To say that when applying for jobs some people should just make more effort?

[cocktailclub]

I hear all the time that people have applied for 'hundreds' of jobs and not even had an interview. I hear this from graduates as well as more mature candidates.
I've been recruiting to my team over the last year and advertised about 7 or 8 roles. They BFF e been fairly popular and I have sifted around 120 cvs per role in the first two weeks.
My point is that only about 10% of applicants ensure their cv is tailored to the role.
I spend about 3 minutes looking at each applicant so need to be impressed quickly.
Most CVs start with a statement looking for a career in science' when the role is complaints manager for example.
By making a few changes to a CV so it highlights the skills for the role you want would be easy to do but very few even try.
So I'm not surprised people have no luck in their job search when they can't be bothered with the application.
AIBU to think this is the reason they are rejected?

[anotherbrewplease]

They BFF e been fairly popular and I have sifted around 120 cvs per role in the first two weeks

Can you please make a bit more effort with your opening post, as I can't really understand it?

Well done on sifting through a lot of CVs and critiquing them.

[OlympicProcrastinator]

They BFF e been fairly popular and I have sifted around 120 cvs per role in the first two weeks

Q`ue?

[Hardbackwriter]

I've been doing a lot of recruitment recently and agree - it's a frustrating waste of everyone's time when people don't even seem to know what job they're applying for. Though I think sometimes people are applying just to put it on their list they've applied for for the job centre and that's why there's so little effort.

[Darbs76]

It’s super annoying. I sift and interview a lot. And so many people don’t bother to read up on the style of our recruitment (and there’s an abundance of info and videos online how to do it). I recently applied for a promotion and I spent so much time tailoring my statement to the job role each time. If people can’t be bothered to make the effort to stand out in the sift then they are straight in the no pile

[tuttifruit]

Might be hard for you but it's even harder for job applicants who are expected to fill out multiple forms and individual cover letters and CVs for each job application - which often turn out to be an inactive/internal post that they have no chance at anyway. Use a recruitment agency if you cba to sift through bad ones

[Lindy2]

I was job hunting 2 years ago. I spent literally hours on every application tailoring it to the specific job and the questions they asked.

Even though I was only after fairly basic, part time work most of the application forms were excessive, asking for paragraphs on what was my biggest achievement, where had I made a difference to someone's life, give an example where I had solved a conflict, what was I proud of, where had i learnt something from an experience etc etc.

Obviously some details like that could be relevant but each application was taking 3 - 4 + hours to properly complete. Fine for higher level positions but over the top for part time administration roles.

Then after all that work to complete the form, mostly I'd hear absolutely nothing back at all. Not even an acknowledgement.

Job hunting is absolutely sole destroying and potential employers are very rude and unprofessional in not even sending an email acknowledgement or thanks but no thanks message.

I did manage to secure a job with a great small business. That business owner was the only one who just wanted to look at my CV and have a chat.

If someone has been job hunting for a while I can imagine they're totally run down by the application process. They may also have the job centre on their back demanding a certain number of applications per week regardless of suitability.

[donttellmehesalive]

I've just been through about 30 applications for a role in school, and the spelling and punctuation was awful in about half of them. I don't mind really as it gives those of us who can be bothered to proof-read an edge, but it is surprising.

[PurBal]

Applying for jobs 20 years ago: send generic CV you have kept updated, personalised covering letter, send to hiring manager, receive reply from hiring manager (yes or no). Total time spent: 30 minutes.
Applying for jobs today: take CV, log into some kind of online portal, input data into digital form (can’t always straight copy and past because there are multiple boxes in different formats), answer three questions circa 200 words why you should get the job over someone else, complete form on inclusion, export to pdf, attach to email, write cover email, send to hiring manager, wait a month and if you don’t hear assume you didn’t get the job. Total time spent: 3 hours
If your desperate for work, imagine doing 10 or 30 of these kind of applications. Depending on the job you can also get additional online assessments.
True CVs shouldn’t be personalised to the job but an overview of the applicants background. Covering letters should be personalised and highlight particular relevant skills.

[PurBal]

@Lindy2

I was job hunting 2 years ago. I spent literally hours on every application tailoring it to the specific job and the questions they asked.

Even though I was only after fairly basic, part time work most of the application forms were excessive, asking for paragraphs on what was my biggest achievement, where had I made a difference to someone's life, give an example where I had solved a conflict, what was I proud of, where had i learnt something from an experience etc etc.

Obviously some details like that could be relevant but each application was taking 3 - 4 + hours to properly complete. Fine for higher level positions but over the top for part time administration roles.

