This is going to blow your mind (at least it blew my mind). We need a new employee in our Charlotte office. We ran an ad last week on careerbuilder. I’ve provided the full text of the ad below. We had 476 applicants within five days and more are coming in every hour.
Here’s the ad (I’ve highlighted the important part in red):
Full Time Administrative Assistant/Paralegal
Rosen Law Firm seeks Full Time Administrative Assistant in our Charlotte, North Carolina office.
Our firm strives to employ professional, ambitious people with high energy who embrace new challenges. This job demands the ability to handle responsibility with little supervision. This position will be filled quickly. We are ready to bring the right candidate on board immediately!
Responsibilities:
* Answers phones, greets & seats clients
* Scan documents and handle document management within client database
* Manage office supplies
* Make courthouse runs
* Draft court documents
* Taking payments and bank deposits
* Serve as back up point of contact for potential client calls and other administrative duties as assigned.Requirements
* Bachelor’s degree
* Excellent communication, organizational and interpersonal skills
* Detail oriented with strong phone presence
* Proficient in Microsoft Office applications, basic understanding of Office Operations
* Experience with QuickBooks
* Must have a willingness to interact with our clients on a daily basis
* 80% of this job will be Administrative work and 20% will be legal assistant related duties
* Desire to innovate and an enthusiasm for change
* Ability to build strong and sustainable relationships and an aptitude for dealing with people at all levels of the organization
* A strong history of personal and professional growth
* A positive, big-picture, long-term perspective
* A history of exercising initiative and taking responsibility
* Work schedule expectations: 8:30 am to 5:30 pm, Monday through Friday and additional, hours as needed. At least one Tuesday night per month, you would be required to stay late.Benefits:
* Competitive salary
* Company paid health, life, dental and vision, insurance
* 401(k) match
* Three weeks paid leave with additional time each year
* Annual salary review and evaluation.To apply: PLEASE FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS:
Please email your (1) resume, (2) cover letter and (3) salary requirements to the address listed, in this posting. Please attach a (4) link to a video posted on YouTube.com (or any other video hosting site) in which you answer the question – “Why would you be good at this job?” Please provide an (5) email address and (6) your availability during the next two weeks for an interview. Any application submitted without these six elements will not be considered. ABSOLUTELY NO PHONE CALLS.
Of the 476 applicants we had 7 that fulfilled all 6 of the requirements. One of the 7 didn’t have a Bachelor’s degree. She was eliminated (probably a mistake we ought to fix). Less than 1.5% of the applicants followed the instructions. How is that possible?
Maybe some potential applicants are bothered by the video requirement. We can assume those people didn’t apply. I am aware of the exposure we create by requiring a video, but we decided it was worth the risk.
I can only assume that the vast majority of the applicants failed to read the entire ad or that they are incapable of following the instructions.
I’m tempted to go back through the resumes and find some other candidates that look good on paper. There are plenty of them. But I now know that they don’t follow instructions well. Following instructions is an important part of the job we seek to fill. Wouldn’t it be insane for me to consider the other 400+ people after they failed to comply with our request?
This experience is really depressing. I just can’t believe it.
I’ll be interviewing most of the people that followed the instructions later today. I hope to find an excellent candidate. I’ll let you know.
