To think if you are mounting most of your applications should lead to an interview

[Drqedwa]

I'm a professional. Got offered a job after qualifying with the department I trained in. Applied for 10 permanent jobs. Got 10 interviews and selected the 5 I felt had the most potential. In the end I had 5 job offers and went for the job I have now.
I am qualified for a specific job that not many are qualified in. Therefore there will be less applicants. i understand that. However, I was speaking to a friend of mine today who informed me that she had applied for over 100 jobs from cleaning to teaching assistant jobs (the job she really wants and went to college to get a relevant qualification in) and has had no interview offers. she is at the end if her thether and considers this normal and just the way the job market is.

AIBU to think thats absurd? I understand not getting a job interview with every job application is not the norm but surely it is normal to get an interview with the majority of the applications you write?

My friends teaching assistant qualification is clearly not enough and she will need more experience. its not 'the job market'.

I have only ever worked in my specialist field so have never needed to navigate the job application process in the way someone like my friend has so im genuinely interested to know. AIBU to think my experience of job hunting is more common than my friends exoerience?

On average how many applications would you need to write before getting an interview?

• job hunting not mounting.

I am writing on my kindle which has the worlds worst keyboard in history (and the strangest autocorrect ever)

If you're talking minimum wage level jobs with no training required you would be amazed how competitive they can be. A local supermarket near me had over 100 applicants for a part-time cashier role.

Completely different ball game to being qualified in a specific industry where not many people have the qualifications required.

Well if her CV is tailored towards being a TA I’m not surprised she’s not getting interviewed for cleaning jobs, as it will be apparent that she doesn’t really want the job and will leave as soon as a more suitable job comes up.
The job market is bad, I remember about 15 years ago you could leave a job in the morning and have a new one to start in the afternoon but now it’s a lot more difficult.

It depends on how well she writes applications or how well put together her CV is. However, I would say you have an unrealistic outlook on the job market.

Many organisations advertise jobs as part of a process when they know who they will hire, some advertise a job and don't bother interviewing any of the candidates if there aren't enough decent applications to warrant a day of interviewing, some have so much choice of applicant they don't even look at all of the applications.

It sounds like she is going for lower paid jobs therefore there is a lot more competition at this level.

I would say for every 10 applications to expect between 2 - 4 interviews if you are an average candidate.

Your friend is correct I think. I have experience in what I do and get 0 replies to applications. I get told I have a good cv, too. It's galling.

It totally depends on your qualifications, and the requirements of the job.

Cleaning, factory production lines, warehouse work, retail, TA jobs etc. are open to many more applicants than dentistry for example.

So if you are applying for entry level jobs, thousands more will be too.

Your friend's experience is normal for the level of work they are applying for, just as yours is normal for a niche job you need particular qualifications for.

At the least qualified end of the job market, there will be lots of applicants as people on unemployment benefits need to apply for jobs by the bucketload.

From a slightly different perspective as I am a recruitment consultant rather than a job seeker- I get 100s of applications for every job that I post. A maximum of 5 of those will get to the interview stage. I am inundated with unsuitable applications or poorly put together CVs.
Though your friend has the qualifications, maybe her CV isn’t selling her the way it should? Or she is not tailoring her application to suit the specific job. That is crucial. Sometimes it won’t matter but with lower level positions when the application rate is higher, the hiring manager will not give it in time or read into the CV to extract information. We just don’t have time!
One other thing I would say is always follow up an online application with a phone call. So much easier to sell yourself and I know I will work harder for a candidate who I have spoken to. It’s just natural.

When I was looking for a part time role when going back to work after having dd I applied for a job that I had 7 years experience in at major companies and didn't get an interview.

Currently I gave an application pending that again I should due to current and previous experience get at least an interview for but I haven't heard yet so am starting to doubt.

It's difficult

Before I started at my current job I applied for over 200 jobs and maybe had 5 interviews! Around here non skilled jobs do tend to get an enormous amount of interest so it is quite difficult to wade through the pack!

How old is your friend? The job market dries up pretty quickly once you hit 40, comparatively.

Competition does seem to be increasing. 7 years ago, I got several interviews and a couple of job offers within 2-3 months.
Now, with more experience (albeit admin/customer service type roles, for I am a generally useless human being), I'm getting sod all. I've been actively hunting for 6 months, had two interviews, both of which I was told that I was good enough for the job and their second choice, as there was someone with slightly more experience.
As you may be able to tell, my confidence is now practically non-existent and frankly I just want to walk out of my job.

I work in a school and review CVs including for TA roles. We are relatively short on applicants in our area. If she's not getting interviews I would say there must be a problem with her CV. If she needs more hands on expert I recommend doing some volunteering in a school.
Also if she's applying for different roles she needs to tailor them to the role.
Has she checked grammar and spelling?
All these things make a difference.

If you are applying for jobs whose essential criteria (from the person specification) you meet, you should mostly be getting interviews. An awful lot of people submit applications that contain no evidence of meeting several of the essential criteria; therefore, they don't get interviews.

