Applying for a job through a corporate web portal- is this normal?
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Anonymous
| I'm an attorney and recently saw an in-house job that I am interested in applying for. The only way to apply is through the company's website, and the process seems bizarre to me. In addition to requiring each applicant to upload a resume and cover letter (totally normal), each applicant is required to fill out a "profile" that is roughly the equivalent of a federal background check questionnaire. For example, for every job I have held going back to high school, there are mandatory fields requiring the applicant to provide full address, beginning and ending salary, and supervisor's name, email and phone number. And you can't save the profile until every mandatory field has been completed! Much of the information is redundant to what is already provided on my resume, and I cannot figure out why a prospective employer is entitled to my lifetime salary history. There is also a disclosure that applicants' information may be searched by recruiters looking to fill positions other than the one the applicant is applying for. This is a reputable company, but honestly, the entire process feels a bit sketchy to me. I am currently an attorney at a federal agency, and this is much worse than anything I have encountered on USAJobs. Is this a typical job application process these days? |
Anonymous
| Yes. Typical. |
Anonymous
| Is this in SuccessFactors? If so, don't worry about it. It looks like that out of the box. |
Anonymous
Yes, it is! But I have to fill it out to be considered. In fact, it says the resume is not a substitute for a complete application and incomplete applications won't be considered. Where in the hell am I going to get my salary history going back 15 years? Good lord. |
Anonymous
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DD applies for jobs all the time through portals. They have gotten better over the years but still a pain.
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Anonymous
| I work as a federal government contractor. I have worked for 6 contracting companies over almost 25 years with my agency. I have applied at probably an additional 10-12 companies and jobs. It became normal around 10-12 years ago in this industry. It used to be that you could forward a resume through another employee or manager and they could bypass the system. They could also get the hiring bonus. Now, even those applicants have to go through the web portal. Once through the web portal, an internal employee or manager can forward the name to either HR or the hiring manager, but resumes are not passed through anymore, only referenced after going through the portal. |
Anonymous
You can thank all of the Executive Orders requiring the mass data collection and mandatory system use. It's the only way we can do your initial EEO intake, provide a pre-offer OFCCP form, post-offer OFCCP form, ask if your a Vet, what type of Vet, and oh please tell us if you have a disability! And all of it must be consistent for every single candidate so we can prove no one was discriminated in any possible way. |
Anonymous
Nice way to conceal. One of the issues is that nowhere in the XO's do they require a salary history. That's something that employers have thrown in for their own personal benefit. And making it so that it is mandatory to include that information and trying to blame it on executive orders and mandatory data collection is obfuscation of a really foul request. |
Anonymous
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Employers love to vacuum up data like this. Can you imagine how valuable they find this information? And they get to collect it from everyone who applies, not just the one they hire.
How much do other employers pay, from what schools do they get their fresh recruits, where do people go after leaving company X, etc. Welcome to the 21st century. |
Anonymous
| To add insult to injury, the term "Web Portal" is nothing but a neutral euphemism for "Dark Hole into the Bowels of Hell from Which Nothing is Ever Heard Again!" |
Anonymous
This is OP. I find this so off-putting that I think I probably won't apply for the job. I thought it was interesting, but I like my current job, and it just doesn't seem worth it just for the possibility of exploring a potential new job. I feel sorry for people who have no choice but to provide so much personal information (including the last 4 digits of my SSN, that was on the next screen!) for the chance to be considered for a job. Also to the PP who blamed all the data collection on demographics on an EO, the demographic information was the only part that applicants can choose NOT to provide! |
Anonymous
| This just one of the many things young grads have to deal with nowadays when job hunting. They do not have the luxury to "probably won't apply for the job . . . [because it] doesn't seem worth it". Really suck for them! On top of that they have to deal with millennials this millennials that criticisms... |
Anonymous
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I've heard it's not illegal to lie on your resume but it is illegal to lie on your job application. So they want you to put your entire resume into the application so if they find something that's not right, it's grounds for dismissal.
That said, I'll put in my job history (most applications require this), but if they want a full salary history in the application, I'm not applying. And while the field is mandatory, you can put in all 0s or n/a. Those types of answers might get you ignored by the computer, but it's another option. |
Anonymous
That's not accurate. Lying on a resume or lying on a job application can be grounds for dismissal. I imagine that the form application is preferred because it makes the data more searchable. |
Anonymous
Knew it. Nobody actually puts in their whole history. Do what you can and then put in zeroes or 9s. |