How Not to Get Hired at Groupon: Stalk Us

How Not to Get Hired at Groupon: Stalk Us. This may seem slightly obvious, but excessive social networking with recruiters can sometimes work against your chances of getting hired. We ask that everyone apply via our career site, but there are some additional steps you can take. While we very much appreciate someone doing some extra homework and finding us on a professional site such as LinkedIn, try to keep your search targeted and send your resume to the best person to help you.

Choose one person—preferably a recruiter—and explain your situation. Even though we are busy, we also are here to help you get a job. If your email isn’t sent to the right person, that person will most likely forward it on for you. You can mitigate this by doing your research beforehand. A simple search for “Groupon recruiter” brings up tech recruiters, Editorial recruiters, and corporate recruiters, so if you know what you’d like your focus to be, it’s best to reach out to the appropriate person. If you are not applying specifically to a tech or Editorial position, a corporate recruiter is the best person to help you.Before you apply, please look at our jobs page and let us know what you think is a fit. We need to focus our time and efforts on candidates who are most relevant to the role at hand, so please be able to articulate your interest accordingly. Also, we want you to be doing the job you actually want to do and not just what you think you can get hired for.

We understand it can be hard to wait for a response, but we ask you to not call customer service for the status of your application. If you have applied, you can check on your application via the email we send when you first apply. We are doing our best to let people know the status, and we appreciate your patience. Bombarding the phone lines/email inboxes of customer service keeps customers waiting longer and without customers we won’t have any jobs anyway.

We are on the phone and in interviews constantly throughout the day, so email is the best way to reach us. This may sound like a brush off, but it’s the truth. Calling over and over again may eventually work, but you are much more likely to get a response via email. If we could train our computers to physically pick up the phones, we would, but then we’d have to be concerned with robot domination and prank calls.

Bottom line, the most effective way to get noticed is to do some research and target your communication accordingly. Just as when you are choosing companies to apply to, we want you to vet this out properly. Connecting with us via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and then showing up at our apartments is a bit excessive. We haven’t checked our MySpace account in awhile anyway and we don’t want you to be ignored.

You can view updated job postings by following the Recruiting department on Twitter (@grouponjobs) or visit our job site at http://www.groupon.com/jobs.

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Comment by Tim Keene on April 14, 2011 at 12:32pm: Great read, and I love Stephanie's comment. I'm not a fan of the whole careers@amazingcompany.com thing. There are people on both ends of these communications, lets at least make it seem true!

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 14, 2011 at 12:49pm: I more than understand what Dustin is trying to convey here. In a very nice way I might add. With all the current focus on "candidate experience" it has suddenly become acceptable for otherwise intelligent mature people to act like demanding,spoiled small children saying "me ,me,me wants attention and me wants it now".

Yes I understand the frustration of the black hole, no response to apps etc. Etc. But when did it become good business to apply for a job then find any and everybody who works or ever worked for a company, start calling and emailing then being pissy when they are referred back to internal recruiting. As Dustin mentions , the people who answer the phone in customer service have nothing to do with hiring and are not paid to listen to candidates bitch because they applied for a job two days ago and have not heard anything.

My take on some of this candidate experience is that it has become fashionable for self styled career coaches and SM gurus to convince people that it is ok to act like idiots. Get on linked in or Twitter find names then call like the are the only person on the planet. I have seen more and more tweets from employees of companies saying, "please don't call me if you are looking for a job, I don't have anything to do with hiring".

There is a balance between reaching out to someone and stalking. We all know what happens when candidates beat the phones and emails even when the responses are cordial, if it's overkill ,what would they act like if we hired them and they wanted an answer or needed something? Are they the kind of person who would drive everybody in the company nuts waiting it Right Now.

Selective networking is good, stalking a stranger you picked up on linked in or calling everyday is not. You wouldn't do it with your own friends and family . Common business courtesy should not be thrown to the winds when you are looking for a job. If this assault continues on companies with people demanding a whiz bang candidate experience fewer jobs are going to be posted.

I don't know any internal recruiters who wake up in the morning and take a Vow to not interview or hire today. I do know a lot who wake up and dread having their phone melt and their email play the anvil chorus all day with candidates demanding attention.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should or that you will be well received if disregard a somewhat adult approach to looking for a job.

Comment by Leslie Mason on April 14, 2011 at 1:46pm: Thanks Dustin, great first post! I feel your pain... in fact did a FB video chat along the same lines but tried to educate the candidates on how to network "effectively" with recruiters.

Comment by bill martineau on April 14, 2011 at 3:16pm: My initial take (like several others) is oh to be the prom queen with the dazzling looks! Some day your beauty will fade and you will long for the attention again.

On my second pass though it came off simply as the all too typical response from HR in the "we’re busy and we promise we'll get back to you when we can" line. The truth is if they were that good and you needed them you'd be fielding their call now. So either you have no interest in the skills currently (but may in the future) or you have no interest in them at anytime. So the real crisis seems to be caused by your recruiting team being understaffed and unable to address the tremendous growth (market hype/excessive candidate flow) or their inability to quickly separate the wheat from the chaff and to simply notify the candidates in a timely fashion.

So don’t blame candidates who want to work for your company (although do call the cops if they show up at your apartment). Thank them for their attention let them know the truth about their status and move on to the next applicant. Everyone will be much happier in the end.

Comment by Dustin Carper on April 14, 2011 at 4:10pm: I completely agree with you that we are the "prom queen" right now, and are very fortunate to have the attention and candidate flow that we do. However, I (like most others) recognize that and am trying to create a candidate experience that is centered around transparency. By being transparent now, I am striving to create a culture that is honest and build our reputation upon that.

Comment by Barbara Goldman on April 14, 2011 at 4:45pm: Wow. Is this supposed to be a veiled ad for how wonderful groupon is doing? So much business, that you just can't get it done? Interesting approach, but knowing the candidate market for good people, Its hard to see you swatting top performers away.

Comment by bill martineau on April 14, 2011 at 4:53pm: If by transparency you mean: Willingness to explain/teach them the process, be upfront as to their candidacy and provide them with the realistic chance of a hire as well as telling them the hard truths about when things don't work out for them, then I'm all for it. Because you will build a brand that way. You'll also have the opportunity to hire the best available talent for years to come and the ones who didn't get your job will at least respect you and your process.

BTW: Nice photo! Were we in the same wedding?

Comment by Dustin Carper on April 14, 2011 at 5:53pm: Ha! I thought that I recognized you, Cousin Bill! See you at the reunion...

Comment by Ryan Leary on April 16, 2011 at 2:38pm: I'm not sure that I agree period. I get the frustration, we all have that. The conversation of transparency and being real is malarkey. This is recruiting and HR. This is not saving the world. I think most have crossed the line of thinking that as a recruiter we are owed something by the candidate. Simply because a recruiter is the first to see the application in the ATS and can hit the rejected button means absolutely nothing other than the fact that recruiters often dismiss highly qualified talent due to situations just like this posting describes.

My personal thought is that posting this on a career site is arrogant and provides candidates with no value other than bad taste. If I were presented with the opportunity to work at Groupon, I’d turn that away based on that. I agree with Barbara, this seems like nothing more than an ad for Groupon.

The conversation is good for a forum like Recruitingblogs. Your career site or blog? Not so much.