We came across an interesting article from Business Insider about why we don’t hear back from many of our job applications. Below, we have summarised accordingly.
In our tortured economy, there are more and more job applicants for less and less positions. For a lot of young people, rejection letters are a rarity not because they don’t have trouble finding a job, but because employers deem it unnecessary to reply to many applications.
Qualification and experience is up there for the main reason why you don’t hear back. If a company wants an engineer with at least three years of experience, you, as a graduate of English probably don’t stand a chance. Out of frustration, companies will rarely reply to applicants who are so clearly unsuitable for the role.
Keywords are very important in the process of skim-reading, which is the most you can hope for from busy recruiting teams. Not saturating your CV with keywords relevant to the role will quickly get it passed aside. You will also find this problem with bad formatting: be consistent and legible without flourish, unless it’s explicitly relevant i.e. for a graphic designer.
You also have to make sure that your CV matches your online profile. Employers will often consult Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ and if they can’t see an immediately recognisable profile, they’ll likely write you off as too much effort.
Lastly, you can be unlucky. If you stumble across your dream job and then notice that the deadline is tomorrow, don’t take heart in knowing that you’ve found it in time. Your dream job could be 1000 other people’s dream job and if you’re 999th in the list, what are the chances that they don’t find somebody suitable before you?
In the end, it’s a full time job to market yourself. Research the companies, consider writing a blog to get your name out there and a portfolio; get some help with your CV and the old favourite – network, network, network!
Read more about RecruitmentRevolution.com – A low cost, UK online recruitment agency.
Castle Hill House