The truth of getting a new job in the US. An open letter to the HR Staff.

If I see an open position either online or on the bulletin board of a certain company, I will naturally assume that they need that person in a short period of time, there is no way in which I will imagine that if I apply today for that position it will take weeks, or even worse; months for them to start comparing the different applications they have received and then start dialing to the people in order to schedule their interviews. Unfortunately, this is precisely how a great majority of the recruitment processes in the United States are designed.

How in the world is it possible that if I, the person in charge of the Human Resources department, call a person who 3 months ago applied to the company that I work for, that person will continue to be interested in working with us? It may be the case, of course, and it's because the recruitment system is designed thinking of those people who already have a job and are actively looking for another, those people, if contacted 3 months later, they can manage to say that they are still interested, the difficult part for that person would be to attend the interview without risking their current job, perhaps by asking his manager, or faking an illness, or at best, by being able to schedule the interview at a time that doesn't interfere with his current job (which is not always possible).


But, what about those who do not have a current job? Those who need a job ASAP, the ones who lost their job, that were fired. The system is not designed for them, in a case like that if after 3 months that person is still unemployed he may attend the interview with the hope that everything goes well, but what if he already found another job and he's on his 2nd week? A job that isn't precisely in the field and conditions he wanted initially but hey, it's a job! A call 3 months later from a company in which he initially wanted to work would put him in a tough situation, has it happened to you?

It has happened to me, I have lasted 3 days in a new job and then I have had to go to talk to the supervisor to say that I'm very sorry but I will have to resign since I was admitted to another job that I really wanted but from which I did not believe that they were going to call me since I applied months ago, it's embarrassing, even when you have achieved what you wanted it feels weird to throw the towel in a new job on your first week.

So this is an open letter for those who design new job openings, for those who post them on Indeed, Monster, Facebook, etc. In other words, those people directly related to the Human Resources departments all around the country, if they are willing to accept a friendly suggestion that would be the following: If the new job openings were designed in order to be streamlined, so that the time between a person filing an application and being interviewed would not exceed 2 weeks,  don't you think everything would be better?

I can hear the objections, "yes but there are positions where we will need people after 2 months and not before" or something like that, well, in those cases, how about clarifying that in the job description? How about a warning like "do not expect to be contacted until after 2 months"? That would put the applicant on notice and thus avoid many surprises and uncertainty in the process.

Please, let me know what y'all think.