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When you contact someone it’s human nature to expect a response – any response – and that extends into our professional lives. It’s bad for business to leave colleagues and clients hanging in silence.
To go a step further, when you spend a great deal of time creating accounts, filling out multiple online forms, uploading documents, and any other job application requirements, it feels that common human decency would dictate the expected response in this situation more than any other. Unfortunately, that is often not the case.
Should you be offended? Probably. The process is broken. And while this is not an apology for employers who don’t get back to you, it’s fair to offer an explanation for what may be going on behind the curtain. Let’s agree on this – the process is not great, but to understand why involves basic math.
Corporate recruiters get that they have extremely limited time and resources to fill a job with a good candidate – and are under intense pressure to do so.
An in-house corporate recruiter at a mid-sized company may have 20-50 jobs to fill at once, so for the math let’s say 35. The same technology that allows you to submit a job application online allows thousands of other people to do the same thing at the exact same time and suddenly there are 5,000 applications per job. 35 x 5,000 = 175,000 applications and resumes to wade through. That’s inhumane to the recruiter and the candidate, and simultaneously results in nearly impossible odds of being found.
Additionally, companies measure the performance of their recruiters by several metrics, which can often be at odds. These include “Days to Fill” (emphasizing speed), “Quality of Hire” (emphasizing candidate credentials), and “Cost per Hire” (emphasizing filling jobs without outside help from agency recruiters or expensive sourcing tools). What you end up with is a frazzled recruiter who is frequently under-resourced and saddled with unrealistic expectations.
Therefore, rather than spend time lovingly going through all the resumes received to find the ideal candidate, the focus is on letting their computer systems rank the candidates based upon the match to the job description, and to as quickly as possible gather a stack of five to ten resumes of qualified candidates to present to the hiring manager.
Make no mistake, the process is broken from the applicant side, too – follow-up, responses, or other communications are rare – but this is the reality.
If you submitted an application and feel slighted you haven’t received a response, consider the following recommendations:
Be focused with your follow-up. Find the right person, and send them a note just once.
Research and find the name of the hiring manager. If you are able to follow-up directly with the hiring manager you will ease pressure off the recruiter.
Be respectful and empathetic in all of your interactions with whoever is involved, from the recruiter to the receptionist.
Be prompt and be prepared. Do not spend considerable time and effort breaking down the door and then fumble around for something to say.
Know when to move on to pursuing the next job opportunity. It’s not a great idea to put all your hope into one posting with one company; apply to jobs at other employers, too, since there’s a possibility this one could fall through.
Philip Roufail contributed to this article.
Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.
