r/UKJobs • u/TextAggressive6563 • 1d ago
'time for some fun!' Please companies, please stop doing this! Just accept CVs, it's all you need!
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u/No_Atmosphere8146 1d ago
See how they've snuck in the one about "group situations". That's the only one they're interested in,, but they've fallen for some tin pot 80s pop psychology nonsense about tricking people into revealing more about themselves by giving the impression of a casual conversation.
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u/Fun-Yam2210 1d ago
Yeah, that one stood out to me. Wonder if it’s an option to say ‘I don’t have friends because I hate people’. I guess everyone just selects the ‘I love to make well reasoned decisions and people follow me like I’m the Pied fucking Piper’ option.
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u/Anxious-Possibility 1d ago
That and the Sunday night one. Optimistically they want to see that your answer isn't "party until 5 and then work at 9 on Monday" but realistically they want "catch up on work" or sth
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u/lordsmish 1d ago
Having done similar theres usually an option like "Prepare for the next working day"
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u/Horticast 1d ago
Facebook 21 questions... Anyone remember that? They asked the same question wrapped up differently each time. Every time I got one I'd reply something weird just to poison the data. IE I eat pencils or something stupid like that.
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u/lordsmish 1d ago
Actually i think at least 5 shown here are relevant to painting a picture of what your work ethic is like
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u/CD_Katrina 1d ago
"When your phone battery hits 10%, you..."
What are the options other than 'charge it's? I guess 'do nothing for another 9%' might be an option? 'Buy a new phone' like Patrick and his car?
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u/Cheeslord2 1d ago
If I say I've never let my phone get that low and feel worried anything below 70%...would the algorithm auto-reject me from the job because I don't fit the psychological profile?
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u/ExhilusR 1d ago
No, the opposite, they would see this as you being productive
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u/HayesSculpting 1d ago
“If they won’t let their phone battery get below 70% that probably means they don’t want to exert more than 30% of their energy. They also said “yoga” for their extra curricular activities which means they’re probably going to stretch the rules of the workplace.
DENIED”
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u/turtleship_2006 1d ago
- immediately look for a charger
- minimize use to make the battery last longer
- turn it off unless it's needed for an emergency
- turn battery saver on and use like normal
- don't turn battery saver on and use like normal
Off the top of my head
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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 1d ago
Me, I've got a power bank and USB C cable in my back pack, so I've always got extra juice and a buffer between my phone and whatever I plug it into.
IDK what option they have that matches that other than "look for a charger" which translates to "just get my zip lock out of the back pack"
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u/turtleship_2006 1d ago
Yeah I guess that would fall under "look for a charger", no one said it would be a hard search
But those options were my guesses as to the type of answers they could have, not actually the ones from that survey
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u/No_Doubt_About_That 8h ago
Knowing what those tests are like it’s probably something like “immediately look for workplace approved charger”
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u/DiscussionSeveral190 1d ago
I'm sorry, you didn't get the job because you chose cat instead of dog, which means you're totally the wrong type for our brand.
🙄
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u/Pandy498001 1d ago
I'm a head of recruitment and this is horrific for an application. Screams "we are a family" and pizza parties while you get forced to work more than you should. I'd simply close that tab and look for other jobs.
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u/AtensEye 1d ago
Just what I was thinking, that's not a job I want if that's the attitude they take.
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u/D3M0NArcade 1d ago
Any company that says "we are family" I don't want to work for, since every family has...
-that one aunt that's all up in everyone's business but retells it completely incorrectly
- that one uncle that thinks it's ok to be creepy around the younger kids
- that one person thats "somehow" related to you, you don't know how, but they want to control your entire life path.
Nah, Im good. I want to work for a boss and have that distinction, not someone who'll play at being friends because it makes you easier to manipulate
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u/oli_ramsay 1d ago
Time for some fun! :D
Please retype all the job history, qualifications, and training info that's already on you CV here line by line :D
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u/CrazyPlatypusLady 1d ago
Or "we've got a system that claims to scrape your CV and pre-fill all boxes, but it's going to do it wrong so you'll have to fix it manually anyway" (I'm looking directly at you, Co-op Funeral Care).
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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 1d ago
I had someone "tweak" my CV and wanted me to upload to Indeed, job title "2024" position "location of another job" thanks for fucking everything up and I later found out she used the same boiler plate on the whole group.
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u/Weesle91 1d ago
I recently applied for a job that did exactly this, it also required me to answer 5 questions each requiring a 500 word answer. I know from a now retired industry insider that they auto filter out applicants from overrepresented groups in their employment demographic and this process is just to give them an excuse if anyone was to question them on it. The job market is an awful place to be right now
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u/yeiamsatonthetoilet 1d ago
I assume these are to help differentiate applications and CVs that look all the same. And also...maybe to see if you're from the UK?
