One of the bugbears of announcing a new position is that you get plenty of application spam. Many of the people have barely read the announcement, and blast out an e-mail attaching their CV, sometimes copying three of four other firms into the e-mail. A vacancy can generate 60 to 70 applications, of which only 10 to 15 are relevant. While we go through them quickly, it is unproductive time, and it's even a little sad, looking at so much helplessness.
Now we are trying a new method, of hiding the e-mail address that we request applications to. Anyone qualified should be able to figure this out, and application-spammers (there must be a better term in there somewhere) are unlikely to make the effort.
Those of you familiar with Gmail will know that anything with a plus sign still arrives, if the previous word indicates an existing address. However, we can effectively filter the application, making sure that only those that got it right get a "For Review" label attached.
It is the typical spiral of technology providing solutions (ease of application), creating problems (quantity of applications), until we use the next countermeasure to increase thresholds. So far, no spam received.
1 comment:
this worked exceedingly well. We didn't receive a single spam application. One applicant sent a separate e-mail, asking how to apply, and we reminded the applicant to check the text. Predictably, it was not a competitive application.
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