UBS

I applied for this design job on August 7, 2015. This was before it had amassed 187 applicants. I received no response.

On October 12, they advertised the exact same job again. This time, it received 45 applicants. I couldn’t resist sending them a little note in lieu of a resume:

I am responding to your latest advertisement for a Senior Designer. I previously applied for this same position on August 7 (link). You showed no interest in my candidacy. (It’s funny that UBS was one of my clients a few years back; I’ve included images of this work on the next few pages).

The original job posting indicates you received 187 applicants, including myself. I have trouble believing that you could not find one qualified designer out of this group. Hence, I am going to conclude that this job either had some hidden qualifications (for example, did you disqualify anyone over the age of 30?) or that this job is not real at all but, in fact, a fake job posting. 

I have an appointment to speak with a freelance journalist tomorrow about America’s broken hiring system, and I am going to share this fine example with her. Meanwhile, I have warned my LinkedIn network to ignore this job advertisement, and I recommend you be a little more careful with posting fake jobs, as the American workforce is getting wise to this behavior. Don’t be surprised if, one day, you post a job and nobody applies.

I received the most mind-blowingly stupid reply from the recruiter: "Hope this note finds you well. I am reaching out as I received your application and cover letter for the Senior Designer role. There was no resume attached so I figured I would send a note. Please let me know when you are free to speak and what number I can reach you on."

Ummmmm, rrrrrrriiiiiight, because (1) I am NOT interested in applying for this job for a second time, and (2) you already have my resume from August. Initially I thought we were just dealing with a fake job, but I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t just a case of severe incompetence. I mean, this is a seriously terrible display of stupid. And, no, I did not bother replying because I absolutely refuse to play whatever screwy game this company is playing with applicants. It's like an abusive relationship, where the only way to stop the abuse is to walk away from the relationship.