Failed to be shortlisted

Can I ask what position requires 20 years of experience? Never heard of that before.

Wow thats highly unusual. I suppose contacting them won't do any harm, but I couldn't see their stance changing.

I guess they'll say that some of your experience wasn't relevant 😀

Contact them in case it's an oversight. But don't get your hopes up.

Just wondering were you working for the full 22 years or had you taken any term time/shorter working year/a career break.

I know that in any of the public service offices I've been in you'd be far better off with the newer admin staff than those there 20+ years! And that's not just knocking the older staff, though most of them got in with just a short interview and handshake. Most of the newer admin staff are really good - the competitive application process these days obviously plays a part.

20+ implies they needed more than 20 years experience. It could be that they received many more applications for the permanent role, and took, say, the 10 qualifying applicants with the most experience for their shortlist. Could be the least experienced of these has 23 years experience

While 2+ may seem ideal to you in a situation where this low value may result in significant interest it makes sense to raise the minimum.

In the OP they mention 20 as the minimum initially required. They state that they actually have 22 years experience.

It would appear that the initial cut off was set too low at 20 years minimum so they seem to have increased the minimum to cut the numbers.

Actual qualifications like MOUS/ECDL

Relevant experience. As the OP has working in the same area.

Public sector experience, as its particularly bureaucratic and process driven.

Maybe a language.

Seems like you don't know the difference between experience and relevant experience.

Also dismissive of technical skills, qualifications and languages.

Ya.

Everyone can't be shortlisted. There has to be some cut off.

I have 100 applications for a post. 46 of those meet the mandatory criteria. No way are we interviewing 46 people for 1 job. So we have to cut again to 10. Just need to look at experience, where they work now etc and try to whittle it down.

Had 2 applications recently from people who worked in the same place and probably did the same job. 1 was shortlisted and 1 wasn't. She obviously questioned why - simple answer your cv was rubbish! Polite answer you didnt have enough relevant information on your cv!

Well 5 years would probably show the same.

The only advantage of looking for 20+ years that I can think of might be that it would decrease the chance that the person you hire might be heading off on maternity leave .............

People slag off the ecdl for sure it's basic, easy and the lowest qualification you can get. But the standard of admin staff IT skills in basic Office applications is abysmal. I know how inefficient IT illiterate people are at admin tasks. If nothing else ecdl is whistle stop tour of what the apps are used for.

In the last set of admin staff interviews I sat on about 30% of the applicant's had very good IT skills. But you had to drag it out of them what software they had used and to walk through problems they had solved or made more efficient using their IT skills. The question then is how to get that into your CV. Often a skills table is used. But rarely tested. If someone is vague in the interview you know they've made stuff up on the CV.

That said the HR people filtering the CVs often have poor IT and/or admin skills themselves which doesn't help.

Again most skills are perishable. So if you haven't done something in 10yrs it's unlikely something you've maintained at a good level. So I wonder how much of 20yrs+ is relevant.

20 years for an assistant staff officer? Thats in the county councils isnt it? Starting money is 27ka year, thats got to be a typo

Sounds about right. I know someone in that job for a long time. Close to 10 years I'd say and they were saying that they had passed 40K not too long ago when we were talking about local house prices. Counting back a starting salary of 27K would sound about right. Add on 8 or 9 years of increments are you over the 40K.

In cases where there are hundreds, of applicants, then it's very likely that everyone who meets the minimum criteria (say 3 leaving cert subject passes, 5 years work experience in the area) will be able to do the job efficiently. (Or at least as efficiently as any employer who's paying 27k can rightfully expect!)

It's totally not efficient to interview a hundred people.

So there has to be some way to whittle down the pool after the minimum criteria has been applied.

They don't need to get the best-possible-person. Just one who is good enough. Random assignment would be an extremely efficient way to whittle down the pool, to select a manageable number of people to interview (usually between 5 and 10). And use in-depth techniques like interview, workplace simulation, reference checking to choose the best one from that group.