Employment application form

Ask everyone the same questions, in the same order

A stack of CVs is a stack of documents each arranged to flatter a different person. One puts education first because the degree is the strongest thing on it; the next buries a two-year gap inside a paragraph. Reading them fairly means holding six different layouts in your head at once, and nobody does that on a Friday afternoon with eleven to get through.

An application form makes the layout somebody else's problem rather than yours. Availability is in the same place on every reply, so you can sort by it. The reason for leaving is asked of everybody or nobody. Two candidates become comparable down a column instead of across a desk.

The CV still has its uses, which is why there is a field for it — a portfolio, a specific project, the shape of a career. Attach it to the answers rather than reading the answers out of it.

Availability is the question that saves the most time

For shift work it is the whole decision, and it is usually discovered at the interview — after both people have spent an hour finding out that the applicant cannot do weekends and the role is weekends.

Asked on the form it costs one tick box and rules out nobody who was ever going to work out. Desired pay does the same job from the other direction: two people who disagree about the number by a factor of two do not need to meet to establish it.

Right to work, asked once and recorded

Two questions, both standard on paper applications, and they are different questions. Somebody can be authorised to work today and still need sponsorship later; somebody can need no sponsorship and not yet be authorised.

Asking on the form means the answer is written down with a date and a signature against it, which is worth more than a note somebody made after a phone call. It is also asked of every applicant identically, which is the part that matters if the process is ever looked at.

Do not contact a current employer without asking

Most people applying for a job have one, and their employer does not know. A reference request that arrives before an offer can cost somebody the position they already hold, which is a serious thing to do by accident.

The question takes one line and its middle answer — not until you have made an offer — is the one most applicants pick. Having it on the form means the answer is recorded rather than assumed.

The declaration, and why the signature sits under it

The paragraph above the signature is what the signature is for. Somebody signing above the text they are attesting has signed nothing in particular, which is why the block is placed where it is here and why an uploaded document keeps that order when it is converted.

Keep it short and keep it true. A declaration that claims more than you would act on is worse than none, because the first time it matters somebody will read it closely.

What you can do with the replies

Every application lands in one list. Sort it by availability, search it for a certification, download the lot as a spreadsheet, or open one reply and read it on its own. Attachments come with the reply they belong to rather than as a folder of files named after whoever sent them.

The printable version is free and needs no address, so if a paper form on a clipboard is what the job actually calls for, take that one instead.