THE robust economy in recent months may have led to increased job creation but many employers are peeved with jobseekers who can now afford to be picky.

The worst part is, some of them tell my paper, when young potential employees fail to turn up on the day of scheduled interviews, even though they have confirmed their attendance.

And many of these job seekers who do not turn up are locals. One such unhappy employer is Ms Elaine Chia, who was so peeved she sent an e-mail to citizen media website Stomp to highlight this trend.

Ms Chia, who works in a publishing firm, received more than 40 respondents to ads she had placed online early this month. The ads were for three vacancies she had for telesales and accounts executives.

Since she had already reached the quota set by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on the proportion of foreigners in a company, Ms Chia shortlisted four Singaporeans from the pool of respondents and scheduled interviews with them.

However, on the day of their scheduled interviews, only one showed up. The no-shows did not give any reason.

Ms Chia said: "This has happened many times, from editorial to sales positions."

The company places an average of six such ads a year and, in the last three months, there were about four such placements.

A quick check by my paper showed that other HR companies encountered problems of the same nature.

Mr Alan Ong, 27, a HR consultant at Recruit Strategy, confessed: "Of course, we get such problems almost every day. We probably face such a problem about four to five times a week."

All four companies my paper spoke to agreed that the problem was rampant regardless of the positions offered and they pointed out that it was the younger job seekers who usually bail out on the day of the interview.

The Singapore Human Resource Institute (SHRI) said that the problem "doesn't just happen in one organisation", and it backed the claims of the companies - that the younger generation of job seekers was largely to blame.

The companies felt that these no-shows had a lack of social responsibility and basic etiquette.

The editor of Human Resources, a local HR magazine, Ms Lisa Cheong, 24, explained: "The graduates are not yet exposed to or experienced enough to know what the real working world is like."

Mr Ong speculated that the reason behind this behaviour was a lack of maturity. He said: "They are younger and it is probably their first job. So, they will be more picky."

While HR managers agree that there are no direct longterm implications, they warned that such irresponsible behaviour might harm future chances of getting a job.

On the other hand, young adults my paper spoke to felt that they were being unfairly stereotyped.

Said Miss Natasha Shah, 21, who works at a restaurant: "It's not fair (to stereotype). I know older people who have done such things before."

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