at the level they want and actively encouraged me (and others) to apply and have advised of the fact there would be bureaucratic hoops to jump through before they could hire us. there would be no fees involved if I was to be given a permanent job.
(3) I agree but nearly a years worth of getting to know me and all of my results should help

Some notes by the BBC on Recruitment Software

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20255387

What sort of company is this? Going by what you are saying sounds a bit of a dinosaur.

Sounds like an HR department ruling the roost, and being so paranoid about having absolutely no possible theoretical chance of ever being sued by anybody over bias in their recruitment procedures that they have removed all room for discretion, judgement or common sense from the loop.

You haven’t got dyslexia or anything that would give you a reason why the online test might not be a fair test of your ability?

Wow, I’m naive, I’ve never heard of this it sounds AWFUL.

Got knocked back by a company recently, because they decided on the basis of an online test that I was not committed to “x”. That was after I told them (truthfully) that the reason I was applying for that job was that it contained “x”, and that I had successfully done “x” in previous jobs, and that “x” had been something I’d missed in moving to my present job.

Still, I’m sure the computer knows best, eh?

Why not make me just do the test first so it can reject me before I wasted my time filling in a tedious form nobody will read.

Would be logical,. Place I currently work at as a contractor has one of these dreadful tests in place, they make contractors do them as well as permanent employees. Mr Panda, funnily enough, went for a job in here a while back, and he went through the online application form, and stupid group interview before they gave him the test and he failed it. I passed it, simply because the agency that got me this gig told me how to pass it. It’s ridiculous.

Why not interview/sift people based on their CV/actual experience like they did when I was given the job in the first place?

Because HR departments have to justify their existence.

If the tests are so good then how the hell are 6 of us successfully doing the job when the test says we will be crap at it?

Computer says NO 🙄

Never apply to work at Shell then, I lost the will to apply for a £35k/year graduate job on a day when I had nothing else to do!

Ironically I work in HR… But as a provider to another company other than the one I work for. So have no insight/dealing with our own HR.