"we recieved over 300 applications...."

[cigarsmokingwoman]

just got a job rejection with that statement within it.

What chance do I have in this current climate? Everyone is being made redundant and competing for the same jobs. My area of expertise is one that has been particularly hard hit of late so clearly everyone with my type of skill set is competing with me. I do have other qualifications that I've been busy obtaining so I can diversify, but its still upsetting to get an email like that when I hiad spent time tailoring the CV and I am deliberately only applying for jobs where I feel I am a strong candidate. It completey sucks and scares me as I only have 3 montsh notice and what if I dont find anything by then? I have disabilities too so even less of an attractive candidate to employers.

Sorry just wanted to get it off my chest.

I know of a garden centre that had around 90 plus people apply for a part time admin assistant vacancy. I was pretty shocked by the statistic but not surprised.

it is because many more people are joining the unemployment queue, with redundancies not making it any easier.

This is why you have to have a very strong CV that highlights strengths, abilities and key skills, as don't forget that more and more places will be putting your CV through the AI mill. Not everyone but its starting to happen.

That is really inspiring to hear, as i have a degree from many years ago. A lot of graduates are in despair at the moment, and also in debt trying to pay their student loan back. We are in very desperate times. may i ask whereabouts in the country you are located as i am currently out of work.

This is so worrying.

Despite putting all sorts of different search terms into job websites, there's so little coming up. I'm looking at about 10 job sites every day, some general sites like indeed and others that are sector specific (like charity jobs). I also look at specific company websites. I'm having no luck whatsoever. Even the jobs I'm applying for I am a bit 'meh' about as there's very little 'good' out there but I'm still writing my applications and CVs in a positive, enthusiastic way.

Are there any jobs in your field that are harder to apply for, like they need more than just a cv?

Some companies like Civil Service need you to write an application form, that should reduce the numbers applying. Anywhere with online tests or a virtual video interview should cut it down further.

Careers fairs, conferences with recruitment stands where you can make an impression?

Its awful. We too get hundreds of applications for our roles, most don't even meet the minimum degree requirements but have ticked the box to say they do so you have to read through it. We can't read them all so once we get sufficient to interview we stop - we're probably missing some great people. Maybe getting an application in early rather than just before deadline would help this?

It's very worrying with unemployment rising and RR isn't doing policies to encourage emoyers to hire. The increase in employers NI is the reason many employers are not hiring ATM. To all those looking for jobs ATM I wish them good luck. I think the first thing is to ring around ex colleagues and contacts in your line of work and ask if they know of any vacancies. Upgrade your CV. Get on to LinkedIn and update your profile. My niece lost her job in January and sh had worked at same company for 13 years having 3 or 4 promotions during that time. She has now secured another job but she had to go on several second an even a third interview before she got one and her terms and conditions are not so good and flexible and they won't honour her pre booked holiday for 2 weeks at end of August. She is in the office everyday. Like she says at least it's a job and will pay the mortgage. She's going to stay home and work and her DH will take the DC on holiday with his Aunty who is very good with the DC and does some childcare for them.

The whole recruitment process is just badly broken at the moment. There are too many people playing the numbers game.

It’s bad from an employer perspective too. For a recent job posting for a professional level job which needs certain qualifications and several years experience - we had well over 500 applications. The vast majority had absolutely no relevant qualifications or experience. Think equivalent of applying for a job as a judge when your experience is as a plumber, or vice-versa.

More than 25% had very obviously just cut and pasted from ChatGPT. It was just a rephrasing of the job posting to say yes, that ticked that box, with nothing to back it up. We had to use automated tools to try to find the genuine applications. There is no guarantee that a great candidate wasn’t lost in that process.

To top it all off, we weren’t allowed to specify a minimum number of years experience because it was deemed discriminatory.

We weren’t able to fill the vacancy because those who made it to interview weren’t suitable.

”Careers fairs, conferences with recruitment stands where you can make an impression?”

@IReallyLoveItHere Please excuse my ignorance but where do you typically find out about careers fairs? I know they are very common at universities aimed at fresh grads (I went to many as a student). It’s been a while since I’ve graduated so those wouldn’t be applicable to me anymore. I’ve not really heard of careers fairs outside of uni

I agree and recruiters can spot this.
It shouts “Lazy”.
I can vouch for that. I recruit and always know those who use AI.

Those where it’s Hybrid. People don’t want to travel now. I have staff who complain at doing 2 days in the office a week.
We offer hybrid and get 100-300 applications for low paid admin.
Those are the categories.

Thanks, makes sense that people want those kind of roles, hence high interest.

Figure out how to turn your role into something which is more in demand and learn it.

