“I have not paid attention and did not choose an answer and do not want a job.”

It clearly stated on the application that he had his NLS (National Lifeguard Service) for lifeguarding.  This is the requirement in Canada to be called a lifeguard.  I'm only doing interviews for lifeguards at this point – thus the reason I interviewed him.

So I get to that question on my question sheet and he says, "No, I don't have my NLS for lifeguarding."

This threw me for a loop and I wondered why he said he did when he didn't.  I didn't get into it during the interview – that would be awkward, so I checked into it this morning.

We use Google Documents Forms for our staff applications at Pearce Williams (http://campisbetter.com). All the data comes into a google spreadsheet.  I realized late in the process that we did not ask the question if people had their NLS for lifeguarding so I recently added it.  Apparently I added it as a "Choose from List" question and made the default answer, "Yes I have my NLS for Lifeguarding".  So my bad, not his fault – glad I didn't ask him about it – still means he didn't read the question.

So I changed the default answer.  Now if you don't read the question and don't change the answer, your response will be what is shown in the picture below:

I think that every job application should have a question like this – but a big corporation might have trouble getting by the Human Resource department…

Just a thought, from my camp mind to yours.

Dreaming of Camp.

Joe Richards
http://about.me/yoyojoe

http://campisbetter.com/