Radio jobs - acknowledgement a

radioland

Don't wish to be petty but anyone else notice that most stations don't seem to even acknowledge receipt of demos. I've sent a few in over past number of months and not even a PFO.

L1011

This is basically 50/50 the sheer volume of them sent in and often sent to the wrong people. Additionally, if your not actually hiring and get an unsolicited demo I wouldn't see the advantage of using time to reply.

radioland

MYOB wrote: »

This is basically 50/50 the sheer volume of them sent in and often sent to the wrong people. Additionally, if your not actually hiring and get an unsolicited demo I wouldn't see the advantage of using time to reply.

None were unsolicited, they followed calls (advertised here) and were in all cases sent to the email addresses specified . As for volume, I take your point but a one line pfo too much ???

L1011

radioland wrote: »

As for volume, I take your point but a one line pfo too much ???

1 PD, 150 applications to go through and their normal job to do at the same time - yeah, it'd take too long to do.

I've also seen audio demos never get through email systems (but with no bounceback) due to the size or format of the demo. Ten minute WAV files (100MB+), files embedded in Word docs, files zipped (which doesn't reduce their size anyway), and so on - this may not apply in your case at all obviously.

radioland

MYOB wrote: »

1 PD, 150 applications to go through and their normal job to do at the same time - yeah, it'd take too long to do.

I've also seen audio demos never get through email systems (but with no bounceback) due to the size or format of the demo. Ten minute WAV files (100MB+), files embedded in Word docs, files zipped (which doesn't reduce their size anyway), and so on - this may not apply in your case at all obviously.

Thank you - interesting comment about files not getting through . Hard to know if files received as most mail servers don't tell you if the mail you've sent has been successful and companies oft switch off message received function

How do we know - just a thought PDs !

Preset No.3

Bah mp3! That's tecnology for you. I remember a time when you would send a demo on cassette and it would be used by other presenters for their snoop tapes without ever being listener to.

Ooooh a shiny new C-90, that'll do to record a few songs for the car!!!

Five Lamps

MYOB wrote: »

1 PD, 150 applications to go through and their normal job to do at the same time - yeah, it'd take too long to do.

Completely unacceptable and I would question a PD's management abilities. Radio is a people business and the courtesy of a reply is important and simple thing to do. All the PD is to pass over the unsuccessful applicants to an admin person and fire out the replies.

Five Lamps

radioland wrote: »

Thank you - interesting comment about files not getting through . Hard to know if files received as most mail servers don't tell you if the mail you've sent has been successful and companies oft switch off message received function

How do we know - just a thought PDs !

Put your audio file on Dropbox and use a bit.ly link to access it. You'll then have some stats on how many people clicked on the link.

LETS BE AVN IT

In the same boat OP . You would wonder how many people are sending in demos I would imagine its not that high maybe I'm very wrong here? I say 1 in 6 reply to me its very frustrating when you put so much effort in to it.

radioland

Thanks again one & all for obs. I won't name names to protect the guilty but I agree you could easily issue a large number of pfos very quickly by email. And sorry to say, it appears to be a trend across the board . I ain't no newbie to this business and quite frankly it's insulting

More Music

Most gigs that come up the PD already has somebody in mind or already asked.

The job advert is just going through the motions.

Bard

Five Lamps wrote: »

Completely unacceptable and I would question a PD's management abilities.

Unacceptable to who exactly? They're the ones handing out the gigs - questioning their management abilities will get you nowhere and achieve exactly nothing.

Five Lamps wrote: »

Radio is a people business and the courtesy of a reply is important and simple thing to do.

And a completely unnecessary thing to do. Most people in the business know that if you don't get a reply, you didn't get the gig - and know not to be insulted by a lack of reply or take it personally. If you DO take it personally or decide to bad mouth PDs because of simply not getting a reply, you're in (or trying to get into) the wrong business!

All the PD is to pass over the unsuccessful applicants to an admin person and fire out the replies.

Nope, that'd be a waste of time and resources too. The admin staff have far better things to do than send PFOs out. Develop a thicker skin ... you didn't get a reply. Awww... boo hoo. Seriously... get over it, and get back banging on doors.

