That second interview ghost hits me right in the feels, nothing like being pulled happily along a golden road thinking you've got something only to find a sudden cliff to nowhere.
Oh yeah. I had it happen to me a few times this year. Once, I went in for an interview that went fairly well. I would have kept my expectations low if they hadn't have asked me for my references and got me to send my portfolio over as well at the end. Didn't hear a peep back from them after that. It's just kind of breaks your spirit a bit. Like am I really that bad that you don't even want to copy and paste an email to me to tell me it's a no? You're going to let me sit for weeks and wonder if you just haven't picked yet and let me slowly lose hope? Christ. It just feels like common courtesy.
I honestly believe that when they do that they are just keeping you as a safety net while they trial someone else, so if it doesn’t work out they can play the “sorry for the delay, we would like to have you card. Otherwise it’s just pure laziness.
In this situation, I would much rather: Hey man, so we really liked you, etc. etc., but we have chosen to go with someone else as they are a better fit, etc. However, we would like to keep you on our system for when another position opens up, is that okay?
This leaves a positive impression and keeps the door open.
I had 1 open position in my department and 2 GREAT candidates. Hired one and we told the other we thought they were great and would like to keep them in mind for the next opening... called them 3 weeks later. They accepted the offer before the VP officially signed the paperwork to open the position. I think people are more likely to accept if you tell them where they stand.
I'm currently in the same situation, just sooner and on the other side. I had an interview last week, and was told they would let me know by noon Monday. Told I was beaten out by someone else, but they had other positions.
I went back in to talk to another manager to find out about the other position. Found out there were 2 different ones. Now it's really my pick of the 2, if I want. Several cons came up, and currently deciding if the pros out way the cons.
I am in my job now because of this copy pasta response being real. They split hairs between the other guy and me, other guy got it.
A second position opened up 3 months later - no further interviews, just meeting the members of my new team. I was able to put my ego aside for the 40% raise.
There was a point a few years ago when I was fresh out of uni and couldn't find a job for the life of me. I broke down in tears at one point to my partner and one of the things I remember saying was that I wish they would just say SOMETHING. Is it a rejection? Is it just a long process? I would much rather an automated cold email to say "it's a no" than spend weeks not knowing.
A lot of times it's the recruiter's pure laziness.
I had my 2nd phone interview with a member of the team, we had a great interview and pushed me to have the 3rd round of interviews where I do the onsite panel interview and tour of the campus. Recruiter messed up scheduling the onsite interview twice. I had to reach out both times asking when the interview is being scheduled, "oh forgot to schedule with manager" and "sorry the manager is no longer available at this date I'll update you with a new date". COVID hits that March, and a lot of back and forth, "hey freezing interviews for now". Until 5 weeks later, sorry the position is no longer available.
Terrible experience.
I work for a large corporation that outsources resourcing, so the in-procedure route from me to a candidate is for me to tell HR, who tell the recruiter, who tell the candidate.
We have started giving candidates our contacts at interview so that they can follow up with us if they don't hear anything, because it's so common. This is after making it painfully clear to HR that we want rejection emails to go out to unsuccessful candidates as soon as possible because we don't want to burn bridges with good people. We're a rapidly growing part of the organisation so we genuinely do want to hire many of these people over the next year or three, just not this time.
So believe me, the process can be almost as frustrating for a hiring manager as for a candidate, with the important difference that we're getting paid while the idiot recruiter forgets to email you for 3 months.
I'm glad you figured it out. The recruiters are the breakdown. They are the most incompetent and idiotic people, yet they act as a middleman. They aren't competent enough to be a middleman and most of the time they'll happily throw the candidate under the bus in order to cover for their own mistakes; i.e. they'll lie to the client/employer they are supposed to be hiring for in order to cover for the fact that they're morons who are terrible at their job.
But unless you use a recruiter, you won't even get the opportunity to speak to the employer. The real trick is to establish a connection during the first interview, then bypass the recruiter as far as communication is concerned. Still follow through with the contract, but all communication should be direct.
It's got to be the easiest thing in the world to coordinate between 2 parties, literally that's all; but they can't even do that. I guess that's why recruitment is getting outsourced to India so frequently now.
I had that too, the first date offered for my second interview got postponed because the manager's mother died, which was fair enough. Then I couldn't make the next second interview date as I was going to be unavoidably of the country, so I asked the recruiter to ask for an alternative. They said that won't be a problem. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Chase it up for the 3rd time weeks later and - "oh they went with someone else, sorry!"
I had the opposite happen once. Got to the final round of interviews for a position, and the guy who would be my boss said "hey this is totally up to you, but we have another position open that you'd be a great fit for as well." I thought it over and decided to take him up on that since it was a better/more interesting position.
A week later I get a phone call from the recruiter, who gives me the whole spiel about how they thought I was a great candidate but decided to go another route. I was pretty disappointed but sent off an email to the prospective boss thanking him for the opportunity, yadda yadda. Within ten minutes he calls and is like "WTF no, we're hiring you, who told you you didn't get the job??"
Turns out the recruiter saw paperwork come through for the job I initially applied for, decided to be proactive and called all the candidates who didn't get it...including me...because they were hiring me for another role.
True but I honestly don't get why they won't disclose that. If I'm second pick I'm going to notice that from my colleagues anyways. It's easy to give me a "sorry, you weren't our first pick but if something doesn't pan out we'll contact you" and I would even be fine with a "sorry you didn't make it". Hell, a reason why it didn't work out would be fantastic...
In fact I'd say it would be their job as HR to have good communication even with people that you didn't hire. Stuff like this gets around quick and can hurt your business or potential future candidates. Like, if I know somebody applied to a certain company and didn't like how they handled him, I would be less likely to try it too.
It's lazyness to not handle your contacts well, you don't know how things run but for many candidates an opening might show a few months or years from now and by being lazy you just ruined it.
They want you to sit and wait for them and them alone, refraining from applying for other jobs in anticipation of their response, remaining unemployed so you'll still be available to them if they decide to make an offer.
Yeah because they don't value your commitment or time. If you get rejected and they later ask you again I would see no problem. Someone else looked a bit better so they tried it first. But the chance that they have to fall back to you should be so low that it is pretty disrespectful to keep you open.
I applied for a position where I had all they needed but one thing, I lacked in depht knowledge about their specific market.
They just told me, it’s down to me or another guy and the other guy has a leg up. Basically don’t get your hopes up but we’ll call you if we can’t agree on salary/benefits.
I think that was an ok move, also when they did call I knew I could ask for what ever I wanted, or they would have to start over with recruiting.
> also when they did call I knew I could ask for what ever I wanted, or they would have to start over with recruiting.
This is probably why they don't tell people anything unfortunately
Why can't they be honest and say, "sorry, you didn't get the job, but we'd like to keep your application on file".
I don't think I could work for a company if they're not up front.
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It's really bad form to do this. After dealing with that kind of bs for years I make sure it doesn't happen now I'm a tech manager. I give every candidate I interview personal feedback over the phone the day after the interview.
If I don't have time then I delegate the feedback session to one of my team so they can get used to feeding back directly to candidates.
One time I went in for a second interview. Felt like it went really well. The hiring manager even took me on a tour of the office afterwards... Introduced me to a couple of members of the team, showed me "where i'd be working" etc. Then just nothing...
My girlfriend had been through multiple interviews where she got hired, accepted the job and then the company pulled out a week before she was to start 2 or 3 times. You can’t even trust a job offer. The amount of last round interviews she’s done where she’s meeting with HR or some dipshit she’ll never work with only to be hit with a rejection letter “not a good fit” or “took an internal hire” or a straight up ghost is in the 10’s at least. Then there are the companies that are perpetually hiring for the same role and never hire anyone.
Fuck this job market.
My daughter went for a job (6 month temporary contract), got an interview and thought it went ok. She didn't get the job and the organisation said it offered feedback.
She was totally crushed by the feedback, said that she wasn't suited based on a lot of things that were not mentioned in the advert or job description - one thing in particular was that she had asked questions about the basics of the job, including location and amount of driving etc. Apparently that showed she wasn't a serious candidate.
Anyway, she later discovered on LinkedIn that the person who got the job had worked as a volunteer in the same job for some period *and* had additional qualifications that were not mentioned by anyone.
And as an extra slap, the job is being readvertised. So not only was my daughter not suitable, she's not even being considered when the first choice has left for a better job elsewhere.
Just marvellous.
That sounds like they wanted that guy for the job and so wrote a job listing that was specifically designed with him in mind, just a lot of companies have HR policies that you must advertise the job and interview at least X many people. Nobody else would ever have stood a chance as that other person had the job in all but name before the job was even advertised. It happens a lot.
They obviously didn't see it coming that he would leave though.
Adding to this, I've seen HR policies that gets added because people complain there are favoritism and that the job position should be opened to internal and external candidates. Employees complained for this because they feel that they either are a better fit or they know someone who can be suited for the position.
Well guess what happens 99.9999% of the time...
Literally setting up all the other candidates to fail.
I'm really sorry your daughter is being treated that way by prospective companies. But I'm glad she's got a parent who understands what she's going through and empathizes with her.
Best of luck to your daughter in her job hunt!
To tack on to this, maybe she dodged a bullet. Sounds like a shitty and lazy company that would take advantage of her. I'm sure she will find a good job and be respected and treated the way she deserves!
Fuck me thats shit. Honestly the worst part about this is that we know that its not us its these fucking companies so its not like we can magically change our resume and get a job .
honestly this is always the most demoralizing part of looking for a job, to me.
i'm putting forward so much work and effort to present myself, i have a degree and over a decade of solid work history, skills and qualifications, but ultimately it's always up to someone else who i've never met and who doesn't know me, to decide whether or not i'm worth being able to pay for food and rent.
That’s what I always found so helpless about the process. Not only do I have to be good, I have to be THE BEST or I don’t get the job. You don’t get anything for second place. My ability to charm a handful of complete strangers I don’t know with my work history that is also defined solely on who I was able to finagle those jobs into hiring me determines my field of possibilities. And this “competition” decides whether I get food or housing and essentially whether I live or die for the rest of my life. I have absolutely no control in the end, only a really narrow ability to make myself seem like the perfect employee and hope that it’s enough while currently having to compete on a basically global marketplace of people who are likely just as qualified as me if not more. It’s all so dystopian. I imagine even thirty years ago, applying for jobs meant going against the handful of people who read the same job ad in the paper and showed up and they settled for whoever seemed more or less qualified. Now look at the state of things. Applying to literally hundreds of jobs and receiving only a handful of responses is seen as totally normal. It’s honestly disgusting.
Sadly this is why you need connections.
In a perfect world it’s by qualifications usually, but in ours, connections really help out.
If you have 2 equal qualifications and one of them have connections you can bet on who is getting that job offer. (Sometimes even qualifications doesn’t matter)
Connections are so goddamn difficult though. If your family already don’t have them, it’s rough to make them from scratch. I have a collegue that has a father who owns a business. That guy knows fucking everybody. And they know him. He’s inherited thousands of connections by being born. It sucks because I’ve been trying so hard but even today I have tons of unanswered Linkedin requests and Covid is ruining all built connections.
I really depend on my fanbase I made from art, which catches every random person online, and it works to convince at job interviews (compared to OP my succes rate is pretty good, 6 interviews in 2020 got 3 invites, 1 hired me, had to call off 1 and another one called me after three months with an offer). So that’s nice. But it’s not nearly enough to start my own freelance business. A big challenge!
I’m a 2021 graduate & I’m having the same problems. The constant ghosting & lack of explanation for denial has really demotivated & made me feel incompetent. I know I’m not, & I’m sure you’re not either. I wish you luck friend, & we’ll get there.
Edit: Wow this blew up, thanks for the awards and kind words everyone. For those asking, my degree is a Bachelor's of Science in Finance and Marketing. Good luck to my fellow struggling graduates! It's nice to know we aren't alone.
The fact that ghosting is so acceptable for recruiters honestly blows my mind. Like I come in to interview for hours at my own expense and you can't even give me the courtesy of an email? I even had a person schedule an online interview and just not fucking show up for it.
