What's it(s) mean?

[j4]

I asked AQA: "What's the average length of time for which UK jobs at AQA are advertised on the website? i.e. How long does it take for all/any positions to be filled? Thanks!"

AQA replied: "There's no average length of time, it just depends on the number of vacancies and the response. AQA advises applying immediately when they're advertised."

Now, call me a pedant, but I don't believe it's technically true that there's "no average length of time". I can entirely believe that they don't set a maximum or minimum length of time, and/or that they just don't want to tell me, but that's an entirely different kettle of question marks.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

It wasn't you who answered it, was it??

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

No. But they regard most company information as 'commercially sensitive', including vacancy details, so I doubt you'd have got much more in the way of useful information even appealing to a senior source.

From observation I can tell you that the answer is "less than 24 hours between placing and withdrawal of ad; generally less than three days after application/test return for an offer", but it's not authoritative or (possibly) all that accurate given that I can only go on my own experience and what's reported back to me from others.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was quite prepared for them to say "We can't/won't release that information", that would have been fine! Also, as I said in another comment, something along the lines of "We don't keep the stats but it's usually about n hours" would have been fine. I just object to them being factually inaccurate in a way that would have been easily avoidable...

If I email their feedback address and say "I asked this and got an answer which wasn't true", will this somehow be turned into an Official Complaint which will affect the person who answered the question? I don't want somebody to get some kind of demerit as a result of my pedantry (though I do still think it was a really lazy answer) but I do want to ask the question.