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?

[Bubblebubblebah]

If anyone wants to see proper crazy recruitment check out grad schemes for M&S and Lidl for example. The tests! The time it took to people. Ridiculous

[Blix]

@Bubblebubblebah

If anyone wants to see proper crazy recruitment check out grad schemes for M&S and Lidl for example. The tests! The time it took to people. Ridiculous

DS applied for many, many grad schemes. The tests, more tests , video interviews, RL interviews, assessment days, the hoops to jump through.
Eventually got offered one and took it. Some time later was offered the civil service fast stream one, designed to bring young talent in but so slow they have all been snapped up elsewhere.

[Ilostmysocks]

@thecatsthecats

Re: IT, I used to find it funny but now find it maddening that HR bods have no idea that 'data administrator' and 'database system administrator' mean very, very different things. My job involves the latter, but they benchmark salaries against the former.

And you'd think that was a small company thing, but my husband pointed me at job ads from KPMG, and there were three roles with an implied chain of command, but a proper bollocking up of responsibilities, and no salaries to help you untangle.

@thecatsthecats My god I had this EXACT issue yesterday. IT HR bod messages me via LinkedIn to ask if I'm keen to be a Junior Database Administrator. My degree is tech, the company is a software agency and I was like YES!

Them" "So you have experience in working with Databases then?"

Me: "Yes, I have worked with SQL before"

Them "sorry, what? I think you misunderstood. This role is a National Min Wage administrative role"

🙈 cool well, OK then

[NotLactoseFree]

@Ilostmysocks

@thecatsthecats My god I had this EXACT issue yesterday. IT HR bod messages me via LinkedIn to ask if I'm keen to be a Junior Database Administrator. My degree is tech, the company is a software agency and I was like YES!

Them" "So you have experience in working with Databases then?"

Me: "Yes, I have worked with SQL before"

Them "sorry, what? I think you misunderstood. This role is a National Min Wage administrative role"

🙈 cool well, OK then

Although, what's even MORe annoying about that is that even if it WAS in your field, it sounds like you already have experience etc, so why are they offering you a junior admin role?

A friend of a friend who is a "connector" and clearly that's great etc etc, but she went through this phase of constantly suggesting me to people and bigging me up and trying to get me work as I work for myself and have a small company. I think she thought I was totally desperate and barely able to pay the bills but she kept suggesting me for jobs for which I'm about 50000x overqualified. She just couldn't seem to get her head around what I do. When I eventually tried to be more direct with her (subtle comments weren't working) she said something patronising like, "oh, but I know you're looking for more works o thought this might be a stepping stone....." I didn't need a b bloody stepping stone. I was growing my business, yes, but it's not like I was sitting at home twiddling my thumbs all day - I was already doing work for lots of big corporates at good pay. Sigh.

[LiveInSunshine]

I recently applied for a job that required a qualified and experienced senior teacher/ school leader (non teaching private company role though).
Waste of my fucking time frankly.
’Competitive’ salary turned out to be £10.50ph in London!!!
I’d dealt with a stupid portal, written a personalised letter and made informal enquires during which they’d agreed, that as a former headteacher, they could offer a competitive rate. Hours of my time.
Wanted the Earth too, available most days at some point for about 12 hours a week paid.
All for less than the London living wage for experienced professionals.
I’m now a lot more militant. I’ll email my skills and a cover letter, frankly I don’t care about portals etc. If they want skills they can accept I’m not wasting my time. It’s an excellent way of filtering out the nonsense jobs.
I got a job after inviting another company to ring me in the end, because that’s the market it turns out.

[CollieWobble22]

This thread has encouraged me to stop wasting my time with my beautifully written Covering Letters and edited CVs.

My CV now suits ALL jobs I'm applying for and if it isn't liked then tough titties.....There's a skill shortage so come and get me. I think employers are realising that they need to do MORE to attract quality candidates.

Got 3 interviews already! woo hoo!!

Probably not the type of thread the OP actually posted for. But I am beyond happy. 😆

[Bubblebubblebah]

That's very good hunt for 1 day @CollieWobble22 !!!
Congrats!!!!

[ByTheGrace]

If you get rejected from a job because they can't open a PDF then you have dodged a bullet HARD. Because a company that thick will not give you skills to progress.

Absolutely. But this was just a Saturday job in a toy shop😂

[cocktailclub]

Thanks for everyone's input.
I understand that there are equal frustrations for candidates.
I was simply highlighting that people seem to rule themselves out of a job by having statements on their cv which describe their ambitions to be completely different to the role they applied for.
My observations about recent experience which is a waste of time for everyone involved including the candidates themselves.

[Obbydoo]

@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 isn't just 3 minutes for those that put together a decent and relevant application. It is hours of time and money to interview and assess you and and years of employment/thousands of pounds salary. If you can't be bothered to spend a few hours putting a decent application together, why on earth would someone spend years paying you?

3 minutes is more than enough to read a CV to determine if you are a close enough match to warrant spending more time on.

[Brefugee]

so, OP, are you open about the salary in your ads?

[antelopevalley]

@Obbydoo

It isn't just 3 minutes for those that put together a decent and relevant application. It is hours of time and money to interview and assess you and and years of employment/thousands of pounds salary. If you can't be bothered to spend a few hours putting a decent application together, why on earth would someone spend years paying you?

3 minutes is more than enough to read a CV to determine if you are a close enough match to warrant spending more time on.