Then after all that work to complete the form, mostly I'd hear absolutely nothing back at all. Not even an acknowledgement.

Job hunting is absolutely sole destroying and potential employers are very rude and unprofessional in not even sending an email acknowledgement or thanks but no thanks message.

I did manage to secure a job with a great small business. That business owner was the only one who just wanted to look at my CV and have a chat.

If someone has been job hunting for a while I can imagine they're totally run down by the application process. They may also have the job centre on their back demanding a certain number of applications per week regardless of suitability.

I completely agree with this.

[BoredWithLife]

"I spend about 3 minutes looking at each applicant so need to be impressed quickly."

Just curious, if you are only willing to give there application 3 minutes, how long are they supposed to give creating it? I get that it is often seen that the employee is "giving" someone a job/chance but the same is true in reverse the applicant is "giving" the company their skills.

Why do you expect serious effort on the applicants part if you're only willing to offer 3 minutes?

[Hardbackwriter]

I really do sympathize with applicants and agree that doing it properly takes hours, and can see why people lose patience (and I also acknowledge the role of the job centre in pushing people to apply for too many and inappropriate jobs). But in most cases doing it badly is a total waste of time - not personalizing it at all might mean it takes an hour not three, but if it's clear you don't even know what job you're applying for it's a totally wasted hour.

[Stichintimesavesstapling]

I agree but also cvs have very poor validity (they don't predict performance on the job) and reliability (no one is the same so you can't fairly compare them) so yabu for using CVs and covering letters when you could design a selection process that is more bespoke and role related.

On the plus side of you are finding a lot can't be bothered then you've got a nice self selection mechanism happening.

[Hearthnhome]

There’s actually 2 sides of this

Yes people could put more effort in, in some cases.

But in a lot of cases employers are expecting too much in return for an entry level job at 22k a year. I have a couple of entry level roles. The CVs that HR were not passing on because it ‘wasn’t tailored’ or ‘not the right sort of admin experience’ or ‘CV could have been better’

A colleague emailed me a basic CV from a. Friend of a friend. I set up and interview with myself and another director who was also looking for someone (the person was aware there was 2 jobs available). We both liked her and between the 3 of us decided the role for the other Directors area would be better for her. She is doing brilliantly.

When I emailed HR to say we had found someone for one role, they were not happy with the CV and wonder why I had interviewed in the first place. At which point I told them to stop pre checking CVS and just send them to me, now I check all my own. Pain to do.

But we are missing good people, because we expect far too much effort from people for the job.

Its easier and quicker and I have found better people than HR did. And this isn’t a dig at HR, they take direction from the MD. It’s him that’s a pain over these things. But I generally ignore him. Which is harder for them to do.

[Unescorted]

Could it be that your job description is a bit crap. Ours are vague description of a generic job that someone once did with a few up beat organisational statements and a list of values chosen because they make a good acronym.
At our last recruitment round we got over 100 CVs for an entry level admin job, mostly from people who have been unable to decipher the word soup we use. It is not the applicants fault that we are unable to articulate what the job is and the type of person who would be suitable.

[Hearthnhome]

@BoredWithLife

"I spend about 3 minutes looking at each applicant so need to be impressed quickly."

Just curious, if you are only willing to give there application 3 minutes, how long are they supposed to give creating it? I get that it is often seen that the employee is "giving" someone a job/chance but the same is true in reverse the applicant is "giving" the company their skills.

Why do you expect serious effort on the applicants part if you're only willing to offer 3 minutes?

That’s summed up what I was trying to say, but so much better.

Employers expect far more effort from an applicant than they are willing to give them.

The world is changing. People are realising employers aren’t doing them a favour. It’s a mutually beneficial transaction.

[Tumbleweed101]

We are pretty relaxed about CV and cover letter but we do need responses from people with the right qualification. We have asked for level 3 qualification in childcare for roles where we need qualified staff and get CV from people who have never set foot in a nursery.

[EmeraldShamrock1]

Yanbu.
Would a good cover letter highlighting strengths and interests in the job being advertised be okay? Is it?

[ADecadeAndAHalf]

@Darbs76 and how many jobs did you apply for alongside applying for that promotion? Did you read up on the application process for each one? It sounds like you only applied for the one job. If you multiply that "so much time" you spent for 3-4 jobs a week, do you not see that people just don't have time amongst their other commitments?