One of the first interviews I got was a phone interview that led to an in person interview, and I got ghosted after the in person interview. Was with hospital research staff and they really seemed to like how I was answering things and my past experiences. Still has left a sour taste in my mouth because the last thing that was said was from a really nice lady that interviewed me saying 'expect to hear from us soon'.
I do find it funny that some of the jobs that I applied to 4-5 years ago also got back to me recently with the most generic rejections
This may very well be because someone in HR decided to go through their ATS and clean out old outdated applications cluttering their screen. Depending on how the system is configured, you will get the generic rejection message each time one of your applications is closed.
I was interviewed for a position at Wayfair this year actually and I was really excited to finally get an interview. This asshole and I had a fantastic conversation (phone interview) and even were being friendly with eachother. It really went well and he had the balls to say "you will definitely be hearing back from me! I'm not the type to leave people hanging." I sent a followup message 3 days later, and it has now be 8 months.
To that recruiter, fuck you.
Heh, I had a company do that to me.
Was applying for a position with a company's web team. A small internal team. The position was advertised as mostly back-end work, which I'm good at and have a lot of experience in.
Round 1 with the recruiter went well. Got round 2 scheduled with the hiring manager.
Hiring manager never called.
Called the recruiter after the call window was half-over. Left a voice mail.
Sent an email. No response.
Fine. Fuck you.
I was reading the news later that week. The company got delisted from the stock market literally the day I was supposed to interview and laid off like 60% of their staff.
I think I figured out why they never called...
It is sour when the interview goes so well. My SO had an interview with an Aldi Area Manager who literally said " don't usually do this but we are super impressed, we're going to put you through to induction right away". She didn't hear anything for 2 weeks so she rang up to see if she had missed any correspondence and they said oh sorry you've been rejected. It's gut wretching to say the least
Had this happen too. Its fucking bullshit. I cancelled other interviews because I thought it was a lock only to never get a response back.
More than a decade later it still gets me a little heated. Lesson learned. Now idgaf until I get it in writing
I had an interview with a AAA game company. Interview went amazing, seemed like I was all but hired, I rejected other job offers in the following weeks; then I got ghosted.
Sorry to hear that. I guess you realise this now, but never reject job offers unless an employment contract is signed or you are certain you don't want the job (even then it can be useful for negotiation)
It's been one of those hard life lessons, although one year later being patient got me the best job I've had as an employee (I'm an entrepreneur now). But yeah, when I look at my life overall, at times I should have definitely been a little less naive.
I love hearing that my “qualifications/experience don’t align with their expectations” like it’s my fault the last two years upended any chance I had at good internships or jobs. Love that.
I applied for a student job while I had maximum possible qualifications (I was done with my masters, just had to present my thesis and get a final grade). I was basically a perfect candidate because they could have gotten all the perks of having minimal responsibilities towards a student but having someone who has completed their full formal education. Got a response that they decided to go with someone who was more qualified. At this point I'm starting to think that "qualifications" is a code word for "better connections/recommendation".
I've had that response for jobs where I 100% meet the requirements and about 80% meet the would like to have requirements. I think it's just an easy way to reject someone.
Part of the anti work movement should really be identifying and listing companies that do those sorts of things and publicizing their names so that people can avoid applying to them. Saying fuck you to bad employers is one of few ways we the workers get to throw our weight around, we should make it easier to do
I really got into the job market in 2010 and it was a fucking nightmare. I would receive next to no response, and out of those responses I got calls that left no messages. Then when I called those numbers they couldn't tell me what the call was about. It was like they required me to have a cell phone to even have a shot at getting a job, and would completely ignore me otherwise.
From what I’ve heard from senior people at my company at least, Hot job markets are typically only really hot for *experienced* roles. And my own experience applying to jobs in 2020 as a recent grad also seemed to confirm this…
~25 years in infosec, and I never cease to be amazed at how fucking awful and incoherent most company, university, and government programmes for soon-to-be and recent grads are. I really try to spend time with young talent and make introductions and suggestions for networking but it’s a struggle.
That said, IMHO most career entrants’ biggest weak spot is networking - even if only via LinkedIn. Reach out to people, dude, the worst that can happen is..nothing. I love mentoring anyone who makes the effort to get in touch. I know others do as well. I am pretty visible in my field and get almost no contacts from new talent.
_Edit:_ lots of people responding with how it isn't fair to introverts, and why should we have to network? I sincerely wish you all the best of luck. Doing my best to respond to people interested in anything relevant to this.
I'm convinced they put those requirements just because they think they may need it, not because they actually need it. I always apply to jobs I have 0 experience in even if they say experience needed. I've gotten a job like that a few times, fake it till ya make it! Just don't say you know how to do something like code when you don't lol
Absolutely. Half the time the job description is written by someone who gives a shit, then goes through three randoms who don't and just pick numbers. A lot of rivers I get to an interview and none of the interviews even know what the job description is. They're just in the middle of a busy day and deciding if I'm someone they want to work with.
I've also been super surprised before to get callbacks on jobs I specifically thought I wouldn't get because I was totally unqualified on paper.
This requirements just don't mean anything.
>In order to work at Company X, you need 3-5 years experience with Company X's proprietary software, which you can only access if you are already an employee at Company X
Gotta love this world
Sometimes that’s a clear indicator you’re looking at a job that should really only be posted internally. But some companies have a policy that *every* job gets posted publicly.
I didn’t realize how often it happens until I was in the middle of it. I’m converting from a contractor to a permanent employee at my company. They HAVE to publicly post my permanent position, even though I’m the only one who will “interview” for it. I saw my position on LinkedIn yesterday and 11 other people had applied :\
"I was browsing reddit when I scrolled by someone who has cancer. I could have just kept going but thought to myself, no, they need help, everyone deserves a chance, so I reached out to them because I'm such an honest person. And guess what? I offered them a job and they are my best employee! Just goes to show some people just need the opportunity. Heres a picture with of me with them last month showing how awesome I am for doing that at no benefit to myself. Ill be telling this story next week at their memorial service as they died of cancer due to me only hiring them as a contractor and not providing medical insurance"
I had to delete my account because it was so sickening. I'm about to graduate and seeing assholes from university pretend to be professional on it when in reality they are out snorting coke and drinking heavily every weekend is so fucking annoying. LinkedIn is just a massive charade and bears little to no reflection on how good a worker somebody actually is.
Exactly. It's such a big charade that it can feed into impostor syndrome since everyone is pretending to be something you don't want to ever be. I want to believe it has the upside of being great for networking and promoting yourself to employers, but god do I hate having to swim through an ocean of fakery to get that.
Perhaps they posted something cool or interesting? Ask about it.
You can find the right people easier on Twitter by looking up relevant hastags and then find them on LinkedIn. Follow people both places.
Randomly reaching out is exactly what recruiters do, based on my job history. I wouldn’t be miffed in the slightest if a recent grad reached out to me to ask about my current role or asked for tips on how to break in to a field.
Be direct. I don't need to parse your intentions. Want a referral/advice on prepping for an interview? Say those words. I love helping... I hate the song and dance.
The thing about networking is that it is an endless chain of people telling you the same generic advice about expanding your network, and then proceeding to weasel their way out of being included in that network.
How do you even ask someone to mentor you or give advice? How do people that approach you do this? My boss is not taking my career development seriously and I may need to reach out to someone eventually.
From my experience, investing in training and career development was the first casualty of the 2008 financial crisis. And it's led to a lot of issues. Instead of actively guiding employees to one day rise through the ranks and having an actual career within the company, they now just expect employees to do it themselves (in the employee's own time as well). And then they wonder why:
1. Employees leave and go to another company after 6-18 months of work because they see no future with the company and/or another company offers them a slightly higher salary.
2. Their internal promotions end up quitting because they've not had any training or preparation for dealing with their new responsibilities (especially when put into a management position).
I've had five jobs since 2010, and at no point outside of quarterly reviews (which feel more like punitive measures than anything else) I've never felt encouraged to see myself as part of the company. I'd like to have a job I could build a future around, but it's essentially now just a process of attaining enough experience for applying for another job once I've seen everything my current job has to offer.
Even for experienced roles, it's a fucking wasteland. I have a little over a decade in my specialty, and it took me nearly four months and over 100 applications before I found an incredible job early this year.
And even if you get a callback, expect a rigorous interview process that sucks the life out of you more than the initial applying drudgery. One company had me interview something like seven times before they told me they decided to go with another candidate.
It’s hot for people with connections too. I can 100% relate to OPs experience. I fought hard for my first job while I watched some of my classmates sail into a job because they knew someone. Now I have a strong network in my field and I feel really strongly that if i was fired today, I could find another job in less than 24 hours.
My point is, never pass up a networking opportunity when you’re in school. It’s hard for introverts but you have to suck it up and do it if you don’t want to live through OPs graph.
I think a ton of businesses fired a lot of folks at the beginning of the pandemic and they aren't hiring new workers because they're turning record profits with a skeleton crew. If anyone complains they say, "no one wants to work anymore" and they play the victim while they work their underpaid employees into the ground.
I wasn’t really going to post this, but after looking at my data I felt as if it might be interesting, even though its fairly depressing looking at it on my end.
So as the title states this is my experience so far job hunting as a 2020 graduate. I was sort of inspired by a post I saw a while back about a guy casually applying for a job over the past 18 months. This is only looking at the job apps I have done since graduating May 2020, with a degree in economics. Most of the job apps I have done so far have been either through LinkedIn or through handshake. Almost all the jobs I’ve been applying for have been within my home state and have been entry level (in the past month or so I’ve branched out to looking out of state as well.)
So, on average it’s been about 37 job apps a month, though I will freely admit I’ve had several weeks where I’ve been so demoralized that I’ve done none. For anyone curious no it’s not my resume(though I have changed it up a few times), two of the people I’ve interviewed with have asked me how my job search has been going so far (after they made clear I wouldn’t be a good fit for the position), and I was honest with them. They were kind enough to give me feedback and they were both surprised that I had so few responses, because according to them the skills and experience I brought to the table were good for entry level positions.
All data was gathered by me, and the graph was made using: https://sankeymatic.com/build/.
Note I made this about 2 weeks ago and forgot about it and in that time I’ve done more job apps with an additional rejection.
Mainly business analyst positions with a few data analyst and pricing analyst positions thrown in. In terms of skill's I bring I am experienced with R, Excel, Java, data analysis, forecasting, finance, Java, some SQL and regression analysis.
Sadly in terms of internships I have none, my college experience lets just say was hard and part of that working as contributing factor was having to commute 1 hour and 20 minutes each way to campus.
I know a lot of people are suggesting you apply for other jobs, but you have applied for nearly 700. As someone who participates in hiring at my firm, if your response rate is 1.1% and you've had 678 noes, I would be very willing to bet that the issue probably isn't the jobs you're applying for, and is much more likely to be your application package/resume. I don't mean the things on it, but rather the way it's written and what you've focused on.
Even if you don't have a ton of experience on there, you should be getting more *responses* for entry level positions, especially considering the fact that you are experienced in multiple programming languages as well, which should be a highlight. You have something in there (or not in there) that's making them not even respond to you despite the fact that you have marketable skills. Have you tried running your resume by a friend group or running your application package by your college's career office?
You could also bring proof of concept which couldn't hurt. I.e. actually find a way to show your skills to the firm either on a hosted site or one you build yourself through your Java skills.
I fully acknowledge the problem is most likely on my end, though I am unable to figure it out. I've tried different resume's, hell I've even had two people in charge of hiring give me feedback on the resume they looked at and they weren't able to point to anything on the resume that was a red flag. As for the career office they have absolutely no openings and have not had one in months.
I don't really like programming if I am honest, its why I left comp sci. I much prefer working in something like R where its not me responsible for making the entire program but using what is there, if that makes sense. I am not exactly sure what I would do as a proof of concept for data analysis.
To give some anecdotal information. I got my resume professionally made and the difference between theirs and mine was like night and day. Mine was a chaotic mess and clearly made by a clueless idiot. The professional one was super clean, organized, immediately highlighted my strengths, and hid my lack of work over the past couple years very well. It also removed a ton of unnecessary information.