This is true. But there are so many badly written job descriptions.

[CoalTit]

@cocktailclub

Thanks for everyone's input.
I understand that there are equal frustrations for candidates.
I was simply highlighting that people seem to rule themselves out of a job by having statements on their cv which describe their ambitions to be completely different to the role they applied for.
My observations about recent experience which is a waste of time for everyone involved including the candidates themselves.

I hope OP came away from this thread with a better idea of the warped behaviour (and the unbelievable amount of timewasting) a lot of jobseekers have to put up with when recruiters let a little power go to their heads.

With any luck she'll manage the basic courtesy of a bulk email to let people know their application has been rejected.

[FangsForTheMemory]

@Blix

DS applied for many, many grad schemes. The tests, more tests , video interviews, RL interviews, assessment days, the hoops to jump through.
Eventually got offered one and took it. Some time later was offered the civil service fast stream one, designed to bring young talent in but so slow they have all been snapped up elsewhere.

The civil service recruitment process has always been so slow that by the time you got invited on to it, you’d have found a job elsewhere if you were bothering to look.

[00100001]

I'm absolutely certain that all the people complaining about people only taking a few minutes per application to sort them and not replying to all applicants ...have never sat with a pile of 70+ applications, CVs and cover letters to deal with alongside their day to day job.

[cocktailclub]

@Brefugee

so, OP, are you open about the salary in your ads?

Absolutely. And clear about the job.

[cocktailclub]

@CoalTit
If a candidate shows they have potential to meet the skills and experience required I offer a telephone call for 10 minutes to explain why they want the role and ask any questions. I then let them know during the call if they don't hear from us by x date they have not been shortlisted for interview.
Candidates who have sent a cv clearly expressing ambition for a totally different career path don't get any contact. I've already wasted enough time on them.

[Hearthnhome]

@00100001

I'm absolutely certain that all the people complaining about people only taking a few minutes per application to sort them and not replying to all applicants ...have never sat with a pile of 70+ applications, CVs and cover letters to deal with alongside their day to day job.

People aren’t saying someone should take longer.

But the expectation that someone spend far longer than a couple of minutes personalising the CV, writing a personalised cover letter that’s usually expected to include a demonstration that they researched the company throughly and put in some smoke blowing about the company, for someone to spend a few minutes on it, is unreasonable.

There’s even someone on this thread that wants people to understand their ‘recruitment style’, watch YouTube videos on then watch videos on how to apply, before they even start too apply


I do recruit. Quite a lot for all our departments. The point is that expectation that a lot of employers have of applicants is really unbalanced.

Especially when employers, often, don’t even want to to share basic job details like salary and place of work or don’t even send rejections.

[TheHoover]

Currently the labour market is in an unprecedented state.

I work in a sector where we struggle massively to recruit into entry-level positions. It’s been this way since about feb/March this year. We don’t pay as much as Tesco/Amazon/Uber/casual bar work which all pay great hourly rates due to limited supply. But we feel we offer an amazing career path and (I like to think) more rewarding work.We look very very hard for applicants reaching out to universities, job fairs etc and treat potential applicants very well.

it is absolutely true to say that before this, when applicants were 20 for 1 job we would screen on the basis of who had put the most effort in. Generic ‘throwing shit at a wall’ applicants were not preferred.

Its all about supply and demand. Both sides should know their market.

[Brefugee]

Candidates who have sent a cv clearly expressing ambition for a totally different career path don't get any contact. I've already wasted enough time on them.

an automated email to any you reject will take seconds.

I'm absolutely certain that all the people complaining about people only taking a few minutes per application to sort them and not replying to all applicants ...have never sat with a pile of 70+ applications

as it happens i have. And as a result of that, one of the things my company changed was our recruiting process. So that good CVs were sent a questionnaire to assess suitability. Everyone else got a standard rejection. We got much better shortlists, and nobody was annoyed by spending 3 hours on an application for a job they had no chance of getting. We spent a lot less time on recruiting after that, and generally managed to fill posts in a shorter time.

[J0y]

Two sides to this. I applied for hundreds of jobs when I was trying to get back in to the work place after being at home for 8 years approx. I only got jobs when I accepted that I was tge bottom of the heap. My experience didn't count and I had to just accept ageism. Then I got a job for 21k per annum. 🙄
I was on 42k before I went on mat leave. I didnt go back as logistically it was impossible.
In the job im in now I see people applying for jobs at minimum wage and the sun moon and stars is expected from them. I feel cross on their behalf.

[Lalalolol]

@thecatsthecats you will love this thread. Basically recruiters wanted 4 years expensive in a technology only developed 1.5 years ago

twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830?t=e08QfGlt6ZY7_b03mQ5f4w&s=19

[Snoozer11]

All of these tailored CVs, questionnaires, online assessments, video interviews, telephone interviews, real life interviews, exams, psychometric tests, presentations, two-day assessment centres etc annoy me so much. They exist simply to give a lot of people with no discernable skill set a very well-paid job in HR.

[montysma1]

When I was job hunting a was pretty sick of interviewers who had clearly not read a single word of the detailed forms which took hours of completion.

[PianoHouseBanger]

Another thing I find frustrating, and I've had this occur recently, is when the job has the recruiting managers email on it and says to email with any questions.

I'm over qualified for this role, but thought I'd email and ask a few things before I spend hours doing the application (NHS). Not a peep back from my email, and it's not the first time.