Job seekers are outraged by a ‘frustrating’ interview tactic as a major battle escalates between employers and their staff.
A user of Reddit’s popular ‘Anti-work’ forum claims he ran away from a job interview after a position was advertised as working from home – only to be told he had to. come to the office.
“I’m showing up for an interview, and they’re saying the role is actually hybrid (three days a week in the office) and they’ve only advertised it remotely to get more applicants,” wrote the author. ‘user.
“I showed no shade and said that I would write reviews on Glassdoor, Google and Indeed explaining that this organization does not operate with honesty and integrity, and that my experience should be a warning to others who may being attracted to so-called “remote” positions. Then I walked out.
They added, “Because how dare they waste my time.”
Antiwork, a movement that asks employees to abandon the “modern workplace” and put their “individual needs and wants” first, has quickly grown in evidence over the past two years as the coronavirus pandemic has forced many people to rethink their careers.
The viral post on the Reddit group of two million people generated more than 1500 commentswith a number of people reporting similar experiences.
“Happened to me too,” one wrote. “Except they announced a ‘hybrid schedule available’ and then in the interview they said they would get everyone back to the office as soon as possible. BYE”.
Experts say there’s definitely a growing trend of employers looking to entice candidates by advertising remote roles that aren’t actually remote.
write for Slate this week, Alison Green from Ask a manager blog said a growing number of job seekers are encountering the “frustrating phenomenon”.
“It has become quite common for candidates to see a job posting for a role that claims to be remote, apply, confirm on first contact that they are looking for 100% remote work, and go through several rounds interviews, only to find out late in the process that the employer actually wants them to come one or two days a week or even more,” she wrote.
“Why aren’t employers more transparent in their job postings? This may be partly because they believe they will attract more applicants if they label the jobs as remote, even if they have a hybrid work schedule (at best).
She added: “Other times employers accept work being temporarily remote due to Covid, but they expect the person they hire to end up working from the office when it is safer. to do so — which may be a nasty surprise for a candidate located many states away who has no intention of moving.
Women want WFH roles
Melbourne-based recruiter Graham Wynn of Superior People Recruitment said he’s seen a similar trend in Australia.
Mr Wynn said he saw “a lot more people wanting to work from home”, particularly women, as employers try to strike a delicate balance between attracting talent in a tight job market while bringing in returning staff in the office.
“We have a few of these hybrid type roles,” he said.
“I feel like it’s a way of attracting people because they have a hard time finding candidates. The underlying trend seems to be, let’s onboard the person, then let’s onboard them full time.
According to jobs website Seek, there was a sharp increase in the proportion of advertised jobs that included work-from-home keywords in their descriptions during the pandemic – from around 0.5% before Covid. to 3-3.5% at the end of 2021.
“This proportion has plateaued in recent months but remained at its high Covid level,” a spokeswoman said.
Mr Wynn said there was ‘a real battle going on right now between employers and employees’ over getting back to the office after many had used to at work from home.
“Employers are trying to work around this as best they can, but eventually they will make a decision, if the person doesn’t return to the office, they will have to let them go and replace them, simple as that,” he said. -he declares. .
Earlier this month, Elon Musk stepped up to the plate, ordering all Tesla employees to return for a “minimum” of 40 hours a week to the office or “pretend to work somewhere else.”
His order sparked a war of words with Australian billionaire Scott Farquhar, co-founder of software company Atlassian, who described it as “something from the 1950s” and encouraged Tesla employees to join his company at the place.
Mr Wynn said the main thing was many employers found that employees weren’t as productive when working from home.
“I actually have a few employers who have taken more people into the office on short-term contracts to deal with the backlog because people working from home aren’t as efficient,” he said.
It depends on the job, though.
“In the IT industry, they’re on deadlines where a project has to be completed by X, so the employer doesn’t care when you do it,” Wynn said.
“The roles where there is a daily workload to do, I think those are the ones that are shrinking a bit. Unfortunately, what employers are finding in those kinds of roles is that they need more access, people don’t answer phone calls and emails as effectively.
“I’ve never seen it so bad”
Mr Wynn said employers across all sectors were grappling with massive skills shortages after international borders closed during Covid.
“I’ve been doing this job for 13 years, I’ve never seen it look so bad,” he said. “It’s been the worst and hardest thing it’s been to find people.”
He said it was “all the way”.
“Sales people, technicians, a bit of IT that we’re also struggling with, but even the most basic roles that don’t require any experience like receptionists, we’re even struggling to find them right now,” said he declared.
The skills shortage caused by the loss of backpackers and students abroad has been compounded by a change in attitude during Covid.
“Since Covid, a lot of people are hesitant to go into a job unless it fits their criteria,” he said. “Job seekers are more specific about what they want, but on the other side of the fence, employers who have to recover from Covid are more specific about what they want.
“The two parties are growing further and further apart.”
The rapid change was pointed out earlier this year in a survey that found more than half of under-35s would quit if their job prevented them from “enjoying life”.
But results from Randstad’s Workmonitor study, which surveyed 35,000 employees in 34 countries, suggest the so-called ‘big quit’ was less of a Down Under phenomenon, with just 26% of Australian workers saying they had quit a job because that hadn’t been the case. do not relate to their personal life, compared to 34% globally.
“The big quit isn’t happening in Australia,” Mr Wynn said.
“If that were the case, we wouldn’t have any trouble finding people. Australia is a very different market, it’s much larger and it’s not as easy for people to change jobs. The distance between employers is much greater than in the UK or America.
He added: “A lot of people who still have their jobs show loyalty to the employers who kept them thanks to Covid. They’re not really moving, but if they are, they’re looking for much higher rates of pay than the labor market pays.
australia unemployment rate fell to a 48-year low of 3.9% in April, the lowest monthly figure on record.
Despite falling unemployment, wage growth remained sluggish, rising just 2.4% on the year to the March quarter – largely outpaced by soaring inflation, which saw consumer prices rise 5.1% over the of the same period.
#Antiworker #storms #job #interview