A list of previous roles on a CV doesn't constitute evidence of meeting the requirements. I get quite annoyed with applicants who probably do meet the criteria but couldn't be arsed to write anything down to show that they do. They're not people I'd want working around me: not being arsed is not a hugely impressive trait in a potential colleague/employee.

No recent experience to offer.

I only read the thread to see how you thought "mounting" would affect your success rate. So disappointed to read the correction.

I think your experience is unusually good but if I were you I’d definitely ask her if she’d like me to give her CV a second opinion (just for the basics like SPAG) because a 100:0 rate has got to be lower than average.

I recruit for fairly specialist roles and I wouldn’t say we interview half the applicants - even though they’re coming through agencies and pre-selected for broad suitability.

Hmm, I applied for many many jobs online and didn’t hear a thing back. I only got the job I’m just starting due to it being in the same building as my previous place and I decided to ask the manager if he had anything going.

I’m a graduate with relevant experience in my field and a good CV. The job market is a very disheartening place to be.

Your friends experience is more the norm.

All recruitment processes are different. My daughter is applying for training contracts with legal firms.. The recruitment process is a lengthy and tailored application with differing specific questions, then an online test if they like you and you pass the first hurdle., it's either Phsyocemtric or basically a test to see how you interpret and retain data when questioned, then a video interview if you pass that well enough, then an interview, then an assessment centre, then another interview then possible recruitment, with candidates being weeded out at every stage and thousands applying for a small number of places.

You can't judge your field and assume it's the same everywhere. It's simply not.

A list of previous roles on a CV doesn't constitute evidence of meeting the requirements. I get quite annoyed with applicants who probably do meet the criteria but couldn't be arsed to write anything down to show that they do.

I've been surprised recently how many places just want a cv application via an online portal with no opportunity to specify exactly how you meet the essential requirements. I try to ensure that my cv is tailored to the job but if i have to fit in my full work history I'm limited in how much information I can provide.

It hugely, hugely depends on your field. As people have said, entry level un- or low-qualified jobs can attract literally 100 applications for one vacancy - and probably most of those people could do the job, so there's an element of lottery to it. Some skilled positions are also astonishingly competitive. I'm a humanities academic on a temporary post and looking for a permanent one. Jobs in my field - of which maybe 6-10 a year are advertised across the whole UK - routinely get 100+ applications. While obviously some of those applications are better than others, all of the applicants will have a PhD, and so the basic qualification. Under those circumstances not getting an interview is sometimes much more about who else applied than what you do, and sometimes just about the whims of the shortlisting panel, which can seem quite hard to understand from the outside sometimes - I've been interviewed for two of the five jobs I applied for this academic year (didn't get either of them!) and there is no obvious pattern to when I did/didn't get shortlisted.

LinkedIn tells me I've applied for 384 jobs. There's an additional 78 applications sent via Indeed, and probably about the same made through direct email or a proprietary job portal, judging from my sent emails.

Of those, I've spoken via email & phone to 5 hiring managers, and 1 recruiter (who has managed to secure me the role.)

I have postgraduate qualifications in my field, plus excellent references and 10 years of field experience (7 of which are with one client, so I'm not a serial job hopper.)

I would say your friend's experience is closer to the average than yours.

Depends on the specialization.

Admin vs neurosurgeon will have fairly outcomes.

It is ridiculous, but your friends predicament is pretty standard I'm afraid.

I applied for a local government processing role after I had DD1. I wanted to stay in work, but also wanted something less demanding and more flexible than previous jobs. Salary was 15-20k approx, and they were recruiting for about 7 posts.

They had over 250 applicants, and then did 4 days of interviews! The job market was (is) bleak and everyone they recruited was vastly over qualified for the role, most moved on after a few years. Less experienced, but totally capable candidates didn't even get a look in at interview stage.

I agree with PP, There's usually a huge amount of applications to sift and it's usually scored, so if she's not stating how she meets each essential and desirable criteria clearly and concisely then she will get lost in the mix.

Applying for entry level jobs and applying for specialist jobs are like night and day. I know because I've done both.

If your applying for entry level stuff it really is a case of persistence. Chucking applications out there until something sticks.

Now I'm a bit more skilled and my job search is more focused- I get an interview for a half to two thirds of what I apply for.

Fairly recently I was given a job and wasn't able to take it up because the CRB process was delayed. I applied for cleaning and shelf stacking jobs while I waited for it to come through, in order to satisfy the jobcentre I was doing something. Nothing. Radio silence.

I think you have an extremely limited view as your role is highly specialised. Therefore you can tailor yourself extremely specifically and highlight the very relevant parts of your experience and education. You also clearly write a very good CV.

When you’re one of a million that has done an English degree (for example) and applying for a TA position you will find the pool larger but the number of applicants absolutely massive. And if we’re talking an entry level or otherwise unskilled job then there may be thousands of applicants and not much to differentiate them.