As someone looking for a job, I fucking hate this. It is so annoying to hear HR people commenting that you should make sure to put a lot of effort into the jobs you are applying to and write a new cover letter tailored to each job. Bullshit. Maybe if you were not getting 300-500 applicants for your posting for a mid level position, I might consider it. There is zero possibility they are looking at more than a dozen out of the 100 that are qualified.
This is, of course, industry dependent. My wife was able to land a fairly decent job in her industry despite not meeting every qualification because there are simply not a lot of people in it. I’m in tech in Seattle where I have to contend with HR getting flooded with applicants which means they start looking for unicorns that somehow have experience in the combination of the dozen systems the job uses along with a decade of experience in them. I also have to contend with job postings getting canceled after applying, once while I was on the phone with the fucking recruiter.
My advice if you are in the tech industry is to work with recruiters. Eventually you will find one who is not shitty at their jobs.
I, uh…last time I put out feelers I got an offer for a position I was interested in rather quickly.
As in that was my sixth application.
The position before that I was at around 15.
I know I’m an outlier. This experience has made me wonder what’s different between myself, my situation, and my environment compared to others.
Are you in the Seattle area? Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Salesforce have all done pretty large layoffs in the area over the last year and a half. That has led to a ton more IT professionals in the area than there are openings so each opening has 100 applications at a minimum.
My previous job, I put in my resume for and while I did not get that position, they created one that also worked for me. My job before that, I had applied to a few jobs and the one I got I did not have all of the requirements but it was a fairly niche product so they did not expect to find anyone that checked all the boxes.
Currently basically just looking for a job that pays more than a nanny (>$35/hr which is significantly less than those two previous jobs). So if you have any suggestions in the Seattle area, I’m all ears.
Unfortunately I am not in Seattle. However, my universal recommendation in the U.S. is to begin networking. Go to where people still gather a little and socialize. Look up numbers for Front Desks and tell them that you are reaching out to get information on job opportunities - look up a company before contacting so you can actually hold a short conversation. Lie and say you were meeting a friend at a restaurant that actually exists down the street and had a few minutes and interest so you wanted to stop in. Be kind and if you can be personable and break through the small talk wall.
These are all things I did while working as an independent occupational specialist (lots more hats than just recruiting). While not a magical way to guarantee anything, you’d absolutely be surprised how often you can catch the ear of even CEOs using these tactics.
I doubt its HR people, it’s highly likely its employers.
If you don’t write the application for the job it’s going to be generic and b listed against the people who have written their applications for the job standing out far above yours. It shows you don’t have attention to detail and frankly don’t want the job. If an employer has 50 applicants (pretty low for tech) thats your competition.
TL;DR The harder you make it for an employer to justify hiring you the harder it is to get employment.
Using this tool, you should submit many false but PERFECT UNICORN applications, flooding the system. As the interviews approach, obviously last minute cancel the others. If you booked an interview at all, you’ve improved your chances by generating multiple absents that would have been your competition.
Be sure to back these up with fake accounts and such.
That’s true chaos.
You had my attention but now you have my interest
Let’s go further.
Do voices. Wear costumes. ATTEND THE FAKE INTERVIEWS
Sir I wish to push the envelope. Dont do the voices. don’t wear costumes. ATTEND THE FAKE INTERVIEWS.
You’re hired
Make sure to have a friend dress as a crazy pharaoh for at least one of these
This is so evil lmao
So I’ve gotten pretty good at applying for jobs having moved quite a bit and needing to change a few times in the past decade. Here’s my unsolicited advice for people getting sick of the application process (it sucks I know):
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Make sure your resume can be easily OCR’d. OCR, or optical character recognition, is how programs and machines convert image-formatted text into plain text. Sometimes it works pretty well, and sometimes it spits out a garbled mess of text. If you’ve ever done an application that auto-fills fields after you upload your resume, you probably have a good idea how readable your resume is by a computer. Like it or not, the first step for a lot of companies is to filter by OCR converted text fields, and if yours isn’t legible, you may be out of luck. Use a simple, consistent font and don’t do any special formatting. If you want a second “fancier” printed version of your resume for interviews, go for it.
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Fit your resume to a single page and highlight your skills at the top. You can change these from application to application if you want, and if you do, I suggest using verbiage from the job description because these are the keywords they’ll be looking for.
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You’ll probably see a few jobs that really seem like a great fit for companies you really want to work for. CALL THESE COMPANIES. Trust me, employers don’t love the hiring process either, and if they’re actively trying to fill a role and they get a call from someone interested, they’ll probably respond. They may just politely tell you to follow the standard process, but that’s really the worst case scenario. And even if they do, they’ll probably keep an eye out for your application.
It’s a job just to get a job. Damn.
Yeah it’s a lot of work and it sucks no matter what. Hopefully the tips I posted can make it a little quicker and easier for some!
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I hope this brings down the whole system as AI HR evaluates AI resumes.
Reading the article, this went exactly as I imagined it would. Equal parts hilarious and horrifying!
Paywall.
Noooo it doesn’t work for me
Nevermind, got it. Fucking Chrome.