The real reason your resume keeps getting rejected

Applying for a job today has never been easier.

Log onto LinkedIn and they’ll suggests jobs for you, tell you how many views the job has had, and whether you’re an early applicant or not.

And that’s just the free version.

A premium account lets you see how your skills and experience compare against others who have applied.

For some applications you can just hit a button and apply through LinkedIn.

Voila – job done!

You can simply hit snooze and wait for the call back.

It’s the same every time you submit your resume to a job board or career site.

Or not?

You would think that all this recruitment technology would mean that it would be easy for recruiters to fill every role, and to do so super efficiently.

Unfortunately not.

There’s a significant possibility that the employer won’t fill the job they have advertised and you will not actually hear anything back once you have submitted your resume.

I suspect that the technology just makes it easier for employers to advertise and for more and more people to apply.

However because it is so easy to flick off a resume, more and more people actually do.

So it makes it really difficult for recruiters at the other end of the hiring desk to manage the volumes they receive.

Despite all the automation in the process, a human generally is still making a judgment about the quality of your application – which means lots of bottlenecks and roadblocks.

So what do the numbers say about how well this process works?

A report by KMPG in 2016  estimates that only 15% of jobs are ever filled by recruitment agencies.

In reading this report I could not find the research to support that figure, however this research from Bullhorn (CRM and recruitment software providers) shows a really interesting trend.

Their research shows that on average recruitment agencies only fill half the jobs they advertise.

Smaller recruitment agencies (1-10 consultants) appear to have the highest hit rate.

They filled 51% of jobs they advertised.

Larger recruitment agencies (75 + consultants) fill significantly less of the positions they advertise they filled only 37%.

Another recruitment software provider Jobvite, analysed the big data available from the mass of resumes flowing through their systems as their clients used their technology to manage their recruitment campaigns.

They analysed more than 50 million job seekers and 10 million applications.

Their research showed that where someone makes a referral of an applicant to an employer, that this referred person is much more likely to be hired 10 times more likely in fact, than someone coming from a job board or career site.

Other recruitment research from Jobvite (analysis of 69 million job seekers and 15 million applications) shows that while almost 90% of applications come from job boards and company career sites, less than 50% of people hired came from these sources.

So what does this research mean if you are looking for a new role?

Firstly, if you are applying for an advertised role, you are competing against the majority of the market who are looking for a role in the same way.

So, it’s hard to stand out as an applicant, even if you believe you are the perfect fit for the role.

Secondly, if recruitment teams are filling less than half the jobs they advertise, then something is broken with the recruitment process they are using.

So why does this happen?

There are many wheels spinning through traditional recruitment processes.

Often advertisements are poorly written, with the meaningful and meaty stuff hidden among the “nice to haves”. I often have discussions with my clients about what a recruiter is really looking for, and it can come down to one or two really critical things.

The recruiter’s first screening process is not that helpful in assessing someone’s potential or attitude. So typically recruiters will look at someone’s experience and qualifications as a first broad screen. As we all know however, experience does not necessarily mean that someone will be an amazing performer in a role. Often that means a big waste of effort once people get to an interview.

It is always difficult for candidates to speak to someone who actually knows about the role.  So often people put in applications based on misinformation. Or they cannot present a compelling case as to why they should be hired.

The person recruiting may be inexperienced.

The interview questions may be badly written.

There may be a preferred internal candidate, yet the organisation is compelled to advertise.

The job is close to being filled, yet the organisation (usually an agency) is advertising as they have money left over on their job board account and are using advertising for branding purposes.

The list goes on.

Having spent time in both recruitment agencies and as an internal recruiter for large corporations what I have just described is the tip of the iceberg.

For people looking for a job, my big question is this.

If recruiters and employers fill less than half of roles they advertise, then don’t you think there’s a pretty solid case in the numbers alone for doing something different?

There’s also a big emotional and psychological case.

When you are looking for a job it’s common to feel vulnerable and exposed and it’s easy to believe you are not worthy when you receive a few rejections, or worse still never hear back about a job.

I see many people give up at this point as they assume there are no jobs out there, or that there is something wrong with them. The fact that they get no feedback despite their best efforts can be demotivating and demoralizing. It can trigger all those feelings of unworthiness that we spend our lives trying to avoid.

The truth is that there are satisfying roles, and a much more satisfying way to seek them out – starting with things that you’re curious about.

This is why I have now developed and launched the Straight to Shortlist Challenge.

Join us to do things a whole lot smarter.

Increase your chances of finding your next job by 10 X by getting referred or recommended for a job. By joining the challenge our promise is you’ll get 5 meetings with 5 employers you choose in 5 weeks.

You’ll boost your confidence and never need to wait on recruiters again.

I’ll be running these challenges throughout the year.

Stay tuned for some exciting stories!

Find out when we launch the next one by clicking here, or on the image below.