Perspective: Should job candidates be paid for submitting their applications and attending interviews? I think yes!

I say yes because it may be in the interest of both the organization and job candidate. Below are my thoughts based on my experiences.

Potential Benefit for Organizations:

A requirement for paying job candidates may incentivize institutions to prepare concise and specific selection criteria that attract suitable candidates. This will save selection committee’s and ultimately organizations valuable time and resources in reviewing unnecessarily many applications. This would also benefit organizations in attracting the best candidate for the position and not candidates who may prepare themselves to appear as the best candidate.

Potential Benefit for Job Candidate:

I believe that as human beings we are participating in the work force to offer a skill set as a potential employee, and basic respect would be highly appreciated for instance in the following forms:

1.     Compensation benefit and/or

2.     Specific constructive feedback that contributes to candidates’ personal development!

What do you think?

My reflections:

Reflecting on my personal experiences, I realize that a lot of time is spent in preparing for job vacancies and interviews. This is expected because one would put the best efforts if applying for a potential job.

In today’s modern society, many organizations require candidates to submit responses to selection criteria.

Is the Curriculum Vitae not enough to gauge about the suitability of a potential candidate? If not, then I believe an individual should be compensated for taking out their valuable time in preparing responses for key selection criteria, especially when the selection criteria is vague.

Also, based on my personal experience, once short listed for an interview, I spent time preparing for research paper presentation or teaching related video in addition to the potential interview questions being asked by the selection committee members. I sacrificed my time that could be better used for other paid work, family, personal development, or social service as job search outcome is not certain.

Furthermore, I believe that feedback from unsuccessful application process would be useful for professional development. This was hardly provided to me, except in rare cases whereby some vague statements were emailed.

The question that comes to my mind is: Why are institutions not sharing specific feedback to candidates whom they do not select?

Thank you for reading this post and have a nice day!