As pp said, it's soul destroying. My last interview went something like this:
spend half a day writing cover letter and tailoring cv.
Apply - fill out online form ~1 hr
get automatic confirmation.
Hear nothing. Wait. Assume it's unsuccessful.
Monday evening 5 and a half weeks later, get phone call at 730pm. Interview on Wednesday at 9.
Cancel everything on Tuesday to prepare.
Wednesday start interview. Within the initial conversation about job role and discussion of duties went something like
interviewer "no, this is a full time role".
Co-interviewer "she wrote on her cover letter 20-40%" ( I did, in bold).
Me " the job is advertised as part time, any %"
Interviewer "well that's a mistake. There's no point continuing the interview, thank your for your time."

And you wonder why people don't sit and tailor their cv to each and every job they apply for?

[girlmom21]

I'll spend a long time tailoring my application for a role I actually really want but if I just need a job I generally don't bother and just send something generic, like when I was made redundant. I got offered an interview for every single job I applied for.

Lots of recruiters aren't looking for key experience, they're looking for previous job titles that intrigue them.

In my current role (which I did spend a bit of time but not loads updating my CV for) the recruiter told me the reason my application stood out was my experience.
My experience was completely irrelevant to the job, there were just some decent job titles and clients on there.

[cocktailclub]

Firstly, sorry about my posting errors. I'm using my phone and I have fat fingers.
I totally understand that putting in a detailed application takes time and can be soul destroying when you get no response.
We don't ask for a covering letter or any specific questions (although I do cover motivation to apply for the role and skills and experience in a telephone screening call if they get passed the first sift).
My issue is that the CV starts with a statement like "looking for my next role in a scientific laboratory" for example when we are a charity for social care.why bother applying? You e ruled yourself out and wasted the time it took you to upload the cv.
And our job descriptions are fairly specific.

[Hardbackwriter]

@BoredWithLife

"I spend about 3 minutes looking at each applicant so need to be impressed quickly."

Just curious, if you are only willing to give there application 3 minutes, how long are they supposed to give creating it? I get that it is often seen that the employee is "giving" someone a job/chance but the same is true in reverse the applicant is "giving" the company their skills.

Why do you expect serious effort on the applicants part if you're only willing to offer 3 minutes?

It's supply and demand though, isn't it? When I recruit in my area we always have a lot more applicants than jobs so I can be fairly picky and the applications that have very little time put into them will be very quickly ruled out (and the work also requires a lot of attention to detail and good writing skills, so I think it's reasonable to rule out applications which don't show those). My organisation can't recruit developers and business analysts despite repeatedly trying - it's a different job market and we just don't pay enough despite using all the flexibility available within our (public sector) pay scales - and I think they'd accept a napkin with 'I can do computers' scrawled on it in crayon as an application at this point. Both employers and applicants have to be reasonable about the situation they're in.

[Hearthnhome]

@cocktailclub

Firstly, sorry about my posting errors. I'm using my phone and I have fat fingers.
I totally understand that putting in a detailed application takes time and can be soul destroying when you get no response.
We don't ask for a covering letter or any specific questions (although I do cover motivation to apply for the role and skills and experience in a telephone screening call if they get passed the first sift).
My issue is that the CV starts with a statement like "looking for my next role in a scientific laboratory" for example when we are a charity for social care.why bother applying? You e ruled yourself out and wasted the time it took you to upload the cv.
And our job descriptions are fairly specific.

That’s not tailoring to the role. That’s tailoring to the wrong role. They tailored it for one role, and either couldn’t be bothered or forgot to remove it.

Wanting to work in a lab isn’t something that’s on a ‘generic’ CV.

There’s a good chance that a lot of those CVS are being sent by people on job seekers, as they will get sanctioned if they don’t apply for roles. They want to work in a lab but are wxekctes to apply for any roles. Understandably, they are just applying for any they can and may accept one if they happened to get while they pursue working in a lab. Who can blame them for doing it when they worried about losing money for not apply for jobs, even if they don’t want it.

[bob78]

I recruited for a role around graduation season so had lots of graduates applying, I was shocked at how poor their attempts were, do unis not have career shops any more?! Such basic stuff like not tailoring, I gave one person an interview simply because they actually did say why they wanted the role which felt like a victory!

[WhatNoRaisins]

The whole thing needs a massive overhaul.

No more making people apply for anything and everything to please the jobcentre

No more of these generic and meaningless job adverts that you couldn't tailor an application to even if you wanted to

Proportionate job application processes for the role and salary

Job adverts that actually contain relevant information like where the job actually is and what the actual hours will be

There's so much time and effort wasted on this completely unnecessarily

[CrystalCoco]

It's not unreasonable at all to expect this. It's been a long time since I've been in the position of sending out CVs but it was a given that I'd tailor/tweak my CV to the position I was applying to - I don't know where I picked up that piece of advice but it should be standard.