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?

@MsMcGonagall ruled you out! 119 are not getting the job; your numeracy fails you! xx

I think the thing that is so weird about recruitment is, that so much is expected. Until you get to a certain level.

The jobs that pay lower or middle incomes expect, portals with long winded questions, upload a CV that never fits in the right boxes so has to be done manually, research on the company and wrote a fluff piece on why you want to work for that company and so on, presentations and the like

The you get to a certain level, where people expect recruitment to be more labour intense for applicants, and it’s not at all. The job I am in now, is because The HR director knew of me through a networking event in the industry. Though we had never actually met.

When Senior people leave, we don’t advertise as such. We either have an idea who we want for the role or we use specialist recruiters and most people they would put forward we already have an idea of who they are or their company. We get a CV from the recruiter and interview and that’s that. The recruiters have so many contacts and pools of people they will head hunt.

Although when we do have an idea who we want the recruiter will do usually be informed incase they have someone better in mind and advertise the role as we should. Though I often think advertising roles when you know who you want is pointless for applicants.

I find the further I go in my career, the easier it is.

and don’t get me started on people who expect applicants to watch videos on recruitment style. Or ‘how to videos’ to know how to apply. If you have to watch instructional videos, the problem IS your recruitment style

op I hope you are one of the rare people who is courteously prompt with rejections!

Until the job centre stop this quantity over quality nonsense nothings going to change.

If you get 200 cvs do you really think a potential employer is going to spend an hour carefully reading each one?

3 min is generous I think. When I do it, I do an initial sift during which applications get maybe 1 min à piece. If that doesn't suggest they've met the basic criteria as laid out in the job spec, or even in some cases read the job spec, then they go in the discard pile.

Second sift get maybe 5 min a piece and basic scoring. Anything that goes to the third round will be properly read and fully scored (I'm usually down to about a dozen at this point). 5 or 6 usually get to interview.

Judging by some of the bizarre cvs I get sent through I assume the sender is fulfilling the needs of a job centre somewhere. Recently got one from a guy in financial services in the US for a niche scientific role in the UK. No relevant qualifications, no relevant experience. Spam.

The problem I’m experiencing is some of the jobs advertised aren’t even real, I get an interview and straight away realise the interviewer just wants free consultancy on how to solve all their business problems.

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?

If an applicant has mad a genuine effort in the application and clearly meets the Essential Requirements, this will be obvious in a lot less than three minutes.

If it takes longer than 3 minutes to identify that you're suitable for the role, then all your effort in the application was wasted.

There's no gold stars for trying after primary school.

I wouldn't want your job

JSA make you apply for loads of jobs when it makes zero sense.
I had a job but had to wait until DBS was completed so had 6 weeks signing on. I still had to apply for other jobs even though I had a job to go to. No way was I tailoring applications. I just sent a CV to jobs that I know I had no chance of getting. It was a stupid tick box exercise.

True with marketing and design roles too.

People are catching on. Which is why good candidates are using other platforms like LinkedIn.

I doubt Indeed will be around for much longer. It'll turn into Reed.co.uk which is mainly fake jobs

The only jobs left on it are

1. the public sector / third sector ones that say "apply easily with your Indeed CV" and then the job ad says "Please email for an application pack" - why even advertise on Indeed?

2. fake jobs where they want your CV data

3. fake jobs where they interview you immediately, get free consultancy and dismiss you

4. the job where 400 people apply but they decide to employ their mate instead.

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

Initially perhaps - that's why making a quick impression matters - but not once someone's in post, when any decent employer will want to concentrate on induction, training and all the rest

I agree it's never right to leave applicants with no reply at all, even the hopeless ones who are just making up numbers for the job centre, but expecting folk to spend time over something that's been thrown together just isn't realistic

I agree. I only apply for jobs I really want and so tailor my CV and covering letter for each, I almost always get to interview stage. However, this does take more time and if people are on job seekers, they have to apply for so many jobs a week, so I do understand why people just send out generic CV’s… not effective at all though.

I’m surprised even 3minutes is spent reviewing applications on a first screen. Hence, I click easy apply on LinkedIn, or share my profile with the recruiter or job poster.

It’s designed to be a digital CV. Everything is there experience wise to see, and if they feel I’m a good fit, they can contact me.

If the apply button links to workday or the company portal and requests an account be created, I’m off!

I would never spend time writing a cover letter or answering questions either. However, I can understand why that is useful to hire graduates or entry level candidates with no experience on their CV, but for experienced hires a CV should be sufficient to determine if you want to interview them.

No excuses for spelling errors though!

How do you have a phone on your hand, Hearth? Is it surgically attached ( no surprise there) ? Or is it a feat of prestidigitation , suitable for applicants to a circus?

