to think unsuccessful job apps should be acknowledged

[Maud2011]

All that time and effort filling in one of those grisly forms and no response. I really object to the weaselly little note at the end of of so many job ads, saying that due to "lack of resources" we are unable to acknowledge unsuccessful applications.

Rejection's never nice but I do think at the very least, organisations could acknowledge unsuccessful applicants, not just leave them dangling... is it really THAT much trouble?

It is rude really. And unfair to keep people hanging on and wondering if the application was ever received or seen.

I know it's shit, but it's just life, I'm afraid. If it's a job maybe hundreds of people have applied for, it WOULD be that much trouble, and expensive, too.

Recently my work place advertised for an admin assistant.
Within 4 hours, there were 168 applicants.
So it is a lot of trouble to contact everyone.
I agree its not very nice, and I do feel for you but it took me 4 hours to shortlist 6 people for interview and 6 reserves.
There is no way I could have contacted all 156 people who were not successful.
We are too short staffed to cover the work we already have.

On the other hand, we tried to employ someone last year, 6 people agreed to come for interview, and 5 didnt bother turning up.

I work in recruitment, and if you're posting a popular job, you can end up with literally hundreds of applications. I'm talking 500 or 600 in the space of two days.

We physically can't write a genuine reply to every single one of those, so all the unsuccessful people would get would be a copied and pasted rejection email, if we sent emails to everyone. To those people, the job adverts really SHOULD say (and mine do), 'if you don't hear from us in X amount of time' then you're unsuccessful, just so people aren't hanging on for ages.

As a recruiter, I will contact people that 'got close' but didn't quite make it, so they know they're on the right track (useful for them and their future applications), and also those who wrote very sincere applications or appeared to have taken a good deal of time over them. You sound like someone who does care and who wouldn't send out hundreds of generic applications, so you're the kind of person who would hopefully get a reply from a decent recruiter.

But to be honest, I REFUSE to send a rejection email to someone whose cover letter reads, "I want to work for X Company because of my passion for engineering." We are not called X Company, they have forgotten to copy/paste our name in, and the job has nothing to do with engineering. I also don't reply to those who have CLEARLY not read the advert.

I take your point, and agree that where the applicant has made an effort, a bit more effort from recruiters is polite and fair.

It is sadly a reflection of the times

DH used to struggle for part time staff. Now he has over 500 applications per role advertised on average. There is no one available to process all those personal details and send out the letters.

YANBU. On two occasions I went as far as a third interview. That meant three interviews for the same job, meeting the team etc etc and time off work when I was working as an hourly temp. Not so much as a letter. I rang the recruitment agency two weeks later and they just said "Oh yeah, the other one got it". NOT GOOD ENOUGH! So rude. They only had two letters to write.

This happened to me twice when I was down to the last two or three candidates so I hope its not becoming accepted form. One was a solicitors' firm which I vowed never to use since their communication is obviosuly so poor.

I agree that with a hundreds of applications the right thing to do is say "if you haven't heard in X days you were unsuccessful" as Mahraih said.

NestaFiesta: suggest you never use that recruitment agency again, they are not doing their job and it certainly ISN'T accepted form.

They should call you for your feedback after each interview, and let you know at that point when they expect feedback from their client. They should then keep you updated, and give you thorough feedback as soon as they have it from the client (sometimes there are delays from the clientside, can't be helped). Also, if you have specific questions about parts of the interview or queries about the feedback, they should try to get that info for you.

I hate recruitment cowboys ... grumble ... mutter ...

Having worked in recruitment... it's equally frustrating when people apply for jobs they are clearly not qualified for even slightly at all.

But I do work in exec search for a decent search firm in the city - if people get as far as an interview I will of course give them full feedback. If someone applies for a position in Germany that I have stated they must speak German for but they neither speak German nor have any relevant experience... I don't respond.

Thanks to everyone who replied and to the recruiters for putting me in the picture vis a vis the difficulty of coping with the sheer volume of applications... I suppose I wish the "if you don't hear from us..." line in ads sounded rather more sincere and regretful... more acknowledging of the time and effort it takes to fill those pesky forms in!