‘Slapdash’ job applicants fall at first stage

‘Slapdash’ job applicants fall at first stage

The slapdash state of job applications by many graduates amid record youth employment has been laid bare by a recruitment consultancy in the South.

“It’s the toughest of markets out there but jobseekers coming out of university, or elsewhere for that matter, aren’t helping themselves by making rudimentary mistakes,” warned Simon Dawson of Rubicon People in Poole, Dorset.

He said: “We heard of an example where 750 people went for jobs in a large, highly professional organisation but only 20 applications were spelt correctly, with some glaring ‘copy-and-paste’ blunders from previous applications to other employers.

“The other day we received 260 applications for one administrative job, and most of those had to be red-flagged as well.”

Simon added: “It is important to stress that the majority of university leavers are motivated, intelligent and tuned in to what employers want from them.

“However, some are clearly tripping over themselves with the basics, with shoddy, slapdash applications. Perhaps they fall under the disillusioning category of people who feel employers owe them a living, not the other way around.

“No-one can be complacent in applying for a job in this day and age – there are simply too many fellow jobseekers out there hungry for work.”

His observations come amid record youth unemployment in Britain, with more than one in five 16 to 24-year-olds out of work after a recent rise of 66,000 to 965,000, according to the Office of National Statistics.

The UK unemployment rate is now 7.9%, with youth unemployment running at 20.5%

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Earlier this week (8th March, 2011), Alison Wolf, a professor of public sector management at King’s College London, wrote in The Times that more than half of 16-year-olds in England fail good English and maths GCSEs.

To help undergraduates get ahead in the job-seeking game, Rubicon People hosted a get-that-job advice session at Bournemouth University’s latest jobs fair.

Tips include harnessing social media to hear about ‘real-time’ vacancies, checking out local newspapers for leads and signing up to recruitment consultancies to widen the employment opportunity net.

Rubicon People, established in 1982, supports a wide range of South Coast clients from its recruitment centre in High Street, Poole.

It has separate teams of recruitment consultants dedicated to sourcing and placing permanent candidates, contractors and temporary staff into a wide variety of businesses.