As a strategy to land a job, Sebastian Salek’s decision to pen an article for The Independent – published yesterday – lampooning “sloppy” graduate recruiters seems rather risky. But there’s no denying that the Cambridge law student makes some good points. Such as…
1. The tendency to make silly mistakes not being limited to applicants – as illustrated by the time Salek got invited to an interview on 31 September. “Yes, ‘sir/madam’, I look forward to meeting you on 31 September as well,” he recalls drily of the error.
2. Incomplete application forms. Salek (pictured left) explains: “Often, when I’m asked to select my subject (law, hardly unheard of) from a drop down list, it’s not there and I’m forced to choose something else entirely. I could probably just about have forgiven this sort of irritating blunder if one of the guilty parties hadn’t been a City law firm.” Ouch.
3. Crashing application form websites – about which Salek is a bit more coy, refraining from mentioning, for example, the recently-retired Pupillage Portal.
4. Firms’ failure to live up to their diversity boasts. Why, continues Salek, publicly claim to “value diversity highly” when at interview you say stuff like: “To get a job here, you have to pass what we call the ‘good bloke test’. Or the ‘good blokette test’.”
5. Not being bothered to provide applicants notice when they’re unsuccessful. According to Salek, “many [recruiters] will unashamedly tell you that they’re not even willing to send out a mail merged email.”
Law firm graduate recruitment departments keen to chew over in more detail the above criticisms can contact Salek via Twitter.