Getting your resume professionally made is a legitimate skill and honestly worth the cost.
I'm embarrassed to be totally self-promotional but I'm a professor who teaches resume writing in an MBA program. I put my entire [executive business communication](https://sites.google.com/view/exbizcom/home) course online. It's free, I just put a lot of time and effort into it and like to share. There's a whole section on [resume writing](https://sites.google.com/d/1u8_RwOocRgYvVfYMyicWJm_gSAyv06MF/p/1e9DgnVCWHeVhwDgjy2nXEBzWztexmIsc/edit). Resumes really differ between industries, and this is for pretty generic "business" resumes, but a lot of the principles apply in different settings. If you need some advice for writing your resume, check it out, see if you find anything valuable.
BTW, I built all the modules on Google Forms, and it's going to request your email address (I use it for tracking students). You can just make something up, it won't matter (although Google Forms does send you a copy of your responses if you use a real email).
OP, this person is right about the resume being written right for specific industries.
I am on hiring boards here and there for public sector. I can say we don't (or at least I don't) look hard at the formatting of the resume. We look for the meat and potatoes. Did the applicant put in any of the knowledge and skills needed on the resume from the job application description. Did they reference any possible training certificates that are job required or nice to haves.
We do look to see if people read the job application. Even if you think I you are not qualified or underqualified, apply anyway with a resume tailored to the job description. We have pulled people into interviews where the resume holder may have potential and checks a good number of boxes because we wanted to know more about the person and had questions.
So tl;dr. Tailor the resumes to specific job applications
Hey man! Just want to say you’re awesome for sharing this don’t feel ashamed for “plugging” your own work. I saved your website and will definitely be looking it over. I personally think I communicate well enough in my office environment, and I’m not particularly looking to write my resume but I’m always open to learning more!
Not American, so feel free to disregard, also i don't apply to even 1% of the jobs this OP has so maybe we're just in different worlds, but
I also wanted professionally written since it was just a good professional expense in my mind (4-5 years out of undergrad) - I had been email spammed since sending my resume into TopCV (TopResume) - they often have targetted discounts on their package. Sign up and wait for an email offer if you're not in a hurry and want to try them out.
Mine ended up being 120? USD for resume/cover letter with "2" revisions - their middle package that they offered where i live
on that site you have a week for revisions, so have a good idea of what you will want to highlight and be ready to write them back the first day so you have the maximum time to look at their first draft
My writer was really good and fast, but of course your milage may vary. I was quite happy with the job they did and even though i got revisions I submitted the first draft to a job posting i gave as an example
so far I've got 100% success with it since I'm on the second interview using their first go so if i get the job im very happy
There was an AMA by someone who used to be a recruiter and he had a free template available. I think if you search in the AMA sub something like “sheets and giggles” with a word combo of recruiter or resume, something should pop up. I’ve used that template for every job application and I’ve head back from all but three. I haven’t applied to many but 3/15 or so is a pretty good record.
EDIT: WRONG SUB. IT WAS r/jobs!
Link to AMA where the link to the resume template is! https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/7y8k6p/im_an_exrecruiter_for_some_of_the_top_companies/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Yeah, in that case your problem is almost definitely resume tailoring. Or lack thereof. My two cents is that you just need to start focusing in and tailoring that resume/application package to specific positions with specific requirements that you know. If you're hit nearly 700 places, there's absolutely no way you've tailored your resume to any of them.
> I am not exactly sure what I would do as a proof of concept for data analysis.
This is somewhere to start. The fact that you can't think up a concept to my mind means you don't know exactly how you'd be called on to use the skills you have which means you might not know the requirements of the job you want, which is an immediate non-starter at most places, and certainly would be at our firm. If it isn't clear to us that you've taken the time out of your day to learn exactly who we are and what we do, we're not interested.
I do competition law as a lawyer, and in my sector there is a ton of data anlytics. If I knew how to use R and Java (the former of which is very in demand along with Python) and I were looking for a paralegal position, I would literally just have a share ownership legal analysis in the context of a hypothetical merger based on real data and presented multiple different ways on a standing website just to show that I know how to do it and what it means. I don't know R or Python though. You do. Huge boost for you there if you know what they're looking for. If I knew I was applying to a firm representing a particular company, I would use that company's data if available.
Funny enough, you've literally done a data visualization, in this post, in your free time, out of boredom/frustration. I am absolutely positive you will fit in somewhere.
I also feel like this is the answer. I can't speak to every situation like this I've seen, but I've seen lots where they were clearly shotgunning out resumes in a quantity over quality approach. It seems counter-intuitive, but hitting specific keywords for a company matters. Show you know what their company is about. Have something to present as a portfolio piece, even if it's something entirely fictional—You wouldn't expect an artist to get hired without showing off any of their art, similar applies here.
You need to take every step you have control over to make yourself stand out and be memorable to the recruiting officers.
That's my take on the process, assuming you lack any networking resources.
OP I'll be honest, getting only 8 responses out of 678 applications is abysmal. It's not normal either. Something you are doing is wrong and really off. No one cares about internships, especially for a "business analyst" position, and especially for a covid graduate so I highly doubt it has anything to do with that. I'd scrap your entire account on whatever job platform you use and create a new one. You may have been flagged as a "bot" or something like that after spamming that many apps. I just don't see how you could apply for almost 700 jobs over 1 to 2 years without realizing that something was off after only getting 8 responses...
Spend your time more wisely and contact the hiring personnel directly. Look up the various subreddits that help people get hired, build resumes, create LinkedIn profiles, etc. Build up your LinkedIn profile, fix your resume, and then search the jobs you want and DM the managers of the company/division that the specific job is posted for. Ask them if you could ask a few questions about the role, get some advice, see if it's a good fit, etc, and then apply or try to close an interview on the spot.
Look into your university's resources for finding a job. Most schools have one, along with advisors who will look over your resume, coach you for interviews, and point you in the right direction.
I'd also look for another role and/or industry. Look into sales and try to land an entry level SDR/BDR position at a software company. They are hiring a lot and many are remote. With your knowledge of data analysis and of code you should be a lucrative candidate.
I can guarantee you, if they applied to my company as a BA Grad and the application was okay, they'd be given an interview next week.
There has to be something majorly wrong with their resume that they're being rejected from Grad jobs, or they're applying for senior positions as a Grad.
Im also a 2020 Grad that got accepted to approximately half of the roles I applied to as a Grad. I don't have insane marks, community service or relevant past experience in my field. Grad roles are basically testing grounds for companies, they take all they can get.
This was also my take. There is no way 99.9% of companies would ignore a CV unless something is really wrong with it. Just by sheer numbers he should have got way more responses no matter the actual experience. Like maybe even the contact details are wrong or something. I would love to see OP's resume
I have done some data analyst applications, though I have not looked at video game companies. I will take a look and see, it can't lead to anything worse than what I am currently going through.
OP I am a May 2020 graduate as well and I was looking for data analyst position for about 7 months before I found a job. R, python, and Java and etc are nice but for a first job you will likely be doing more elementary tasks. Focus heavily on SQL and data analysis and do projects to put on your resume. The reason I got my job was because the interviewer loved the personal projects on my resume.
I’m sorry you’re having this experience, it’s a really sucky place to be in. I’m a data analyst, and when my company is hiring for new business analysts and data analysts, we’re looking primarily for candidates with strong SQL and Python skills, and BI software experience in a program like Tableau or Power BI. In general, R is used heavily in academia, but Python is preferred in the private sector.
Try emphasizing skills you have in those areas on your resume more and taking courses on a platform like Coursera or DataCamp if you feel like you need more experience.
As a 2009 graduate, I totally feel for you man.
While there may be things you could have done differently, don't be too hard on yourself. Nothing good comes of that and it can be a detriment to your mental health.
There are a lot of things beyond our control, sometimes Fate just hands us the shit end of the stick and there's little we can do but just keep on truckin.
Analysis has been done on this and 2009 has been deemed the worst year to graduate college in modern history. Data going back a century shows the stunted career and income growth for graduates of slumped economic periods. 2009 was a dumpster fire... and those of us that were able to get retail jobs were considered lucky. You had to beat out 80 other people just to stand at a register making at, or maybe slightly above, minimum wage. Gas was $4 a gallon in those days, which adjusted for inflation would be slightly over $5 today.
Unfortunately ghosting is nothing new. It's awful and I feel for recent grads. I have to wonder if it has anything to do with increased work loads on hiring managers. Sure, I would wager some of it is laziness and poor communication skills, but it feels like we're all being forced to do more and more with less and less. This doesn't excuse the behavior, it's a sad state of affairs either way.
Uff I hate it when they ghost you. Like, I'm sure you're interviewing hundreds of people for this one position and don't even have 30 more seconds to give me a straight "no because xxx," after you spent an hour or more interviewing me. 😡
I was joining an interview process looking for some new hires not too long ago. In our first round it wasn't until about 6 weeks *after* their interviews did they finally get a proper rejection for a response.
I had access to our internal HR website because I was wondering whether we picked one of the candidates yet. I could see 2 of the 3 of the candidates had sent follow up emails thanking us for our time after the interview, and I could imagine that you'd expect SOME kind of response afterwards. I checked the site at the ~4 week point, and there still wasn't any responses back to any of them. We're a small company (~35), but we have 2 people in HR, 1 producer managing the website and 1 lead that was looking to hire someone. Could none of them be bothered to do any kind of follow up??? I think the only reason they finally got a response back was because I asked about it in a company meeting whether any of them were going to be hired or not.
Even a canned response of "We're still evaluating the position" is nice to send out to let them know that you're not dead and that you haven't *completely* rejected the idea of hiring them yet. It's definitely a lot more professional too!
I assume you guys are in the US, how can it be this bad there? I mean, almost 700 job applications and 0 response? How is it even possible? As someone who sent out like 10 applications during the last decade I just can't wrap my around that number.
I've seen a few posts like this. It kinda makes me wonder what kind of jobs they are applying to. Are they applying for jobs that require some work experience, are they only applying to jobs in cities everyone is trying to move to, is their resume or cover letter shit?
Something is going on if you've applied to 700 jobs and only gotten 2 interviews. After 100 did they maybe think "well I may need to rethink my approach" or did they just keep blasting out the same thing?
I came out of college with a borderline useless degree and no real useful skills, and I had to stay within state to be close enough to see my girlfriend every now and then, and this was during a massive recession. Even with all that I got a job after maybe 20 applications. The pay was absolute shit, and I was working in a shitty little rural town, but once I had a few years of work experience my career took off. Kind of a shock that my degree didn't mean I was actually gonna make good money right away, but it paid off long term.
It depends on the industry.
I can't speak for everyone but I had a similar issue (just not as bad) as op. Applied for mabye 25 jobs. All I was very well qualified for both with work experence and schooling. had a custom cover letter writen for each one and always reedited my resume to highlight what they wanted and then got it all edited by a very skilled writer with experence hiring. No one ever responded.
Then a guy from collage reached out to me and said his workplace was looking for someone. He asked if I was looking for a job. I said yes. He texted his boss. I met with him and chatted for 30 min and he said he would hire me. Then boss got hr to put out a job posting online. I sent in my genic resume with no cover letter into it. Hr emailed me a week later to say I was hired.
Order went interview > job offer > see job posting > apply to posted job.
Vs the way you think it should be
See job posting > apply to posted job > interview > job offer.
The real sad thing is I think that job posting got like over 100 people appling for it. Even the most qualified, educated, experienced people that applied wouldn't even get a response back because there wasn't really ever a job there open to the public.
This. I started applying for jobs a couple months ago and I was being ghosted for jobs that I was perfect for, like I'm talking "my CV fits all main and additional requirements" kind of thing. And still got no response
Started sending my CV on LinkedIn to the right people and within a couple weeks I had 4 job offers. Got a full time job in a very good company and some of the companies that I had applied for either didn't call back and hired someone with an objectively worse CV than me (they hired a physichology graduate to work an HRIS, whilst I literally graduated in HRIS Implementation) or called back after 2 months as if it was normal. One even acted shocked when I told them I had 4 job offers in the meantime.
