Friday, August 8, 2008

Hiring a Receptionist

OK, maybe not the correct forum but I have to share this. We posted an opening for a receptionist here at PADT. We got 551 responses (the recession hit Arizona a while back). We did our typical thing of sorting and choosing. When I had picked the people we wanted to interview, I thought it would be nice to send out a bulk e-mail to all those that responded via e-mail, letting them know they would not be interviewed. I got two responses that made all of us here laugh and cry at the same time. First, here is my bulk response to the applicants:

Dear Applicant,

I want to thank you very much for applying for the Receptionist position with PADT, Inc. We received over 400 resumes in 7 days for that position! As you can imagine, it was a bit of an effort to sort through all of those and decide who we wanted to interview. Unfortunately you were amongst those that we decided not to interview.

I wish we could give feedback on each applicant, but we just don’t have the time. We also apologize for sending you this rather impersonal bulk e-mail, but we can’t send 400+ individual responses.

Please do not call or e-mail us asking for a second chance or for feedback. We understand that many people are currently in a bad place and could really use a job, but in order to keep our profits and pay our employees, we have to focus on our long-term needs.

Thank you for your interest in the company and we wish you the best of luck in your job search.

Sincerely,

Eric Miller
Director, HR (Acting)

I got a reply from one of the 6 Tiffany's that applied (I have not altered any punctuation or spacing):

I really do think you might be upset with not trying out an effort with me because I have over 5yrs experience as a receptionist and I am a mother so I have alot of patients and undergarment with anything and everything. So if u are not satisfied with anyone you are interviewing,please let me know

Then I heard from another person who did not like my form letter:

Dear Mr. Eric Miller(Acting) Hr Director,

I am so sorry that you did not pick my resume. BUT, after reading this very RUDE letter that you have sent out to all who did not get picked. I must let you know that I would have rather not heard any feedback from your company then to have received this horrible letter. I would never lower myself to email you to give me a second chance, or come asking for any feedback, as far as Iam concerned you are the one who just lost out not me. You are suppose to be professional and this is what you send out to applicants! OH MY GOD you and your company are very impersonal and I myself would never work for a company that would even consider sending out this horrible response. So in the future I would suggest you not respond to any applicants.

Thank You

Insert your favorite "people today" "texting and myspace are ruining the English language" "the school system is broken" rant here.

The good news is the 5 people we picked to interview are intelligent, well poised, well spoken and used something approaching proper spelling, grammar and punctuation when in their e-mails. It will be hard to choose amongst them. So there is hope for humanity.

- Eric


2 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't know Eric - I would have given the gal with undergarments anf have everything another chance!

Jeff Strain said...

That's pretty damn professional as far as I'm concerned. Better than no response at all, which is what I usually got in the past when applying to companies that didn't hire me.

The humor probably put off a few people who don't have a sense of humor. Probably a good hiring filter.