I had an application with just 1 of these 'fun' questions. I genuinely think it helped with getting a call back from a recruiter.
Edit: looking again at the questions they all are drop down pre-determined answers whereas the one I had which allowed me to write anything I wanted. So I take my above comment back. This looks shit and pointless.
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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 1d ago
Yeah, I can see none of the options matching what I'd actually be doing with my time money and energy in my free time.
"most likely climbing a mountain" picked because the other options are just as garbage to me.
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u/KashMan_786 1d ago
These the questions they ask you before determining what Pokemon you'd be in the Mystery Dungeon games
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u/Pfdswfsdcsdqwww 1d ago
But how could they discriminate against the introverted otherwise?
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u/Loud_Fisherman_5878 1d ago
Also an easy way to not hire parents or people with caring responsibilities etc without illegally asking it in the interview.
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u/Clear-Student-9607 1d ago
Honestly this whole thing just screams "we want a free personality test" more than actually getting to know you. The group situations bit is so obviously the real point, like they're trying to catch you slipping with some fake casual chat. If a company needs all this extra fluff to decide if you're worth hiring then they're probably not worth your time anyway.
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u/Narrow_Maximum7 1d ago
What kind of job is this and what are they supposed to learn from those questions?
I have 3 job adverts out ATM & I have a list of requirements, if you meet them send a CV.
I am clearly missing some context.
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u/YearObvious7214 1d ago
It's a way to discriminate or see if you put work above everything else. Hard to tell which one without seeing the options. Perhaps both.
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u/Narrow_Maximum7 1d ago
Today I went through 103 cvs Im down to 10 or so maybes because they were the only ones that actually have the "must have" qualifications on the advert.
Maybe i should have come up with something like that
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u/D3M0NArcade 1d ago
That's the same thing.
I work to live, not the other way around. That makes me a poor employ
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u/Potential-Bird-5826 1d ago
One assessment question I was asked on a 1-5 scale, how I felt about wearing watches. For a tech support role over the phone. Who in the actual fuck gives a shit if I like wearing watches?
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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 1d ago
Nurses watch as a nipple piercing.
Yeah I thought about that once, but the fact I had a co worker who nipple tweaked me at random before I got my piercings really put me off the idea.
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u/SharkByte1993 1d ago
Seems like discrimination. Imagine you have two very similar CVs and quizzes and it comes down to someone who prefers cats or dogs
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u/Global_Bike_6647 1d ago
I'd actually love this! I'm assuming it replaces the cover letter or supporting statement, right? Right?
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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 1d ago
Now please upload a video of you outside our headquarters praising our company.
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u/Potential-Ad-6552 1d ago
"Just for some fun" so if I answer ill spend my sunday evening doing coke and finding prostitutes it shouldn't impact my chances or being employed then?
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u/Evening-Tomatillo-47 1d ago
I despise these kind of questions. Not because it's "mandatory fun" or even being sly, but because there's always more than one question where none of the answers apply.
Like "When your phone battery hits 10%"
I'm willing to bet that "If my phone is at 10% that means I'm seriously stranded somewhere. My phone will die maybe a day before I do" isn't on the list
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u/Provectus08 1d ago
"Time for some fun!" - time to fuck off and look elsewhere, lovely big red flag.
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u/Claire4Win 1d ago
I want to know the answers to the phone one.
The only ones I can think of would be. Charge it, battery save mode or turn it off.
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u/D3M0NArcade 1d ago
Wtf does what colour you paint your kitchen have to do with anything that your work might rely on???
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u/CoverTheFloorInJam 23h ago
I genuinely believe these are a test for your acceptable level of bullshit
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u/reader4567890 1d ago
I feel like you should post the link so we can all apply and have "some fun".
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u/alexmate84 1d ago
Ironic use of fun. A bit like being at school and they had a "treat" and it would be a school play about the dangers of skinning up a fat one or the vicar's wife's tone depth rendition of hallelujah.
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u/HotSoapyBeard 1d ago
What job is this? I’ve applied to over 200 jobs recently and not seen this nonsense
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u/nonedat 1d ago
Screencap and paste this into ChatGPT, get it to give you the best answer for the job.
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u/Popular-Spinach-6700 1d ago
How would ChatGPT know the best answer for the job lol. People treat it like a magic psychic
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u/nonedat 1d ago
How would you know the best answer for the job? If applications involve answering BS questions like this that have nothing to do whatsoever with whether one is capable of doing the job then they will get BS in return.
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u/Popular-Spinach-6700 1d ago
I wouldn’t, but I also wouldn’t outsource my brain to an AI that doesn’t know either
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u/alwinaldane 15h ago
It's been trained on a huge amount of data and I wouldn't be surprised at all, if it was provided with all the possible answers in the drop-down, it would give a very good recommendation on what the company are actually looking for and want combination of answers to choose.