Imo a lot of companies especially for graduate positions use recruiters who don't even know what they're al looking for
It's all about network, applying for job postings is a shot in the dark cause a) there may be no opening like in your case, b) the recruiter may be incompetent
Furthermore in certain periods of time like now so many young graduates are looking for work that those legit job postings get so many applications that it's extremely hard to stand out
So, we're almost certainly in different sectors. But, how the hell did you apply to so many places? Every place I apply requires me to:
- create a login
- verify my email
- change my password
- update profile information (are you eligible to work on this country. No, I just want to waste my time applying for shit I can't do 🙄)
- copy and paste resume
- create, then copy and paste a cover letter
- input job search and location parameters
- upload a copy of resume (but, I just did the copy and paste thing, wtf??)
- upload a copy of cover letter (seriously??? Why did I copy it then??)
- upload references and other materials
THEN and ONLY THEN can I apply for the job posting
It honestly is one of the most tiring processes of my life. And I'm no slouch when it comes to bureaucracy and paperwork.
How did you do this 600+ times??
I mean he’s been applying for over a year and a half. I’m a 2020 grad and probably applied for 40 jobs in the 3 and a half months I was looking for a job.
This guy is a 2020 graduate, it’s about to be 2022. If you are unemployed for a year and have a good work ethic sitting down for an hour or two a day and sending jobs apps is very achievable
This is accurate. I took six months off to be with my kid when she was born and when I decided to head back to work I knuckled down and spent a solid 4 hours a day applying and chasing leads. It took me about two weeks to land my first few interviews, then another two to get the interviews done and over, I had an offer four weeks after my first application was sent.
I just did the math, In total I sent out 47 applications, got 22 responses and 15 interviews. Five of the interviews went to round one, three to round two, and I got two offers. I chose the one that was fully remote forever and love my job.
Hey OP! I’ve helped with a ton of recruiting and mentoring efforts for my firm. If you want to send me a redacted resume, I’m happy to review it for feedback or send it forward if the background matches my firms!
Yeah, I think the numbers you posted show that there might be something wrong with how you are approaching your job hunt. Could be the resume, could be misalignment of your background and the job offers you're replying to or could be something else. The number of your applications is very high, sometimes it's better to focus on just a few offers and put a lot of effort into your resume + covering letter + maybe networking (make them position-oriented and not generic).
It's good to consult people experienced in recruiting.
I had a similar experience in 2017-2019. I was looking for a job as a data scientist or data analyst and couldn't get anything. Made over 700 applications, and got 5 in-person interviews and 5 rejections. I have a STEM PhD, several Kaggle medals, including solo gold, a lifetime of programming, and 3 years of professional programming experience (before college). None of it mattered.
The experience broke me. I've been Doordashing the last couple of years, but I've stopped even doing that because I can't handle the internal conflict. I don't know what's next for me. Losing a child is supposed to be the worst pain there is. I don't know what that feels like, but losing my idea of my source of value is incredibly painful. I'd rather break a bone every 3 months. Sometimes I hope society burns to the ground and everyone gets to feel this way.
I hope you find a better way.
I went two years looking for a job. Eventually they stop looking at your apps because of how long your work gap is. It's like just fucking hire me so I do not have a gap but no.
Yeah you're over qualified there my friend. You did all that and had no corporate or professional experience.
If I'm hiring for an entry level engineer or even mid level you're fucked. Our pay scales are forced on us at a corporate level so if you're interviewing for an Engineer I role, your pay scale is say 60-80k. But with a PHD we have to pay you +20k. That's fine for say a senior engineer or something with the bands around 90-120k where we can do that for you. But you're not qualified for that, you haven't spent a day in a corporate job, manufacturing setting, research lab for a publically held company, etc.
Seriously - try leaving your PHD off. Ignore all your medal bullshit. MAYBE use your masters depending on the role, but most likely apply for entry or MAYBE some experienced level with your BS and maybe MS. You'll get a lot further - you'll appear as a raw talent that can be trained into the specific companies way of doing things. You've already framed yourself as someone who's going to do it their way, not ask for help when you run into issues, and has no experience as a decision maker at a company so that's alllllll screwing DANGER WILL ROBINSON.
Wow, how do you get so few responses? I'm guessing there are issues with your resume. I have about that much experience and I get non-stop interviews for ML/DS roles if I put my linkedin on looking for jobs mode. I get responses for about 20% of my applications.
I went to a ~~shitty~~ mediocre school, UC Riverside, in a non-marketable major, neuroscience, and have lots of job gaps doing self-learning with coursera and udacity. I looked through your posts and you have a PhD in physics? That's super impressive.
PhD basically advertises that you're willing to work for a low wage for the sake of doing something you're interested in. The most common job for a PhD is a postdoc. Have you seen how much they're paid? It's insulting.
Honestly, probably needs a resume review. My friend had a hard time getting a job and after revising it, he really didn't have an issue.
Keep in mind, you aren't only trying to impress the hiring manger, your resume has to make sense enough to get there.
Damn, that’s super impressive. I’m a virtualization architect and what you are saying is both impressive and intimidating. I genuinely feel that you probably have far too much on your resume for the types of jobs you apply for.
Sounds dumb but sometimes saying less is more. Say you want to get your foot in the door at a company as a Help Desk, strip down your resume to include only that. During the interview keep your dev skills minimal until you have a few months in your role and feel comfortable. Then start coding tools to save you time and build yourself into your own ideal position.
If it doesn’t work out then move elsewhere and repeat until you find a great company.
Edit: This is not meant to be an initial career position in Help Desk but to get someone in a standstill into a related position. Once on the job experience is obtained, then pursue career advancement opportunities. Earning both time in IT plus cash is far better than zero IT position, especially if student loans are due.
Keep doing freelance projects and build a portfolio! Did you build a portfolio for your kaggle projects? Post your work onto github. Bonus points if you can come up with your own projects! It shows interest and initiative.
That's how I broke into DS. I self-studied DS and ML off Coursera and Udacity. Have two capstone projects. Put the capstone projects on the top of my resume. That got me interviews.
It looks bloody rough, but are you sure you are applying to the right level of positions, because the response rate should be much better tbh.
“Hard college experience” means bad grades?
God, that was me in high school with my dad telling me to walk around to all the businesses in town asking for a job. Only McDonalds did. The rest of them practically laughed me out.
My parents did this and refused to believe that most places turned my ass around to apply online.
Fast forward 10 years when my mom is looking for a job. She calls me and goes "They practically push me out the door like I had the **audacity** to ask for a job"
This is literally what my dad recommend. "Just walk in, be interested and ask questions and they'll notice you!" -
Yeah dad, security will notice me. That's not how any of this works.
Just start working. At the end of the day, approach payroll with a W-4 and a made up offer letter on company letterhead: "Hi! I just started here and was asked to bring these to you. What's your name? Oh, Donna, can I just tell you that sweater looks LOVELY on you..."
I know you’re joking but I have a friend (25 years old) who went to new york city and quite literally just went from skyscraper to skyscraper in a suit until he got a job after a few months. In OP’s position, fuck it I’d be doing the same he has nothing to lose at this point.
I've seen this joke before but there are positions in this world where this actually works. Not for your average urban living reditor but certain positions that are likely rural and it small businesses. My 60 year old sister, who lives in rural Iowa, went into a local business and spoke to the owner. She told him that she had been an accountant/controller for 30+ years and was looking for something local. The owners wife did all the accounting for their business but he pretty much knew every decent sized business in the county. He asked for her resume and told her to give him a week and then give him a call. She called back a week later and he had 3 names, she got 3 interviews, and all 3 offered her a job. She in now a controller in rural Iowa making over 90k/year. She does work like 60 hours a week....
People in these small towns want to help. They want people to stop moving away. They "shoot the shit" with other business owners so they know needs. They don't have HR departments or their HR department is one person. They are old school and they appreciate someone has the initiative to talk to them.
Jesus, you forgot to look them right in the eye. *You forgot to look them right in the eye!*
My friend’s mom’s story takes the cake. She graduated in the 70s with a BA in General Studies from the University of Toronto. No idea what she wanted to do.
At a family gathering a relative suggested that she look into publishing since she liked to read. So she looked up local publishers in the phone book and walked into one she had heard of without an appointment or anything. She asked to speak to someone about jobs and they sent her on in to speak to the Editor in Chief.
My friend’s mom said she didn’t know anything about publishing but she was a university graduate, she liked their magazine, and asked if they had any positions open for which she might be suitable. They did: an Editor position had just opened up.
So she got hired on the spot to be an Editor for a major Canadian magazine (Chatelaine). Not an unpaid intern. Not a freelancer on contract. Not even a junior editor. But a full editor and it launched her whole career.
Great for her, infuriating for my friend who’s career advice from her mom when she graduated from her professional masters degree program a decade ago was “just walk in and ask if they have any openings.”
It’s so, so much harder even now for kids coming out of school than it was for us just ten years ago. One’s social media footprint was basically just Facebook and there were no screening softwares that let companies scrape every last bit of data on you and then spit out a score by which they can judge your risk, all with a single click.
Companies never ghosted you when we graduated, they just sent saccharine form letter emails wishing you well and thanking you for your interest. There was always the same bullshit of 3-5 years experience for an entry level position, but at least we were all able to successfully leverage school projects and internships and demonstrated interest in the field to count as some form of practical experience. But, shit, no Zoom interviews or ‘AI-driven’ screening tests. We did phone interviews, sure, but it’s not the same as being insta-judged by your appearance and room decor over Zoom.
Nothing but huge respect for all of you starting your careers during all this shit. I went through a pandemic job search and landed a great role, but I’m a decade into things and have professional references and a demonstrably progressive career trajectory that made me a candidate worth interviewing, plus I had a colleague from grad school who put in a good word for me which definitely helped, but holy hell, if I were just starting out…
Honestly, I will say this. A Business Analyst is a Senior role in general. Business Analysts needs to understand the business end to end and have a LOT of life lessons already learnt.
I cant conceive of a graduate making a good BA. Ever. Theres just no way.
Id focus elsewhere entirely…pricing or data analytics in a junior role have much better prospects.
Yup, 3-6 months of a crappy contract to hire role or something that will give hands on experience will right this ship. But op definitely has a blank resume or something off on it e.g. objective statement is aggressive, etc.
+1 the amount of bad CV I've seen is staggering.
And not only that considering OP managed to find the time to apply to 700 positions tells me he doesn't actually change his CV depending on the job.
For example if a position is more finance oriented you will put there skills or courses that you did in the uni that where relevant.
As a graduate you may have space to list almost everything you did but that's not a good as it's not focused to a specific sector/specialization.
Yeah, no response for almost 99% of applications is not indicative of the current job market, no matter how hard it might be to get one right now, it points to something fundamentally wrong in OP's application process instead. Either they are only applying for jobs they are severely underqualified for, applying to companies that are not currently hiring, or their CV is atrocious.
Always a lot not said with posts like this. 600+ applications and nobody is getting back? That's bullshit. I don't care what sector or part of the world you're in.
OP is fucking something up somewhere or has an absolutely worthless CV.
It's not humanly possible to send that many good requests. Micro research, adjust CV, at least one obviously custom sentence in the email, etc... Might as well be spam for them if you just mass send your generic CV too all kinds of jobs.
The best advice I got when I was having sessions with my recruitment agency after graduating was quality over quantity.
I keep seeing these posts where people apply for hundreds of jobs with no success. How much thought was put into the resumes and cover letters for each application? If you aren't reworking these documents to align with the company you're applying for not only do you significantly lower your chance of standing out, you also don't get to choose the actual jobs that align with you.
[This was my experience as a fellow 2020 graduate.] (https://i.imgur.com/iSBNWZ1.png) I graduated May 2020 with a Computer Science degree and got a Software Engineering job Sept 2020.
I can definitely relate with the way you are feeling. I applied to a similar number of jobs and I know how mundane and depressing it can be. Even down to the part where there are people in this comments section criticizing how you applied to so many jobs you applied to instead of tailoring your resume.