Dont do this unless you are good at prompts and will take the time to re-write the content to re-phrase it.

i was recently hiring for an InfoSecurity GRC analyst, home based, full time. I received over 500 applications in 1 week.

Half were basically the same CV, parroting back the job description, using the same tone and structure, those went immediately into the ‘reject’ folder. Probably another hundred were from people who had been on ‘Cybersecurity Boot camps’ which guarantee you a job within a set time period after completing the course. They facilitate that by providing a service where they help write your CV and then submit it scattergun style to every possible job opportunity en mass.

By the time I’d wasted way too many hours of my life wading through all the shit, I was left with less than 50 CVs worth reading, got it down to under 10 I wanted to interview and of those only 2 were actually honest on their CV the others had grossly exaggerated their skills and experience.

Last job I applied for they didn't get back to me a week had passed so I emailed them, they replied ten minutes later to say sorry didn't get it. lol

I'm a bit late to the party today, but reading this thread has made me so angry.
Fortunately I'm not looking for work, but you are dead right @keeptalkinghappytalk.
This situation absolutely needs publicising.
I'm not qualified on the migrants issue so I'll leave that aside.
Government policies seem to be working against people who want/need jobs.
Someone has already mentioned the ascending retirement age. Who will want to employ a 63 year old, (for example), who has lost his/her job? Ageism is very much alive and well.
An employer may well decide today that the rise in his/her NI contributions for employees means he/she can't afford to recruit, and may even make redundancies.
The most appallingly disingenuous issue for me however is the proposed cuts in disability benefits
The government are saying the current cost is unsustainable - I don't know if it is or not.
But they are trying to feed us the narrative that people on these benefits would really rather work, and it is unfair and humiliating for them to be trapped on benefits when they have so much to offer.
My arse!
They are not admitting that there are few/no jobs for these people.
All this from a so-called Labour government.

I’ll join you. I live in a small city. I’m looking for an admin role. Not even one admin vacancy has been advertised for over 2 weeks.

….in a city. In the UK. On Indeed. I cannot get my head around this.

The recruiters have nothing. How will they stay in business while advertising just 3 or 4 driving / manufacturing jobs?

Does anyone know what has actually happened to the job market? Or is it just worries about politics and economy etc

I was made redundant from my Project Management role after a policy was changed in government. Therefore making me jobless. Many other larger employers locally have also had rounds of redundancies.

I checked the find a job.gov website (desperation) and those “administrative” roles were actually consultant level NHS jobs at the local hospital. There were 5 in total.

So for anyone saying “I looked online and there were 18,000 jobs in XXX” please note this is likely bollocks due to false jobs being advertised, jobs being advertised incorrectly or duplicated 🤣

Please don’t do this, especially if the job requires good written communication skills. They will probably use software to weed out these answers, plus it’s still fairly easy to tell, without software, if someone is using AI and it will not leave a good impression.

Definitely don’t use AI. My last company had software which could seek out AI applications. It was also obvious when someone was using AI during the (Teams) interview to help with the questions!

I’m not advising people to use AI to write their applications either for reasons already mentioned (leaves bad impression etc)

however just a superficial rant, the double standards with companies 😕 they can use AI on their side even though I’m sure it won’t always be perfect and some ‘genuine’ quality applicants may fall through (I know beggars can’t be choosers and we’re at their mercy but still)

I address every point and try my best to write answers for (frankly stupid) competency questions. I still get rejected. Getting a civil service job is now a writing exercise rather than a skills one.

I'm in this sort of role too and I'm trying to think about what I can do to retrain out of content.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp92edelzero

at least we aren’t mad in our search! Sad times

I had this. Applied for job I used to do as mat cover - pre my serious illness and did really well. Was praised for it and asked to stay on in roles they created when the mat leave finished. Saw it advertised recently and recent test results have been positive so applied. Didn’t get an interview. Absolutely gutted. Reasons - told 300 people and one area I didn’t have enough experience in but that area was exactly the area they had hired me for originally. I’ve not worked out where to go to next…it’s hit me really hard. I had come out head held high after when was taken through redundancy process a month before my serious operation, knowing everyone had bigged up how well I’d done the job. I’d even turned down two official job offers to stay on with the company - now I’m doubting myself. I don’t know the answers but I get where you are coming from. Trying to pick myself up now. But can’t get my head around why I didn’t even get an interview for a job everyone told me I was brilliant at?!

I applied for a CS role last night that is a good match for my skills and experience, so we'll see. However, I can imagine CS jobs get a lot of applicants too.

yet another rejection. This time "we recieved a vast number of applications..."

The job market is so shit right now