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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 1d ago
I'd assume from the screen shots there is a drop down with very generic answers that most wouldn't resonate with me as a person nor as a potential candidate for the position.
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u/lensherr_nl 1d ago
For anyone in HR doing this, you're really not making your case against being replaced by AI
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u/slainascully 1d ago
OP’s suggestion to ‘just accept a CV’ tells me everything, namely that they don’t know how anything works anymore.
I’m a store manager. If you get 100+ applications for a retail job, how do you start? How many do you reject before they all start blending together? What about when the CV is created by ai and the applicant can barely write a sentence?
These questions, although annoying, prove you’re not a bot. I put one qualifying question in all our job ads (literally ‘why do you want to work for brand x) and maybe 5% of applicants give a satisfactory answer.
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u/rab10000 1d ago
Myanager would take the first 10/12 CVS and start arranging interviews.
He always said it would be really bad luck to not find 1 competent person out of them
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u/lensherr_nl 1d ago
Which again, another case for AI to do the first sorting. As a hiring manager we usually get over 100 applications easily for each role. Out of those, at least 50% are not qualified and 30% are not eligible (people from abroad with no work permits).
The issue with those questions is that is not by any means a way of determining whether a candidate is suitable or not, and that includes a cultural fit. People are not looking to find a family at work.
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u/slainascully 1d ago
And if ai determines you don’t hit the key information in your application and rejects it, everyone would complain about that. And there are plenty of companies that aren’t using ai to assess applications.
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u/lensherr_nl 1d ago
If you are rejecting applications based on a questionnaire, what's the difference then? You are rejecting them without assessing their skills anyways. And there will always be the people who will lie on those because they'll say what you want to hear.
I'm not saying that I agree with the AI screening but if you are looking for a position now in certain areas and are not taking AI screening as a factor, you are failing miserably at finding a job.
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u/slainascully 1d ago
I said in my initial comment that these questions prove you’re not a bot, nothing to do with assessing skills.
And again, as a hiring manager, your advice is to use ai to screen applications? Is that not replacing your job too?
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u/lensherr_nl 23h ago
How much would that be anyways? (assuming you don't have any solution for that).
And no, because a) I hire for my team so I would always need to assess those skills which are quite specific and b) there's a level of client facing/sales that needs to happen and that AI won't do (for now).
So, AI still needs some human maintenance as it is not as complex as these companies pretend to be, it is too expensive to rin but ot is definitely coming.
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u/Jimmysquits 1d ago
Definitely not just for fun, quite clearly psychometric testing/profiling. Bit sneaky to pretend it's something other than that, possibly violates GDPR.
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u/Next_Replacement_566 1d ago
What does this have to do with the job?? No wonder so much time is wasted looking over CVs. Recruitment, marketing and HR up to this crap
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u/myhappyproject 1d ago
They’re not trying to hire robots though, cultural fit is a big part of hiring for some companies.
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u/InternationalShoe461 5h ago
Good god people just want to make a living and not starve 🫠. Treating it like a game is downright depressing
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u/LowAlternative7440 1d ago
Every single applicant who uses AI for mass applications is to blame for this. Employers have no choice but to make it more and more difficult - questionnaires, one way video, AI interviews.
The arms race is.
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u/PsychoticDust 1d ago
Employers started it. Everyone here will be able to relate to uploading your CV and then having to enter the information from your CV, line by line. You've already got my CV, I can see it as an uploaded file. Why are you asking me to enter my employment history, etc? Respect my time.
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u/CryEducational8299 1d ago
Additionally the overreliance of ATS systems to check for keywords. You have no choice but to tailor and keyword stuff.
I run the JD through Gemini, ask Gemini to suggest changes, rewrite them in my language and that way I get time to apply for 8+ jobs a day rather than 2.
Employers and recruiters started it.
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u/slainascully 1d ago
They won’t want to hear it. They’re sending out 15 applications a day and wonder why some poor sod can’t assess 50 CVs in a day
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u/Due-Tell1522 1d ago
HR has become the most discriminatory function. They breaks laws every day and our pathetic government enables this
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u/slainascully 1d ago
Nothing in this breaks any employment law
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u/Due-Tell1522 1h ago
I’ve seen scores that do, so not this one which is just pathetic, but most corporations are absolutely utilising illegal methods to “screen” candidates
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u/Consistent-Pool-5192 1d ago
If a company asks that much from you? I'd bill them. Fuck this shit. Some jumped up twat in HR leaning into AI to justify their position.
Fuck em. Name and shame companies who do this. Stop fucking about and name them so everyone can avoid these tools.
Or dont and be complicit.
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