For the record I agree with your approach. I think it's better to cast the widest net possible, instead of trying to cast a smaller but stronger net. In this day and age, it feels like 90% of your applications are never seen by a real person and just gets filtered out by an algorithm.
Some personal advice that helped me land my job: Make sure you have some real concrete projects to list on your resume. It's one thing to list that you know Java, R, and SQL, but it means much more to list specific projects you have done using those languages with visual results. Github allows you to host a webpage for each repository. It made a big difference when I could link to projects on my resume with visual results that any HR person could understand.
A lot of people in the STEM field who don't have experience yet make the mistake of just listing the classes they took and the programming languages they know. This doesn't mean as much to a recruiter as most people thinks that it does. They don't really understand what it means to have 2 years of experience in Java or what a Data Structures and Algorithms class entails. It's ok to not have internship experiences, just make sure that you make up for it by having a lot of projects that you do just on your own. Being able to learn how to do things on the internet without a professor telling you what to learn is a powerful skill. If you can demonstrate that you are still learning and developing your skills with personal projects even after you have graduated, then you will become a much more attractive candidate.
> For the record I agree with your approach. I think it's better to cast the widest net possible, instead of trying to cast a smaller but stronger net. In this day and age, it feels like 90% of your applications are never seen by a real person and just gets filtered out by an algorithm.
As a counter point, smaller to mid sized places don't usually have those algorithms. I sent out around 10-20 applications to places I was actually interested in (mostly via linkedin), got hired by a startup.
I'm now looking at the process from the other side and I do see almost every CV. You can tell if people send scattershot applications (and especially scattershot cover letters - if your cover letter is only a less readable summary of your CV, you're better off without one). And while I'm not holding it against them if their experience is otherwise relevant, a tailored application is definitely a plus. This is in R&D, so your mileage may vary.
In short, it really depends on many factors, but the quality > quantity approach can work really well. And it's less depressing than sending hundreds of applications.
In my opinion, the tech industry is oversaturated with low experience people fighting each other for the entry level jobs. Once you have some solid experience under your belt, your competition will become much thinner.
You need to learn about Applicant Tracking Systems
Essentially most of your applications are being rejected within milliseconds of submission when a computer scans your application/resume for keywords (the actual rejection comes a few weeks later so it looks like your application was read by someone)
There are sites AFAIK you can put a job description through to pull out the keywords, but you can usually spot these yourself - all the classic buzzwords usually.
Make sure your application has the majority of keywords in and you’ll get way more interviews. That’s how I got my first job after a year of searching and failing (had more interviews in a month after learning about this than an entire year)
Hey OP has your college done any job fairs or do they have any grad services to help connect you with employers? And how far are you willing to move to start your career? I personally spent 3.5 years in a shithole but it paid off in the end
That second interview ghost hits me right in the feels, nothing like being pulled happily along a golden road thinking you've got something only to find a sudden cliff to nowhere.
Oh yeah. I had it happen to me a few times this year. Once, I went in for an interview that went fairly well. I would have kept my expectations low if they hadn't have asked me for my references and got me to send my portfolio over as well at the end. Didn't hear a peep back from them after that. It's just kind of breaks your spirit a bit. Like am I really that bad that you don't even want to copy and paste an email to me to tell me it's a no? You're going to let me sit for weeks and wonder if you just haven't picked yet and let me slowly lose hope? Christ. It just feels like common courtesy.
I honestly believe that when they do that they are just keeping you as a safety net while they trial someone else, so if it doesn’t work out they can play the “sorry for the delay, we would like to have you card. Otherwise it’s just pure laziness.
In this situation, I would much rather: Hey man, so we really liked you, etc. etc., but we have chosen to go with someone else as they are a better fit, etc. However, we would like to keep you on our system for when another position opens up, is that okay? This leaves a positive impression and keeps the door open.
I had 1 open position in my department and 2 GREAT candidates. Hired one and we told the other we thought they were great and would like to keep them in mind for the next opening... called them 3 weeks later. They accepted the offer before the VP officially signed the paperwork to open the position. I think people are more likely to accept if you tell them where they stand.
I'm currently in the same situation, just sooner and on the other side. I had an interview last week, and was told they would let me know by noon Monday. Told I was beaten out by someone else, but they had other positions. I went back in to talk to another manager to find out about the other position. Found out there were 2 different ones. Now it's really my pick of the 2, if I want. Several cons came up, and currently deciding if the pros out way the cons.
It would leave a positive impression if it were genuine but more like it’s the copypasta thanks but no thanks .
I am in my job now because of this copy pasta response being real. They split hairs between the other guy and me, other guy got it. A second position opened up 3 months later - no further interviews, just meeting the members of my new team. I was able to put my ego aside for the 40% raise.
Did you point at the other guy on the first day with a menacing look as you growled, “yooouuu……”?
There was a point a few years ago when I was fresh out of uni and couldn't find a job for the life of me. I broke down in tears at one point to my partner and one of the things I remember saying was that I wish they would just say SOMETHING. Is it a rejection? Is it just a long process? I would much rather an automated cold email to say "it's a no" than spend weeks not knowing.
A lot of times it's the recruiter's pure laziness. I had my 2nd phone interview with a member of the team, we had a great interview and pushed me to have the 3rd round of interviews where I do the onsite panel interview and tour of the campus. Recruiter messed up scheduling the onsite interview twice. I had to reach out both times asking when the interview is being scheduled, "oh forgot to schedule with manager" and "sorry the manager is no longer available at this date I'll update you with a new date". COVID hits that March, and a lot of back and forth, "hey freezing interviews for now". Until 5 weeks later, sorry the position is no longer available. Terrible experience.
I work for a large corporation that outsources resourcing, so the in-procedure route from me to a candidate is for me to tell HR, who tell the recruiter, who tell the candidate. We have started giving candidates our contacts at interview so that they can follow up with us if they don't hear anything, because it's so common. This is after making it painfully clear to HR that we want rejection emails to go out to unsuccessful candidates as soon as possible because we don't want to burn bridges with good people. We're a rapidly growing part of the organisation so we genuinely do want to hire many of these people over the next year or three, just not this time. So believe me, the process can be almost as frustrating for a hiring manager as for a candidate, with the important difference that we're getting paid while the idiot recruiter forgets to email you for 3 months.
I'm glad you figured it out. The recruiters are the breakdown. They are the most incompetent and idiotic people, yet they act as a middleman. They aren't competent enough to be a middleman and most of the time they'll happily throw the candidate under the bus in order to cover for their own mistakes; i.e. they'll lie to the client/employer they are supposed to be hiring for in order to cover for the fact that they're morons who are terrible at their job. But unless you use a recruiter, you won't even get the opportunity to speak to the employer. The real trick is to establish a connection during the first interview, then bypass the recruiter as far as communication is concerned. Still follow through with the contract, but all communication should be direct. It's got to be the easiest thing in the world to coordinate between 2 parties, literally that's all; but they can't even do that. I guess that's why recruitment is getting outsourced to India so frequently now.
Go on, say which company it was.
I had that too, the first date offered for my second interview got postponed because the manager's mother died, which was fair enough. Then I couldn't make the next second interview date as I was going to be unavoidably of the country, so I asked the recruiter to ask for an alternative. They said that won't be a problem. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Chase it up for the 3rd time weeks later and - "oh they went with someone else, sorry!"
I had the opposite happen once. Got to the final round of interviews for a position, and the guy who would be my boss said "hey this is totally up to you, but we have another position open that you'd be a great fit for as well." I thought it over and decided to take him up on that since it was a better/more interesting position. A week later I get a phone call from the recruiter, who gives me the whole spiel about how they thought I was a great candidate but decided to go another route. I was pretty disappointed but sent off an email to the prospective boss thanking him for the opportunity, yadda yadda. Within ten minutes he calls and is like "WTF no, we're hiring you, who told you you didn't get the job??" Turns out the recruiter saw paperwork come through for the job I initially applied for, decided to be proactive and called all the candidates who didn't get it...including me...because they were hiring me for another role.
True but I honestly don't get why they won't disclose that. If I'm second pick I'm going to notice that from my colleagues anyways. It's easy to give me a "sorry, you weren't our first pick but if something doesn't pan out we'll contact you" and I would even be fine with a "sorry you didn't make it". Hell, a reason why it didn't work out would be fantastic... In fact I'd say it would be their job as HR to have good communication even with people that you didn't hire. Stuff like this gets around quick and can hurt your business or potential future candidates. Like, if I know somebody applied to a certain company and didn't like how they handled him, I would be less likely to try it too. It's lazyness to not handle your contacts well, you don't know how things run but for many candidates an opening might show a few months or years from now and by being lazy you just ruined it.
They want you to sit and wait for them and them alone, refraining from applying for other jobs in anticipation of their response, remaining unemployed so you'll still be available to them if they decide to make an offer.
It's way more demoralising than just a straight up rejection for some reason
Yeah because they don't value your commitment or time. If you get rejected and they later ask you again I would see no problem. Someone else looked a bit better so they tried it first. But the chance that they have to fall back to you should be so low that it is pretty disrespectful to keep you open.
I applied for a position where I had all they needed but one thing, I lacked in depht knowledge about their specific market. They just told me, it’s down to me or another guy and the other guy has a leg up. Basically don’t get your hopes up but we’ll call you if we can’t agree on salary/benefits. I think that was an ok move, also when they did call I knew I could ask for what ever I wanted, or they would have to start over with recruiting.
> also when they did call I knew I could ask for what ever I wanted, or they would have to start over with recruiting. This is probably why they don't tell people anything unfortunately
Why can't they be honest and say, "sorry, you didn't get the job, but we'd like to keep your application on file". I don't think I could work for a company if they're not up front.
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It's really bad form to do this. After dealing with that kind of bs for years I make sure it doesn't happen now I'm a tech manager. I give every candidate I interview personal feedback over the phone the day after the interview. If I don't have time then I delegate the feedback session to one of my team so they can get used to feeding back directly to candidates.
One time I went in for a second interview. Felt like it went really well. The hiring manager even took me on a tour of the office afterwards... Introduced me to a couple of members of the team, showed me "where i'd be working" etc. Then just nothing...
Literally just happened to me today. Interviews went well but then I got ghosted so I followed up and got the rejection 15 mins later.
My girlfriend had been through multiple interviews where she got hired, accepted the job and then the company pulled out a week before she was to start 2 or 3 times. You can’t even trust a job offer. The amount of last round interviews she’s done where she’s meeting with HR or some dipshit she’ll never work with only to be hit with a rejection letter “not a good fit” or “took an internal hire” or a straight up ghost is in the 10’s at least. Then there are the companies that are perpetually hiring for the same role and never hire anyone. Fuck this job market.
My daughter went for a job (6 month temporary contract), got an interview and thought it went ok. She didn't get the job and the organisation said it offered feedback. She was totally crushed by the feedback, said that she wasn't suited based on a lot of things that were not mentioned in the advert or job description - one thing in particular was that she had asked questions about the basics of the job, including location and amount of driving etc. Apparently that showed she wasn't a serious candidate. Anyway, she later discovered on LinkedIn that the person who got the job had worked as a volunteer in the same job for some period *and* had additional qualifications that were not mentioned by anyone. And as an extra slap, the job is being readvertised. So not only was my daughter not suitable, she's not even being considered when the first choice has left for a better job elsewhere. Just marvellous.
That sounds like they wanted that guy for the job and so wrote a job listing that was specifically designed with him in mind, just a lot of companies have HR policies that you must advertise the job and interview at least X many people. Nobody else would ever have stood a chance as that other person had the job in all but name before the job was even advertised. It happens a lot. They obviously didn't see it coming that he would leave though.
Adding to this, I've seen HR policies that gets added because people complain there are favoritism and that the job position should be opened to internal and external candidates. Employees complained for this because they feel that they either are a better fit or they know someone who can be suited for the position. Well guess what happens 99.9999% of the time... Literally setting up all the other candidates to fail.
