Expressions or requirements that put you off applying for a job

[AnnO'Neemus]

I hate that sort of application with a passion. Please attach you CV, a cover letter and the restate half your CV and you cover letter filling in our form. Part of my job has involved redesigning our careers site and all the research we have been shown says that a from that askes you to fill match to job spec or answer questions massively increases the abandon rate.

I don't mind so much if there are simple boxes, like:

State your employment history here:
[box]

State your education/training here:
[box]

Explain how you meet the person specification here:
[box]

I'll probably do that, because I can cut and paste employment history and education/training from my CV (and maybe tinker with formatting a bit, delete irrelevant jobs, expand a bit on relevant ones), and then I can cut and paste the list of criteria from the person specification, then use that as a basis for my bullet points, which you can't do if you have to deal with them all separately in small boxes with character limits.

But if they want you to faff around and spend hours with a format like:

Employer 1, name of company: [box]
Employer 1, job title: [box]
Employer 1, brief summary of responsibilities and duties: [box]
Employer 1, start date: [box]
Employer 1, leave date: [box]
Employer 1, reason for leaving: [box]

+ add another employer.

I think, fuck that!

I mean, maybe that's the intention? Maybe the intention isn't to recruit the person most capable of doing the actual job, but maybe the intention is to recruit a corporate drone who will unquestioningly follow orders, no matter how inefficient and ludicrous, and no matter how inappropriate or poor the outcome?