Losty Dublin

There was at least one local station here who, wheneven they were short of blank cassettes for staff to log their links and newscasts, would advertise for on air staff. The demo tapes sent in kept them going for a few months at a time

Five Lamps

Bard wrote: »

Unacceptable to who exactly? They're the ones handing out the gigs - questioning their management abilities will get you nowhere and achieve exactly nothing.

Unacceptable to any person in the workforce. It's just simply wrong not to acknowledge an application and then advise the applicant what status their application is at. If a PD or station can't handle this simple task in business ethics then I would question their people management skills.

And a completely unnecessary thing to do. Most people in the business know that if you don't get a reply, you didn't get the gig - and know not to be insulted by a lack of reply or take it personally. If you DO take it personally or decide to bad mouth PDs because of simply not getting a reply, you're in (or trying to get into) the wrong business!

Why is it a completely unnecessary to do? Man, if you really think so then you really need to get out of a people business. I worked in the industry before - we always responded to anybody who applied though a formal process and the randomers including transition year students looking for gigs. It's a simple thing to do.

Nope, that'd be a waste of time and resources too. The admin staff have far better things to do than send PFOs out. Develop a thicker skin ... you didn't get a reply. Awww... boo hoo. Seriously... get over it, and get back banging on doors.

Disgraceful attitude - no other words describe it. Tell you what, why don't you put it on the record what radio station this policy applies to? You should actually have no problem in stating that this is our policy and we're delighted and proud to stand over it.

L1011

Five Lamps wrote: »

Unacceptable to any person in the workforce. It's just simply wrong not to acknowledge an application and then advise the applicant what status their application is at. If a PD or station can't handle this simple task in business ethics then I would question their people management skills.

It doesn't happen often in any other industry sector - I fail to see why radio should be different.

Five Lamps

MYOB wrote: »

It doesn't happen often in any other industry sector - I fail to see why radio should be different.

True - it's something that is not unique at all to the radio business by any stretch. However, many companies nowadays just wouldn't allow this kind of shoddiness to carry on.

TheLonelyOne

MYOB wrote: »

It doesn't happen often in any other industry sector - I fail to see why radio should be different.

Over the past two weeks, my brother has applied for 30+ jobs, not in the radio industry, and has received all but 4 replies. So I think you will find that it is indeed very common in this day and age.

L1011

TheLonelyOne wrote: »

Over the past two weeks, my brother has applied for 30+ jobs, not in the radio industry, and has received all but 4 replies. So I think you will find that it is indeed very common in this day and age.

An automated reply from the email system in a large firm isn't a human reply - and believe me, that's pretty much all you get.

radioland

MYOB wrote: »

An automated reply from the email system in a large firm isn't a human reply - and believe me, that's pretty much all you get.

To me , it smacks of arrogance and ignorance . Despite what we think , radio is a relatively small community in Ireland and courtesy costs nothing (or very little) . However the apparent lack of responses from PDs here speaks volumes

L1011

radioland wrote: »

To me , it smacks of arrogance and ignorance . Despite what we think , radio is a relatively small community in Ireland and courtesy costs nothing (or very little) . However the apparent lack of responses from PDs here speaks volumes

It costs time. Something not in huge supply for many people.

iwantmydinner

I really don't understand this. There is absolutely no obligation on anyone to send rejection letters to anyone - particularly on a first-round application level. We're talking potentially hundreds of applications here and all the PDs I know have more than enough on their plates than to respond to each one. And just LOL at the suggestion that they have a bunch of admin staff to just hand it off to. Almost everyone in almost every station is already working well beyond capacity.

If you're successful, you'll hear back - same as most sectors.

radioland

iwantmydinner wrote: »

I really don't understand this. There is absolutely no obligation on anyone to send rejection letters to anyone - particularly on a first-round application level. We're talking potentially hundreds of applications here and all the PDs I know have more than enough on their plates than to respond to each one. And just LOL at the suggestion that they have a bunch of admin staff to just hand it off to. Almost everyone in almost every station is already working well beyond capacity.

If you're successful, you'll hear back - same as most sectors.

Tbh, we're generally not talking hundreds and as for the time issue, I don't buy it.

Onthe3rdDay

radioland wrote: »

Tbh, we're generally not talking hundreds and as for the time issue, I don't buy it.

I worked in Radio in the past and was in junior roles at times. When I wasn't doing research for the current affairs show, I was put doing any other job that had to be done. One of them was to sort through the CV's and tapes that used to come in. This was before widespread use of email but there were 150 applications that came in one week (i counted) most of them with tapes.

