Most employers lack common courtesy

Have you ever spent hours writing a killer cover letter, customising your Resume and addressing all essential and desirable selection criteria for a job application and never heard a thing? Below is the email I just had to send today.

Dear HR Manager
On the 19th April 2012 I submitted an application for the position of Youth Support Worker as advertised on the ****** ********* Website. The closing date for this position was the 20th April 2012. To this point I have had no official feedback from ****** ********* in regards to this application despite several attempts to contact you. However, as a consequence of my efforts to gain some feedback in regards to the progress of my application, I was contacted today by a person named ********* who mistakenly began to give me feedback on how I went at the interview. I informed her that I had not attended an interview and she apologised, stated that there must have been another Sean who was interviewed, therefore I must not have been shortlisted for the position and that I should have been notified by HR.

I feel compelled to make you aware of this situation. My last position of employment was in Job Services Australia and a major part of my role was case managing unemployed people. By far the most common grievance of active jobseekers was the lack of response that they received from employers in regards to applications they had made for advertised vacancies. Many job applications these days require considerable effort and time and it is understandable that jobseekers become frustrated, demotivated and even angry when they are completely ignored when applying for work. It is a sad state of affairs that this situation appears, from my professional and personal experience, to be the status quo. It is particularly concerning when not for profit organisations, who pride themselves on their service of individual and community welfare, appear to have accepted the status quo of not responding appropriately to applicants for positions within their own organisations. Please note that ****** ********* is not the only not for profit organisation that has failed to provide any acknowledgement of my job applications.

Fortunately, due to my experience of working in Employment Services, I do not take the lack of any feedback personally or as a measure of my worth as a suitable candidate for the positions that I have applied for. I have though now gained a better understanding of the common behaviour of unemployed people who after a period of never hearing anything back simply give up applying for advertised positions.

I am writing to you not with the aim of gaining any restorative action, but simply to provide some feedback that may assist you in providing a better HR experience for job applicants.

Yours sincerely,

Sean Crawley