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

What part of "I used to spend hours tailoring my CV to jobs I applied for (yes, strangely, I wanted and had a chance of getting all those jobs) only to hear zero back" do you not comprehend?
I am not wasting my time to get ghosted when applying for a job.

Because somebody with so much marketing experience could have other skills that would be incredibly useful not just for a researcher, but for future roles within the organisation.


But that's the short-sightedness of recruitment these days. Everything is all about whether somebody has done the exact same job before and with no thought to progression/potential for the person or the company.


I'd still be out of work if one person - the manager, not a generic HR person or a computer program - hadn't read my CV and application and thought 'that could come in handy at some point'.


And when redundancy loomed, another manager read my CV - an utterly generic, just needed a job and didn't particularly care what it was as long as it meant I could pay my rent one - and decided that I'd probably be able to learn what was necessary as I'd done a whole bunch of unrelated jobs/got an unrelated bunch of qualifications in the past.



There were no online form submissions, no 'show how you meet every single bit of the four page specification in about 120 characters' (which you couldn't do unless you were saying you had done that exact job before) and the person who was going to be hiring me read all the applications, knowing the role and being able to think 'no direct experience, but this is interesting'.

@Snoozer11 So how would you whittle down 10,000 applications for 30 to 40 roles on a graduate scheme?

Our charity were looking for 200 plus staff hired the local theatre and a job agency. It was the hardest two day exhibition type thing I've ever been involved in. Each department had round banqueting tables for applicants to visit and chat about the charity and it's responsibilities. Then they'd fill in a rough application for the agency to follow up. We couldn't have done it otherwise.

Not feasible for a graduate scheme.

@Hearthnhome

I think she works for Levi’s!

How do people take hours to tailor a cv? Just change few words, highlight the most relevant skills for the particular job and that's it. Are people talking about cover letters?

Most of the jobs I applied for specifically said no CVs as applications. They each had their own ridiculously long online application form.

Copy and paste from the CV worked for some of it but there was an awful lot of "give an example of", "describe when you did xyz"-, "what would you do if...." type questions. All requiring a written tailored answer ( for 20 hour a week admin positions!)

Copy and paste from the CV worked for some of it but there was an awful lot of "give an example of", "describe when you did xyz"-, "what would you do if...." type questions. All requiring a written tailored answer ( for 20 hour a week admin positions!)

But unless there was a genuine unusual question, these would have been questions asked on other applications forms, or would be have been things you'd prepared in expectation they would be asked at interview.
So really shouldn't be a lot of additional work

I agree, Sheep.

The only ones who took me really a while were grad schemes.

So people don't mean tailoring cv, they mean it takes them time to answer application questions. Yes, that's not fee min job usually, but bar grad schemes I really didn't encounter some super ridiculous long ones or very unusual questions. I think lots have moved to a civil service style "give example when you lead a team through an issue/teamwork/leadership". I had few examples done and used them on different applications with maybe few words changing. It really saves time and can still be successful (going by the fact it did get me interviews)

Not just recruitment.

My employer are deep in the shit with a few areas of the business, and in frustration I re-sent them my CV with relevant skills highlighted in, for example, contract management, bid management, social media management, website building. They're scrabbling around for funding when I'm sitting here able to help with all their problems.

I was idly imagining a system where you could drag and drop match your CV experience against job requirements - they ask for finance skills, you drop all your finance experience. They ask for admin you drop your admin. Etc etc.