Leave me alone Tom Dodd

I have been inspired to write this blog based on my very own experience, which is based on true events (names have been changed to protect the identity of the person involved)

First a little history, personally, the thing that gets me pulling my hair out most, is when candidates apply for a job which they very clearly are not suited to.

I will now present to you a short but true story:

One warm and balmy late afternoon, I set upon writing up 4 well written job descriptions and person specifications for the Senior Quantity Surveyor, Architect, Engineer and Site Manager roles I was recruiting for (1 hour to write the ads and 2 hours to check it complied with the every increasing UK employment legislation…you can never be sure what has been snuck in).

Proud of my well written master pieces, I continued to post these ‘babies’ on some of the big name job-boards (not seriously expecting to hit jackpot, but none the less hoping that I may attract some relevant interest). 2 days later I opened my emails to discover 5 candidates had applied to my jobs, and not only that each job had an application. ‘Great’ I thought to myself, lets check these out right-away, my coffee can surely wait.

So I proceed to open email no 1 (the application for the Senior Quantity Surveyor) and I noticed that a chap (who we will call Tom Dodd for the purpose of protecting the identity of the real joker) applied for the role. Holding down my excited anticipation, I proceed to scan the resume, and search for the key useful information. I scanned, searched, read, re-read, read backwards, read right to left, but I couldn’t find anything remotely relevant to the job description. Where was Tom Dodd’s Quantity Surveying degree? (perhaps he forgot to mention it) Where was Tom Dodd’s experience of working on ‘volume, new-build, fast-track housing developments’ (perhaps he didn’t think it was worth mentioning), where was Tom Dodd’s Chartered Surveyor accreditation? (Perhaps he was still waiting to hear back from the RICS on it).

The smile faded from my face, and the flickering recruitment flame in my little heart was rapidly put out. On the other hand, I noticed that Tom Dodd from the years 1999- present had started his career working for ‘his old man’ on ‘odd jobs’ here and there. Tom then proceeded to grow his career and work on ‘paint jobs’ on student let accommodation, and the grand finale is that his most recent job saw him working on behalf of a small estate agent on ad hoc maintenance jobs.

Putting it down to bad luck, I proceeded to open the email application for my Architect role. Lo and behold Tom Dodd’s name pops up again, along with his ‘oh-so familiar’ resume. I then open the application for the Engineer role, it’s Tom Dodd again, then the Site Manager application……….I’m beginning to sense a pattern, yes it’s Tom Dodd.

‘TIME OUT TIME OUT’ I say to myself. Now I have nothing against painter decorators as they play a vital role within the very large and generic realms of what is coined the ‘Construction’ industry. However, as you can see, as you can surely surely see, how can Tom Dodd (the probably very competent Painter/ Decorator) be a Senior Quantity Surveyor, Architect, Site Manager and an Engineer? How can he possibly be all of those things, and have all of those attributes I so eloquently listed in the job description and personal spec? How I ask?

The short answer is he didn’t have the required attributes or the competency required to do any of the roles he applied for. However he still felt the need to apply for all the roles. Call it eager, desperate, pro-active, or darn ridiculous, Tom Dodd applied for 4 roles which he was clearly not suited to.

Yes it almost ruined my morning, yes it annoyed me, yes I wasted previous moments sat in dis-belief, BUT I managed to move on. I made my cup of coffee (which I still hadn’t had by this point) and sat back down on my desk. I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep, long breath, and exhaled through my mouth, I was going to start my day again.

Now you may recall that earlier in my blog, I mentioned that I had received 5 applications for my roles. Well 4 were useless as we know, but I still had 1 more application to assess. So with my new renewed and focused mind, I proceeded to open the application………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Yes it was Tom Dodd AGAIN, applying for the Senior Quantity Surveyor role, AGAIN.

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