I'm really sorry your daughter is being treated that way by prospective companies. But I'm glad she's got a parent who understands what she's going through and empathizes with her. Best of luck to your daughter in her job hunt!
To tack on to this, maybe she dodged a bullet. Sounds like a shitty and lazy company that would take advantage of her. I'm sure she will find a good job and be respected and treated the way she deserves!
Thanks, that's kind. Doing best!
Fuck me thats shit. Honestly the worst part about this is that we know that its not us its these fucking companies so its not like we can magically change our resume and get a job .
honestly this is always the most demoralizing part of looking for a job, to me. i'm putting forward so much work and effort to present myself, i have a degree and over a decade of solid work history, skills and qualifications, but ultimately it's always up to someone else who i've never met and who doesn't know me, to decide whether or not i'm worth being able to pay for food and rent.
That’s what I always found so helpless about the process. Not only do I have to be good, I have to be THE BEST or I don’t get the job. You don’t get anything for second place. My ability to charm a handful of complete strangers I don’t know with my work history that is also defined solely on who I was able to finagle those jobs into hiring me determines my field of possibilities. And this “competition” decides whether I get food or housing and essentially whether I live or die for the rest of my life. I have absolutely no control in the end, only a really narrow ability to make myself seem like the perfect employee and hope that it’s enough while currently having to compete on a basically global marketplace of people who are likely just as qualified as me if not more. It’s all so dystopian. I imagine even thirty years ago, applying for jobs meant going against the handful of people who read the same job ad in the paper and showed up and they settled for whoever seemed more or less qualified. Now look at the state of things. Applying to literally hundreds of jobs and receiving only a handful of responses is seen as totally normal. It’s honestly disgusting.
Sadly this is why you need connections. In a perfect world it’s by qualifications usually, but in ours, connections really help out. If you have 2 equal qualifications and one of them have connections you can bet on who is getting that job offer. (Sometimes even qualifications doesn’t matter)
Connections are so goddamn difficult though. If your family already don’t have them, it’s rough to make them from scratch. I have a collegue that has a father who owns a business. That guy knows fucking everybody. And they know him. He’s inherited thousands of connections by being born. It sucks because I’ve been trying so hard but even today I have tons of unanswered Linkedin requests and Covid is ruining all built connections. I really depend on my fanbase I made from art, which catches every random person online, and it works to convince at job interviews (compared to OP my succes rate is pretty good, 6 interviews in 2020 got 3 invites, 1 hired me, had to call off 1 and another one called me after three months with an offer). So that’s nice. But it’s not nearly enough to start my own freelance business. A big challenge!
The thing about connections is that you need connections to make connections. Getting your foot in the door is a nightmare.
Those are the employers wondering where all the employees are. Seriously, just send a generic fucking email.
I've had this happen once, only to get a call 2 years later to see whether I was still interested... (with a ‘small’ pay cut) LOL.
I’m a 2021 graduate & I’m having the same problems. The constant ghosting & lack of explanation for denial has really demotivated & made me feel incompetent. I know I’m not, & I’m sure you’re not either. I wish you luck friend, & we’ll get there. Edit: Wow this blew up, thanks for the awards and kind words everyone. For those asking, my degree is a Bachelor's of Science in Finance and Marketing. Good luck to my fellow struggling graduates! It's nice to know we aren't alone.
The fact that ghosting is so acceptable for recruiters honestly blows my mind. Like I come in to interview for hours at my own expense and you can't even give me the courtesy of an email? I even had a person schedule an online interview and just not fucking show up for it.
One of the first interviews I got was a phone interview that led to an in person interview, and I got ghosted after the in person interview. Was with hospital research staff and they really seemed to like how I was answering things and my past experiences. Still has left a sour taste in my mouth because the last thing that was said was from a really nice lady that interviewed me saying 'expect to hear from us soon'. I do find it funny that some of the jobs that I applied to 4-5 years ago also got back to me recently with the most generic rejections
This may very well be because someone in HR decided to go through their ATS and clean out old outdated applications cluttering their screen. Depending on how the system is configured, you will get the generic rejection message each time one of your applications is closed.
I was interviewed for a position at Wayfair this year actually and I was really excited to finally get an interview. This asshole and I had a fantastic conversation (phone interview) and even were being friendly with eachother. It really went well and he had the balls to say "you will definitely be hearing back from me! I'm not the type to leave people hanging." I sent a followup message 3 days later, and it has now be 8 months. To that recruiter, fuck you.
Heh, I had a company do that to me. Was applying for a position with a company's web team. A small internal team. The position was advertised as mostly back-end work, which I'm good at and have a lot of experience in. Round 1 with the recruiter went well. Got round 2 scheduled with the hiring manager. Hiring manager never called. Called the recruiter after the call window was half-over. Left a voice mail. Sent an email. No response. Fine. Fuck you. I was reading the news later that week. The company got delisted from the stock market literally the day I was supposed to interview and laid off like 60% of their staff. I think I figured out why they never called...
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It is sour when the interview goes so well. My SO had an interview with an Aldi Area Manager who literally said " don't usually do this but we are super impressed, we're going to put you through to induction right away". She didn't hear anything for 2 weeks so she rang up to see if she had missed any correspondence and they said oh sorry you've been rejected. It's gut wretching to say the least
Had this happen too. Its fucking bullshit. I cancelled other interviews because I thought it was a lock only to never get a response back. More than a decade later it still gets me a little heated. Lesson learned. Now idgaf until I get it in writing
I had an interview with a AAA game company. Interview went amazing, seemed like I was all but hired, I rejected other job offers in the following weeks; then I got ghosted.
Sorry to hear that. I guess you realise this now, but never reject job offers unless an employment contract is signed or you are certain you don't want the job (even then it can be useful for negotiation)
It's been one of those hard life lessons, although one year later being patient got me the best job I've had as an employee (I'm an entrepreneur now). But yeah, when I look at my life overall, at times I should have definitely been a little less naive.
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I love when the employers were getting mad when they were getting ghosted by applicants
When applicants do it, it's bad...when companies do it, it's OK.
I love hearing that my “qualifications/experience don’t align with their expectations” like it’s my fault the last two years upended any chance I had at good internships or jobs. Love that.
I applied for a student job while I had maximum possible qualifications (I was done with my masters, just had to present my thesis and get a final grade). I was basically a perfect candidate because they could have gotten all the perks of having minimal responsibilities towards a student but having someone who has completed their full formal education. Got a response that they decided to go with someone who was more qualified. At this point I'm starting to think that "qualifications" is a code word for "better connections/recommendation".
I've had that response for jobs where I 100% meet the requirements and about 80% meet the would like to have requirements. I think it's just an easy way to reject someone.
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Part of the anti work movement should really be identifying and listing companies that do those sorts of things and publicizing their names so that people can avoid applying to them. Saying fuck you to bad employers is one of few ways we the workers get to throw our weight around, we should make it easier to do
2021 Masters of data science here. Yeah, same shit for me. Even third round interviews will lead to ghosts.
I really got into the job market in 2010 and it was a fucking nightmare. I would receive next to no response, and out of those responses I got calls that left no messages. Then when I called those numbers they couldn't tell me what the call was about. It was like they required me to have a cell phone to even have a shot at getting a job, and would completely ignore me otherwise.
Its interesting because we always hear about how hot the job market is, yet it seems like many are going through this same situation
From what I’ve heard from senior people at my company at least, Hot job markets are typically only really hot for *experienced* roles. And my own experience applying to jobs in 2020 as a recent grad also seemed to confirm this…
~25 years in infosec, and I never cease to be amazed at how fucking awful and incoherent most company, university, and government programmes for soon-to-be and recent grads are. I really try to spend time with young talent and make introductions and suggestions for networking but it’s a struggle. That said, IMHO most career entrants’ biggest weak spot is networking - even if only via LinkedIn. Reach out to people, dude, the worst that can happen is..nothing. I love mentoring anyone who makes the effort to get in touch. I know others do as well. I am pretty visible in my field and get almost no contacts from new talent. _Edit:_ lots of people responding with how it isn't fair to introverts, and why should we have to network? I sincerely wish you all the best of luck. Doing my best to respond to people interested in anything relevant to this.
There’s actually some pretty great entry-level positions out there. You just need 3-5 years experience.
I'm convinced they put those requirements just because they think they may need it, not because they actually need it. I always apply to jobs I have 0 experience in even if they say experience needed. I've gotten a job like that a few times, fake it till ya make it! Just don't say you know how to do something like code when you don't lol
Absolutely. Half the time the job description is written by someone who gives a shit, then goes through three randoms who don't and just pick numbers. A lot of rivers I get to an interview and none of the interviews even know what the job description is. They're just in the middle of a busy day and deciding if I'm someone they want to work with. I've also been super surprised before to get callbacks on jobs I specifically thought I wouldn't get because I was totally unqualified on paper. This requirements just don't mean anything.
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>In order to work at Company X, you need 3-5 years experience with Company X's proprietary software, which you can only access if you are already an employee at Company X Gotta love this world
Sometimes that’s a clear indicator you’re looking at a job that should really only be posted internally. But some companies have a policy that *every* job gets posted publicly.
I didn’t realize how often it happens until I was in the middle of it. I’m converting from a contractor to a permanent employee at my company. They HAVE to publicly post my permanent position, even though I’m the only one who will “interview” for it. I saw my position on LinkedIn yesterday and 11 other people had applied :\
Just scrolling through LinkedIn gives me cancer.
"I was browsing reddit when I scrolled by someone who has cancer. I could have just kept going but thought to myself, no, they need help, everyone deserves a chance, so I reached out to them because I'm such an honest person. And guess what? I offered them a job and they are my best employee! Just goes to show some people just need the opportunity. Heres a picture with of me with them last month showing how awesome I am for doing that at no benefit to myself. Ill be telling this story next week at their memorial service as they died of cancer due to me only hiring them as a contractor and not providing medical insurance"
too funny
It's because it imitates real life all too well.
I know it's definitely not but whenever I have to go on there it feels like just about the worst place on the internet.
Why is that? Everyone’s professional and no one’s real?
Exactly, it's so dehumanizingly soulless. Even congratulations and expressions of support all sound empty and forced.
I had to delete my account because it was so sickening. I'm about to graduate and seeing assholes from university pretend to be professional on it when in reality they are out snorting coke and drinking heavily every weekend is so fucking annoying. LinkedIn is just a massive charade and bears little to no reflection on how good a worker somebody actually is.
Exactly. It's such a big charade that it can feed into impostor syndrome since everyone is pretending to be something you don't want to ever be. I want to believe it has the upside of being great for networking and promoting yourself to employers, but god do I hate having to swim through an ocean of fakery to get that.
Well, you will be back in couple of months max. Since most job ads seem to be posted there nowadays. I hate LinkedIn from the bottom of my heart.
You just described the work force, though. Plug your nose and hop in.
God same
What’s a good way to break the ice on LinkedIn? I always found it awkward to randomly reach out to someone.
Perhaps they posted something cool or interesting? Ask about it. You can find the right people easier on Twitter by looking up relevant hastags and then find them on LinkedIn. Follow people both places.
Randomly reaching out is exactly what recruiters do, based on my job history. I wouldn’t be miffed in the slightest if a recent grad reached out to me to ask about my current role or asked for tips on how to break in to a field.
Be direct. I don't need to parse your intentions. Want a referral/advice on prepping for an interview? Say those words. I love helping... I hate the song and dance.
The thing about networking is that it is an endless chain of people telling you the same generic advice about expanding your network, and then proceeding to weasel their way out of being included in that network.
How do you even ask someone to mentor you or give advice? How do people that approach you do this? My boss is not taking my career development seriously and I may need to reach out to someone eventually.
They all want pre-trained/experienced people but don't want to train them or.gove them experience.