Or are you just making an involuntary point about the people for whom you are advocating ?

Bugger!

And from the applicant’s perspective, the number of spelling and grammatical mistakes I’ve seen in job adverts is shocking. I mean truly shocking. And actually embarrassing when one of the criteria sought is “attention to detail.” If you want the applicants to put in the effort then so should the employer.

I think a previous poster answered this best when they said;

"attention to detail is a stupid criteria. It goes without saying. No-one is going to think “oh attention to detail isn’t one of my qualities so I won’t apply”. Employers need to write better criteria especially for lower level job. Vague sound bites like “attention to detail” help no-one, applicant or employer."

I'd add to this and say that attention to detail isn't a catch all skill. In your case it apparently means you are looking for someone who can spell and has a good grasp of grammar.

In my role attention to detail would translate as someone who can spot errors in forumlas, data, and outputs.

Even then there are levels within the specific area. There's a world of difference between the "attention to detail" someone needs to use a spellchecker after they've written an email/internal comms compared to the level required to proof a contract or edit a statutory/public report.

So instead of saying "attention to detail" you need to state what it is you actually want from your applicants.

I recruit, and I've also moved jobs a few times in the last 5 years, so I sympathise with both sides.

The only time I was on jobseekers about 5 years ago I was lucky enough to have a sensible coach, who set me a target of 5 actions a week, which could be applications, contacting an agency etc.Other people were being set 25 actions a week. You get sanctioned if you don't complete and record on-line all your actions. People are forced to scatter-gun applications.

It's a waste of their time and our time.

When we recruit, we ask for four essential things which are:

Must be able to work evenings and weekends.
Must have in date licence.
Must be fit and able bodied.
Must be have experience.

Some of the applications are anything but.
We get applications from single parents who say they can't work evenings and weekends, but can work daytime.
We don't work daytime!
They have no licence, could we provide it?
No!
They are disabled.
Definitely no!
They have no experience but are willing to learn.
No!
If I didn't follow the criteria, then I would be risking being sued!
We once tried advertising via the job centre. It was a complete waste of everyone's time. Never again.

applications should be cv plus covering letter. I recently spent hours applying for an nhs role thinking I’d just have to adapt for the second nhs role I wanted to go for. Nope, one was on the old and one on the new system. It didn’t auto transfer so I had to re input all the info. The ask for covering statement was also totally different. By that time it was too late to rework my statement for new criteria (that you couldn’t see until you reached that page). To be fair, it was a senior role so I expected it to a degree but a band 2 applicant would have the same process. I think companies should be realistic in their expectations and those applying should try. It works both ways.

Haven’t read the whole thread, but I agree with you, op.

Used to work in a camping shop. We’d get cvs on a daily basis from teens looking for work. Some letters would talk about their interest in computers, science etc but nothing relevant to shop work (eg customer service) and/or camping. Several had spelling mistakes also. No wonder they didn’t get an interview!

I was applying a couple of years ago and found the public sector type organisations forms took hours, were not set up for specific role I was applying for (no where to put prof qualifications that were essential for role) and often didn’t even get an acknowledgment or email to say not successful.
Teen DD recently applied for pt job. Only one bothered to reply and she got job. Rest still seem to be advertising on and off, I definitely think less of businesses that can’t even be bothered to say no or if you don’t hear by x date you are unsuccessful.
Wooly job advertisements and unclear hours. If it’s essential to have x qualification or work weekends make it absolutely clear.

Job adverts that state the salary range!

This a thousand times over. Lack of salary transparency just demonstrates that the company wants to employ as cheaply as possible, I just scroll on by. And before anyone states that the role will be obvious from the job description, some employers like to big up their roles in the way some applicants like to over-egg their CVs.

Yep. The world of work is changing - I can see that I am (gasp) 60.

I've just quit an 85K a year job to go back to freelancing.

Freelancing is a joy.

Drop in CV, quick chat - OK, you're in.

No twatting about with endless 1950's style pearl-clutching busy work.

It's no wonder we have low productivity - everyone's doing pointless bullshit busywork jobs like impersonating 1950s recruiters.

If someone is only spending 3 minutes to review a CV, this will be why I just take the key words from the job application and drop them into my CV, job done. CV is just a way to get you into the door for an interview. I won't spend hours perfectly tailoring my CV if you only have 3 minutes to look at it.

I had this recently - a recruiter full of enthusiasm sent me details of job they said they thought was perfect for me - I agreed but pointed out that there was no salary - I replied with my current salary and expressed a desire not to take a pay cut and they very sheepishly admitted they were looking to pay about half that....