90% of them were not even considered. They didn't either have the experience or the cop on to work at a local station. the other 10% were real candidates. The 10% would get a letter saying no thanks, the 90% were ignored. Replying to all of them would have cost over 75 pounds in stamps, and stationary. (this was almost half a weeks wages for myself at the time)

I have a lot of friends in the broadcast industry still and what bothers most of them is that some people don't seem to realize that Commercial stations are businesses. In some cases to properly reply to every person that applied for a job you'd have to take on someone full time. that would be another 25,000 out of a station budget. Most stations don't have that money to spare.

iwantmydinner

radioland wrote: »

Tbh, we're generally not talking hundreds and as for the time issue, I don't buy it.

What do you mean, you don't buy it? It's literally 100% fact.

radioland

iwantmydinner wrote: »

What do you mean, you don't buy it? It's literally 100% fact.

Explicitly , I ve also worked in radio and generally applications for on-airs ( where calls are made) are in tens not hundreds . A general email to also rans in not unreasonable

iwantmydinner

I dunno man, I feel like you're just annoying yourself with this. Busy PDs will never see the value of spending time on PFOs, especially in under-resourced commercial stations. It's just a simple fact.

L1011

radioland wrote: »

Explicitly , I ve also worked in radio and generally applications for on-airs ( where calls are made) are in tens not hundreds . A general email to also rans in not unreasonable

If you've worked in radio you'll know how limited time and admin resources are too; though.

You're getting overly worked up here over nothing - PFOs are no longer sent as a common thing in ANY industry. Email autoresponses on submitting a CV are about the best you'll get but considering many stations are using email systems held together with rubber bands and chewing gum, that's not an option either.

iwantmydinner

MYOB wrote: »

... many stations are using email systems held together with rubber bands and chewing gum...

*shudders at memory*

Five Lamps

iwantmydinner wrote: »

I dunno man, I feel like you're just annoying yourself with this. Busy PDs will never see the value of spending time on PFOs, especially in under-resourced commercial stations. It's just a simple fact.

Then there is a very simple solution. Put in your ad that you won't acknowledge receipt of applications and will only contact applicants who are being called for an interview. Inform staff and stick a note on your website. Job done.

As for the response, these days when people contact a company for whatever reason not only are they expecting an immediate response, they are expecting a personalised response. It's very easy to respond to people electronically and while it may be a standard response to all applicants, it does the job. As a people focused business, radio should be mindful of this in this day and age.

As for the station that had to spend 75e on postage - that's buttons if you look at the overall cost of recruitment process.

Onthe3rdDay

Five Lamps wrote: »

As for the station that had to spend 75e on postage - that's buttons if you look at the overall cost of recruitment process.

It was a while ago (around 1998) so it was 75 pounds which was worth more at the time. It's not buttons, every penny counts when you're running a business. Several Local Stations in this country wouldn't survive with that kind of attitude. No one had advertised for staff at that time. It was just people sending in CV's and tapes randomly. Most would never get on air as they had no sense. That's why any that did seem half decent were sent a note. Everyone else was ignored.

Generally Like it or not the recruitment progress in Radio is different to other companies. There is no shortage of talent out there. Back in the time I was working in the area there were several people I knew that would be left go over the summer when teachers on their summer holidays would come in and work for free!!!

It's not an area to go working if you want a secure lifelong job or indeed you're sensitive. (that's not a criticism by the way) You can expect a lot of rejections in any creative industry, no matter how good you are.

soc160

How many stations are even looking for demo's or staff, like most stations just headhunt these days. If I was in a position to hire someone in any position and just kept getting sent CV's or demo's without asking it would be annoying, even if the job was advertised it's arrogant to expect a reply, in any walk of life, if you don't hear back you didn't get it is the general rule of thumb.

L1011

Junior / graveyard shift / newsroom staff do often get advertised for. Main presenter roles wouldn't be unless they're having to do it for pretence really.

Five Lamps

soc160 wrote: »

... even if the job was advertised it's arrogant to expect a reply, in any walk of life, if you don't hear back you didn't get it is the general rule of thumb.

That's ridiculous. Arrogant not to expect a reply in todays two way, always on, instantaneous reply world?

This possibly underlines the problem the radio industry has - they just get the modern age of media.