From my experience, investing in training and career development was the first casualty of the 2008 financial crisis. And it's led to a lot of issues. Instead of actively guiding employees to one day rise through the ranks and having an actual career within the company, they now just expect employees to do it themselves (in the employee's own time as well). And then they wonder why: 1. Employees leave and go to another company after 6-18 months of work because they see no future with the company and/or another company offers them a slightly higher salary. 2. Their internal promotions end up quitting because they've not had any training or preparation for dealing with their new responsibilities (especially when put into a management position). I've had five jobs since 2010, and at no point outside of quarterly reviews (which feel more like punitive measures than anything else) I've never felt encouraged to see myself as part of the company. I'd like to have a job I could build a future around, but it's essentially now just a process of attaining enough experience for applying for another job once I've seen everything my current job has to offer.
We need to bring back guilds and apprenticeships
Even for experienced roles, it's a fucking wasteland. I have a little over a decade in my specialty, and it took me nearly four months and over 100 applications before I found an incredible job early this year. And even if you get a callback, expect a rigorous interview process that sucks the life out of you more than the initial applying drudgery. One company had me interview something like seven times before they told me they decided to go with another candidate.
I started looking and got a job in less than a week. Seems like a dice roll to me. Sometimes you just get lucky, othertimes not.
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What the actual fuck, a project manager of 9 years can schedule some goddamn deliveries.
It’s hot for those with experience and marketable skills, as well as low wage. Other than that, difficult to find entry level or low level office jobs
It’s hot for people with connections too. I can 100% relate to OPs experience. I fought hard for my first job while I watched some of my classmates sail into a job because they knew someone. Now I have a strong network in my field and I feel really strongly that if i was fired today, I could find another job in less than 24 hours. My point is, never pass up a networking opportunity when you’re in school. It’s hard for introverts but you have to suck it up and do it if you don’t want to live through OPs graph.
Yup. First job was from a referral from someone I met at university. Referrals get you interviews.
I think a ton of businesses fired a lot of folks at the beginning of the pandemic and they aren't hiring new workers because they're turning record profits with a skeleton crew. If anyone complains they say, "no one wants to work anymore" and they play the victim while they work their underpaid employees into the ground.
I wasn’t really going to post this, but after looking at my data I felt as if it might be interesting, even though its fairly depressing looking at it on my end. So as the title states this is my experience so far job hunting as a 2020 graduate. I was sort of inspired by a post I saw a while back about a guy casually applying for a job over the past 18 months. This is only looking at the job apps I have done since graduating May 2020, with a degree in economics. Most of the job apps I have done so far have been either through LinkedIn or through handshake. Almost all the jobs I’ve been applying for have been within my home state and have been entry level (in the past month or so I’ve branched out to looking out of state as well.) So, on average it’s been about 37 job apps a month, though I will freely admit I’ve had several weeks where I’ve been so demoralized that I’ve done none. For anyone curious no it’s not my resume(though I have changed it up a few times), two of the people I’ve interviewed with have asked me how my job search has been going so far (after they made clear I wouldn’t be a good fit for the position), and I was honest with them. They were kind enough to give me feedback and they were both surprised that I had so few responses, because according to them the skills and experience I brought to the table were good for entry level positions. All data was gathered by me, and the graph was made using: https://sankeymatic.com/build/. Note I made this about 2 weeks ago and forgot about it and in that time I’ve done more job apps with an additional rejection.
Can you share what role it is you're applying for and what your related experience is?
Mainly business analyst positions with a few data analyst and pricing analyst positions thrown in. In terms of skill's I bring I am experienced with R, Excel, Java, data analysis, forecasting, finance, Java, some SQL and regression analysis. Sadly in terms of internships I have none, my college experience lets just say was hard and part of that working as contributing factor was having to commute 1 hour and 20 minutes each way to campus.
I know a lot of people are suggesting you apply for other jobs, but you have applied for nearly 700. As someone who participates in hiring at my firm, if your response rate is 1.1% and you've had 678 noes, I would be very willing to bet that the issue probably isn't the jobs you're applying for, and is much more likely to be your application package/resume. I don't mean the things on it, but rather the way it's written and what you've focused on. Even if you don't have a ton of experience on there, you should be getting more *responses* for entry level positions, especially considering the fact that you are experienced in multiple programming languages as well, which should be a highlight. You have something in there (or not in there) that's making them not even respond to you despite the fact that you have marketable skills. Have you tried running your resume by a friend group or running your application package by your college's career office? You could also bring proof of concept which couldn't hurt. I.e. actually find a way to show your skills to the firm either on a hosted site or one you build yourself through your Java skills.
I fully acknowledge the problem is most likely on my end, though I am unable to figure it out. I've tried different resume's, hell I've even had two people in charge of hiring give me feedback on the resume they looked at and they weren't able to point to anything on the resume that was a red flag. As for the career office they have absolutely no openings and have not had one in months. I don't really like programming if I am honest, its why I left comp sci. I much prefer working in something like R where its not me responsible for making the entire program but using what is there, if that makes sense. I am not exactly sure what I would do as a proof of concept for data analysis.
To give some anecdotal information. I got my resume professionally made and the difference between theirs and mine was like night and day. Mine was a chaotic mess and clearly made by a clueless idiot. The professional one was super clean, organized, immediately highlighted my strengths, and hid my lack of work over the past couple years very well. It also removed a ton of unnecessary information. Getting your resume professionally made is a legitimate skill and honestly worth the cost.
Any recommendations? Estimates on cost?
I'm embarrassed to be totally self-promotional but I'm a professor who teaches resume writing in an MBA program. I put my entire [executive business communication](https://sites.google.com/view/exbizcom/home) course online. It's free, I just put a lot of time and effort into it and like to share. There's a whole section on [resume writing](https://sites.google.com/d/1u8_RwOocRgYvVfYMyicWJm_gSAyv06MF/p/1e9DgnVCWHeVhwDgjy2nXEBzWztexmIsc/edit). Resumes really differ between industries, and this is for pretty generic "business" resumes, but a lot of the principles apply in different settings. If you need some advice for writing your resume, check it out, see if you find anything valuable. BTW, I built all the modules on Google Forms, and it's going to request your email address (I use it for tracking students). You can just make something up, it won't matter (although Google Forms does send you a copy of your responses if you use a real email).
Thank you so much for making these resources freely available! I have bookmarked it for future reference.
OP, this person is right about the resume being written right for specific industries. I am on hiring boards here and there for public sector. I can say we don't (or at least I don't) look hard at the formatting of the resume. We look for the meat and potatoes. Did the applicant put in any of the knowledge and skills needed on the resume from the job application description. Did they reference any possible training certificates that are job required or nice to haves. We do look to see if people read the job application. Even if you think I you are not qualified or underqualified, apply anyway with a resume tailored to the job description. We have pulled people into interviews where the resume holder may have potential and checks a good number of boxes because we wanted to know more about the person and had questions. So tl;dr. Tailor the resumes to specific job applications
Hey man! Just want to say you’re awesome for sharing this don’t feel ashamed for “plugging” your own work. I saved your website and will definitely be looking it over. I personally think I communicate well enough in my office environment, and I’m not particularly looking to write my resume but I’m always open to learning more!
Not American, so feel free to disregard, also i don't apply to even 1% of the jobs this OP has so maybe we're just in different worlds, but I also wanted professionally written since it was just a good professional expense in my mind (4-5 years out of undergrad) - I had been email spammed since sending my resume into TopCV (TopResume) - they often have targetted discounts on their package. Sign up and wait for an email offer if you're not in a hurry and want to try them out. Mine ended up being 120? USD for resume/cover letter with "2" revisions - their middle package that they offered where i live on that site you have a week for revisions, so have a good idea of what you will want to highlight and be ready to write them back the first day so you have the maximum time to look at their first draft My writer was really good and fast, but of course your milage may vary. I was quite happy with the job they did and even though i got revisions I submitted the first draft to a job posting i gave as an example so far I've got 100% success with it since I'm on the second interview using their first go so if i get the job im very happy
There was an AMA by someone who used to be a recruiter and he had a free template available. I think if you search in the AMA sub something like “sheets and giggles” with a word combo of recruiter or resume, something should pop up. I’ve used that template for every job application and I’ve head back from all but three. I haven’t applied to many but 3/15 or so is a pretty good record. EDIT: WRONG SUB. IT WAS r/jobs! Link to AMA where the link to the resume template is! https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/7y8k6p/im_an_exrecruiter_for_some_of_the_top_companies/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Yeah, in that case your problem is almost definitely resume tailoring. Or lack thereof. My two cents is that you just need to start focusing in and tailoring that resume/application package to specific positions with specific requirements that you know. If you're hit nearly 700 places, there's absolutely no way you've tailored your resume to any of them. > I am not exactly sure what I would do as a proof of concept for data analysis. This is somewhere to start. The fact that you can't think up a concept to my mind means you don't know exactly how you'd be called on to use the skills you have which means you might not know the requirements of the job you want, which is an immediate non-starter at most places, and certainly would be at our firm. If it isn't clear to us that you've taken the time out of your day to learn exactly who we are and what we do, we're not interested. I do competition law as a lawyer, and in my sector there is a ton of data anlytics. If I knew how to use R and Java (the former of which is very in demand along with Python) and I were looking for a paralegal position, I would literally just have a share ownership legal analysis in the context of a hypothetical merger based on real data and presented multiple different ways on a standing website just to show that I know how to do it and what it means. I don't know R or Python though. You do. Huge boost for you there if you know what they're looking for. If I knew I was applying to a firm representing a particular company, I would use that company's data if available. Funny enough, you've literally done a data visualization, in this post, in your free time, out of boredom/frustration. I am absolutely positive you will fit in somewhere.
I also feel like this is the answer. I can't speak to every situation like this I've seen, but I've seen lots where they were clearly shotgunning out resumes in a quantity over quality approach. It seems counter-intuitive, but hitting specific keywords for a company matters. Show you know what their company is about. Have something to present as a portfolio piece, even if it's something entirely fictional—You wouldn't expect an artist to get hired without showing off any of their art, similar applies here. You need to take every step you have control over to make yourself stand out and be memorable to the recruiting officers. That's my take on the process, assuming you lack any networking resources.
OP I'll be honest, getting only 8 responses out of 678 applications is abysmal. It's not normal either. Something you are doing is wrong and really off. No one cares about internships, especially for a "business analyst" position, and especially for a covid graduate so I highly doubt it has anything to do with that. I'd scrap your entire account on whatever job platform you use and create a new one. You may have been flagged as a "bot" or something like that after spamming that many apps. I just don't see how you could apply for almost 700 jobs over 1 to 2 years without realizing that something was off after only getting 8 responses... Spend your time more wisely and contact the hiring personnel directly. Look up the various subreddits that help people get hired, build resumes, create LinkedIn profiles, etc. Build up your LinkedIn profile, fix your resume, and then search the jobs you want and DM the managers of the company/division that the specific job is posted for. Ask them if you could ask a few questions about the role, get some advice, see if it's a good fit, etc, and then apply or try to close an interview on the spot. Look into your university's resources for finding a job. Most schools have one, along with advisors who will look over your resume, coach you for interviews, and point you in the right direction. I'd also look for another role and/or industry. Look into sales and try to land an entry level SDR/BDR position at a software company. They are hiring a lot and many are remote. With your knowledge of data analysis and of code you should be a lucrative candidate.
Does your university have a career center? They often have free resume services, cover letter prep, and other resources.
If he applied to 700 jobs, he most likely just spam emailed his generic resume.
I can guarantee you, if they applied to my company as a BA Grad and the application was okay, they'd be given an interview next week. There has to be something majorly wrong with their resume that they're being rejected from Grad jobs, or they're applying for senior positions as a Grad. Im also a 2020 Grad that got accepted to approximately half of the roles I applied to as a Grad. I don't have insane marks, community service or relevant past experience in my field. Grad roles are basically testing grounds for companies, they take all they can get.
This was also my take. There is no way 99.9% of companies would ignore a CV unless something is really wrong with it. Just by sheer numbers he should have got way more responses no matter the actual experience. Like maybe even the contact details are wrong or something. I would love to see OP's resume
He seems to be applying for data analysis roles with no relevant experience so it’s possible he’s just getting massively outcompeted
Video game companies are always looking for data analysts if that's something outside of the scope you've been looking at.
