Mutterers need not apply

Published: 10:50AM Thursday August 27, 2009 Source: Breakfast

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For employers, advertising a job can be more hassle than its worth, it can mean wading through loads of CVs submitted by people who are well below requirement.

One retailer decided to take a blunt axe to his latest job ad, to get the right kind of people applying for a job.

Murray Crane, of high-end male clothing store Crane Brothers, placed a less than politically correct job ad pointing out exactly what he wanted - and didn't want - in an employee. Here are some excerpts:

"You need to be clean, non-smoking and have good handwriting. You need to be able to spell, but most of all you need to have manners and not mutter."

"I won't be impressed by whether you have your own blog, or that you get air freighted copies of Vogue sent to yourself."

"I will be impressed if you don't text to me 'Hey wassup how bout hookin up fr a job intrvw."

Crane says he was just being up front about the sort of people he wants to employ.

"I think I've got ... reasonably high expectations of the kind of people I want working for me, that my customers need to deal with on a daily basis," he told Breakfast's Paul Henry.

He says of the people he usually gets applying for jobs - which can be up to 80 applicants - a high percentage have no idea what he requires and have an overly high expectation of what they are worth.

"It's just a constant disappointment for me as an employer trying to find good people that want to work," he says.

So the question is, did the advert work?

Crane says it did, he got three great applicants, two of whom have been shortlisted for the role.

What do you think about Murray Crane's approach? As an employer do you share his concerns or as a potential employee do you think the approach was too harsh? Have your say on the message board.

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  • afshar said on 2009-08-27 @ 15:58 NZDT: Report abusive post

    I see nothing wrong with his Ad...Whats lacking the most in today's youngers in Decency...!and Decency is the most important value for any employee..!All the best to him in finding the right employee...

  • geofreyraa said on 2009-08-27 @ 15:34 NZDT: Report abusive post

    I too like his approach. Moreover I'll definitely consider buying from a store that encourages good manners among their retail staff!

  • Sarah P said on 2009-08-27 @ 12:42 NZDT: Report abusive post

    I agree with Murray Crane and good on him for getting tough. People seem to not think about what they are actually applying for. I would say 95% of the applications I get are from people with no relevant experience, skills or even the ability to tailor a decent cover letter. I had one guy apply for a job whose CV only contained an encoded document. We decoded it and it turned out to be a link to his MySpace page - he really liked Gangsta rap...

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