This weekend while perusing the Human Resources news and headlines, (in the almost unusable 'new and improved' Google Reader), I came across this story from the Wisconsin State Journal:
What's the URL again?
City's Job Application Process Goes Online.
The 'city' in the headline is Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. Madison has a population of about 230K, and employs about 3,000 or so people in a number of professional, technical, service, and administrative positions. And the linked story describes Madison's transition to a new system for posting available jobs and for accepting job applications.
While in late 2011, a city and employer of that stature and size to finally move to an automated online job application process might paint them as being a little late to the HR and Recruiting technology party, it still is a move that should be recognized and congratulated. Progress is progress, and it stands to reason that whatever the new technologies being implemented would have to be an improvement over what was likely a combination of paper, email, and disconnected databases that would have been used to keep track of job openings and applications.
So being the curious guy that I am, and interested in checking out the new applicant tracking system and process, I hit up the City of Madison's Human Resources and Employment page
here. If you visit the page you will see a normal, if uninspiring career information page, with links to the different areas of employment, pages to get additional information, and a front and center
'Welcome' message that is kind of too long, (about 300 words), and does not really do anything to 'sell' the city as an employer.
But to check out the newly designed and launched online application system, I actually had to perform a search for open jobs, to see the search functions, how the open jobs present, how the registration and application process would work - things the average HR Tech geek finds fascinating. So I clicked the link titled 'Job Openings' to do what I figured was a 'blind search', one with no filters or screens entered so as to return all the open jobs at the City.
The new system immediately returned the list of open jobs. All one of them, an opening for a 'Streets Superintendent' with a pay range from $84,616 - $114,231 - not a bad gig at all. But that was the only job listed on the site. Pretty disappointing even for me, who only wanted to check out the new system and process, imagine what a real Madison, Wisconsin job seeker must have thought after reading all about the new online technology, and how it would be sure to streamline and improve the job application process. Streamline and automate? For one entire open job?
I get that times are really hard, particularly for cash-strapped cities and towns. And eventually, hopefullly, the City of Madison will soon be able to resume more 'normal' hiring for a 3,000 employee organization. But after reading about the new system and process only to find that the shiny new process is essentially useless, (unless you are a potential new Streets Superintendent), you're definitely left a little disappointed and perhaps even angry.
New systems for online job application and posting aren't free, and installing a new one, and then issuing press releases and statements indicating the same, at a time when there is almost no practical application for the system strikes me as a little unwise. Let's hope the new system was put in place at a downtime in hiring so that it will be ready and have all the bugs ironed out for when things turn around.
Until then, Madison you better make sure each and every candidate for Streets Superintendent gets the A-treatment.