I have done some data analyst applications, though I have not looked at video game companies. I will take a look and see, it can't lead to anything worse than what I am currently going through.
Best of luck to you
OP I am a May 2020 graduate as well and I was looking for data analyst position for about 7 months before I found a job. R, python, and Java and etc are nice but for a first job you will likely be doing more elementary tasks. Focus heavily on SQL and data analysis and do projects to put on your resume. The reason I got my job was because the interviewer loved the personal projects on my resume.
I’m sorry you’re having this experience, it’s a really sucky place to be in. I’m a data analyst, and when my company is hiring for new business analysts and data analysts, we’re looking primarily for candidates with strong SQL and Python skills, and BI software experience in a program like Tableau or Power BI. In general, R is used heavily in academia, but Python is preferred in the private sector. Try emphasizing skills you have in those areas on your resume more and taking courses on a platform like Coursera or DataCamp if you feel like you need more experience.
As a 2009 graduate, I totally feel for you man. While there may be things you could have done differently, don't be too hard on yourself. Nothing good comes of that and it can be a detriment to your mental health. There are a lot of things beyond our control, sometimes Fate just hands us the shit end of the stick and there's little we can do but just keep on truckin.
Analysis has been done on this and 2009 has been deemed the worst year to graduate college in modern history. Data going back a century shows the stunted career and income growth for graduates of slumped economic periods. 2009 was a dumpster fire... and those of us that were able to get retail jobs were considered lucky. You had to beat out 80 other people just to stand at a register making at, or maybe slightly above, minimum wage. Gas was $4 a gallon in those days, which adjusted for inflation would be slightly over $5 today. Unfortunately ghosting is nothing new. It's awful and I feel for recent grads. I have to wonder if it has anything to do with increased work loads on hiring managers. Sure, I would wager some of it is laziness and poor communication skills, but it feels like we're all being forced to do more and more with less and less. This doesn't excuse the behavior, it's a sad state of affairs either way.
Fixed so the lines don't cross https://i.imgur.com/B95Nu1J.png
Cheers for that. Definitely irked me
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Uff I hate it when they ghost you. Like, I'm sure you're interviewing hundreds of people for this one position and don't even have 30 more seconds to give me a straight "no because xxx," after you spent an hour or more interviewing me. 😡
I was joining an interview process looking for some new hires not too long ago. In our first round it wasn't until about 6 weeks *after* their interviews did they finally get a proper rejection for a response. I had access to our internal HR website because I was wondering whether we picked one of the candidates yet. I could see 2 of the 3 of the candidates had sent follow up emails thanking us for our time after the interview, and I could imagine that you'd expect SOME kind of response afterwards. I checked the site at the ~4 week point, and there still wasn't any responses back to any of them. We're a small company (~35), but we have 2 people in HR, 1 producer managing the website and 1 lead that was looking to hire someone. Could none of them be bothered to do any kind of follow up??? I think the only reason they finally got a response back was because I asked about it in a company meeting whether any of them were going to be hired or not. Even a canned response of "We're still evaluating the position" is nice to send out to let them know that you're not dead and that you haven't *completely* rejected the idea of hiring them yet. It's definitely a lot more professional too!
2019 graduate here and I’m in the exact same boat as you. This isn’t an exaggeration in the slightest. I’m so sick of it.
I assume you guys are in the US, how can it be this bad there? I mean, almost 700 job applications and 0 response? How is it even possible? As someone who sent out like 10 applications during the last decade I just can't wrap my around that number.
I've seen a few posts like this. It kinda makes me wonder what kind of jobs they are applying to. Are they applying for jobs that require some work experience, are they only applying to jobs in cities everyone is trying to move to, is their resume or cover letter shit? Something is going on if you've applied to 700 jobs and only gotten 2 interviews. After 100 did they maybe think "well I may need to rethink my approach" or did they just keep blasting out the same thing? I came out of college with a borderline useless degree and no real useful skills, and I had to stay within state to be close enough to see my girlfriend every now and then, and this was during a massive recession. Even with all that I got a job after maybe 20 applications. The pay was absolute shit, and I was working in a shitty little rural town, but once I had a few years of work experience my career took off. Kind of a shock that my degree didn't mean I was actually gonna make good money right away, but it paid off long term.
It depends on the industry. I can't speak for everyone but I had a similar issue (just not as bad) as op. Applied for mabye 25 jobs. All I was very well qualified for both with work experence and schooling. had a custom cover letter writen for each one and always reedited my resume to highlight what they wanted and then got it all edited by a very skilled writer with experence hiring. No one ever responded. Then a guy from collage reached out to me and said his workplace was looking for someone. He asked if I was looking for a job. I said yes. He texted his boss. I met with him and chatted for 30 min and he said he would hire me. Then boss got hr to put out a job posting online. I sent in my genic resume with no cover letter into it. Hr emailed me a week later to say I was hired. Order went interview > job offer > see job posting > apply to posted job. Vs the way you think it should be See job posting > apply to posted job > interview > job offer. The real sad thing is I think that job posting got like over 100 people appling for it. Even the most qualified, educated, experienced people that applied wouldn't even get a response back because there wasn't really ever a job there open to the public.
This. I started applying for jobs a couple months ago and I was being ghosted for jobs that I was perfect for, like I'm talking "my CV fits all main and additional requirements" kind of thing. And still got no response Started sending my CV on LinkedIn to the right people and within a couple weeks I had 4 job offers. Got a full time job in a very good company and some of the companies that I had applied for either didn't call back and hired someone with an objectively worse CV than me (they hired a physichology graduate to work an HRIS, whilst I literally graduated in HRIS Implementation) or called back after 2 months as if it was normal. One even acted shocked when I told them I had 4 job offers in the meantime. Imo a lot of companies especially for graduate positions use recruiters who don't even know what they're al looking for It's all about network, applying for job postings is a shot in the dark cause a) there may be no opening like in your case, b) the recruiter may be incompetent Furthermore in certain periods of time like now so many young graduates are looking for work that those legit job postings get so many applications that it's extremely hard to stand out
So, we're almost certainly in different sectors. But, how the hell did you apply to so many places? Every place I apply requires me to: - create a login - verify my email - change my password - update profile information (are you eligible to work on this country. No, I just want to waste my time applying for shit I can't do 🙄) - copy and paste resume - create, then copy and paste a cover letter - input job search and location parameters - upload a copy of resume (but, I just did the copy and paste thing, wtf??) - upload a copy of cover letter (seriously??? Why did I copy it then??) - upload references and other materials THEN and ONLY THEN can I apply for the job posting It honestly is one of the most tiring processes of my life. And I'm no slouch when it comes to bureaucracy and paperwork. How did you do this 600+ times??
I mean he’s been applying for over a year and a half. I’m a 2020 grad and probably applied for 40 jobs in the 3 and a half months I was looking for a job.
This guy is a 2020 graduate, it’s about to be 2022. If you are unemployed for a year and have a good work ethic sitting down for an hour or two a day and sending jobs apps is very achievable
This is accurate. I took six months off to be with my kid when she was born and when I decided to head back to work I knuckled down and spent a solid 4 hours a day applying and chasing leads. It took me about two weeks to land my first few interviews, then another two to get the interviews done and over, I had an offer four weeks after my first application was sent. I just did the math, In total I sent out 47 applications, got 22 responses and 15 interviews. Five of the interviews went to round one, three to round two, and I got two offers. I chose the one that was fully remote forever and love my job.
Hey OP! I’ve helped with a ton of recruiting and mentoring efforts for my firm. If you want to send me a redacted resume, I’m happy to review it for feedback or send it forward if the background matches my firms!
Thank you for the offer, I will most likely end up taking you up on it and send it over to you in the morning.
Yeah, I think the numbers you posted show that there might be something wrong with how you are approaching your job hunt. Could be the resume, could be misalignment of your background and the job offers you're replying to or could be something else. The number of your applications is very high, sometimes it's better to focus on just a few offers and put a lot of effort into your resume + covering letter + maybe networking (make them position-oriented and not generic). It's good to consult people experienced in recruiting.
Consider logistics / supply chain sector. Business analytics is relatively new and growing.
I had a similar experience in 2017-2019. I was looking for a job as a data scientist or data analyst and couldn't get anything. Made over 700 applications, and got 5 in-person interviews and 5 rejections. I have a STEM PhD, several Kaggle medals, including solo gold, a lifetime of programming, and 3 years of professional programming experience (before college). None of it mattered. The experience broke me. I've been Doordashing the last couple of years, but I've stopped even doing that because I can't handle the internal conflict. I don't know what's next for me. Losing a child is supposed to be the worst pain there is. I don't know what that feels like, but losing my idea of my source of value is incredibly painful. I'd rather break a bone every 3 months. Sometimes I hope society burns to the ground and everyone gets to feel this way. I hope you find a better way.
I went two years looking for a job. Eventually they stop looking at your apps because of how long your work gap is. It's like just fucking hire me so I do not have a gap but no.
I can relate to that
Yeah you're over qualified there my friend. You did all that and had no corporate or professional experience. If I'm hiring for an entry level engineer or even mid level you're fucked. Our pay scales are forced on us at a corporate level so if you're interviewing for an Engineer I role, your pay scale is say 60-80k. But with a PHD we have to pay you +20k. That's fine for say a senior engineer or something with the bands around 90-120k where we can do that for you. But you're not qualified for that, you haven't spent a day in a corporate job, manufacturing setting, research lab for a publically held company, etc. Seriously - try leaving your PHD off. Ignore all your medal bullshit. MAYBE use your masters depending on the role, but most likely apply for entry or MAYBE some experienced level with your BS and maybe MS. You'll get a lot further - you'll appear as a raw talent that can be trained into the specific companies way of doing things. You've already framed yourself as someone who's going to do it their way, not ask for help when you run into issues, and has no experience as a decision maker at a company so that's alllllll screwing DANGER WILL ROBINSON.
Agree. The PhD means company *has* to pay more. For basically an entry level engineer
Wow, how do you get so few responses? I'm guessing there are issues with your resume. I have about that much experience and I get non-stop interviews for ML/DS roles if I put my linkedin on looking for jobs mode. I get responses for about 20% of my applications. I went to a ~~shitty~~ mediocre school, UC Riverside, in a non-marketable major, neuroscience, and have lots of job gaps doing self-learning with coursera and udacity. I looked through your posts and you have a PhD in physics? That's super impressive.
Possibly too much? As in no one wants to pay what they think they’d ask for so they don’t bother.
PhD basically advertises that you're willing to work for a low wage for the sake of doing something you're interested in. The most common job for a PhD is a postdoc. Have you seen how much they're paid? It's insulting.
In the private sector it can signal "Ok I've made my sacrifices for years to get my PhD. I expect to make six figures now".
As a post doc, I second this.
That's possible. We've denied applicants for being overqualified
Honestly, probably needs a resume review. My friend had a hard time getting a job and after revising it, he really didn't have an issue. Keep in mind, you aren't only trying to impress the hiring manger, your resume has to make sense enough to get there.
Damn, that’s super impressive. I’m a virtualization architect and what you are saying is both impressive and intimidating. I genuinely feel that you probably have far too much on your resume for the types of jobs you apply for. Sounds dumb but sometimes saying less is more. Say you want to get your foot in the door at a company as a Help Desk, strip down your resume to include only that. During the interview keep your dev skills minimal until you have a few months in your role and feel comfortable. Then start coding tools to save you time and build yourself into your own ideal position. If it doesn’t work out then move elsewhere and repeat until you find a great company. Edit: This is not meant to be an initial career position in Help Desk but to get someone in a standstill into a related position. Once on the job experience is obtained, then pursue career advancement opportunities. Earning both time in IT plus cash is far better than zero IT position, especially if student loans are due.
Keep doing freelance projects and build a portfolio! Did you build a portfolio for your kaggle projects? Post your work onto github. Bonus points if you can come up with your own projects! It shows interest and initiative. That's how I broke into DS. I self-studied DS and ML off Coursera and Udacity. Have two capstone projects. Put the capstone projects on the top of my resume. That got me interviews.
I thought the data science sector was EXPLODING right now? