How many applicants is normal for a professional role?

[Frenchfancy]

Just spent all weekend redoing my CV for a job I really want. On paper I have all the skills and experiences they are looking for. Added to that it is in my area, which has no major cities so not a high pool of people to draw from.

On LinkedIn there are 80+ candidates and it's on indeed as well. Is this normal?

In my company we have been getting 2-300 per role, but there is a fair amount of completely unstoppable or rubbish applications in that!

60 to 100 has been what I've experienced.

Recently we've had anywhere from 20-500, there isn't a standard amount these days it seems!

When we get hundreds there still tend to be only a small number of quality applications and a lot of rubbish, but the volumes make it easier to accidentally overlook a great candidate because you have to be brutal to keep the numbers down - I'm still only going to interview 4 or 5 people regardless of the numbers of applicants.

Teaching- you are lucky to get half a dozen.

In our school the support staff adverts we've advertised we are lucky to break 10 applications!

That is a count of people who have clicked on the apply button on linked in and not how many people have submitted a full application. It will include recruitment consultants trying to get business, people who've decided they can't be bothered to fill out the forms, people who will go back later to complete it etc.

Don't let it put you off

Last time I advertised a role on LinkedIn I got so many applications that went straight in the 'no' folder - people who had clearly not read the ad properly, were obviously just scattergun applying for stuff, or just submitted a generic CV which didn't bear much relevance to the role at all. So I wouldn't let it put you off!

NHS admin roles band 4-7 I’ve seen between 20 and 170 applications. I usually put a cut off at 50, so it closes once 50
have applied whether it’s closing date or not

@Catsonskis that’s interesting. Has that affected the quality of applicants at all? Are the first 50 usually the better ones anyway, etc?

I didn't send my application through LinkedIn, I sent it through the company's own recruitment site after seeing it on LinkedIn. No idea if that makes a difference.

I would guess there are 4 or 5 serious applicants. The rest just apply because they have to meet their ESA targets.

As another poster said, I'd probably interview 4.

@JingsMahBucket You make an excellent point, I suppose we would never know if it affects the application pool. I have accepted a few applications after it’s closed due to number of applications received, where candidates have emailed or called saying they were working on their application when it closed. The applications always make clear that they could close early based on quantity of applicants received too.

On the vacancies that have closed early due to quantity I’ve always successfully appointed so that infers there was at least 1 suitable candidate. I find Bands 4 and 5 are fairly easily appointed to and there’s always lots of applicants. Band 6 there’s always lots of applicants as there’s not so many band 6 admin roles around (certainly not in some of the smaller hospitals in which I’ve worked) so we get a lot of interest in that one, but not necessarily as easily appointed to.

We usually get about 75-125 (senior scientific technical roles) but I'd say within that only about 8-10 are actually relevant.

We had about 80 last week on a campaign.

The last time I was involved in interviewing which was quite a few years ago there were just over 100 applicants.

When DH and myself were studying 10% of people went to study for a degree now it’s around 37% graduating each year. In those three decades the number of professional job roles will not have risen that much, there must be stats somewhere but I do not know them.

By the time I took early retirement I felt as if I was selling a lie regarding prospects to many prospective students. Some will always do well obviously.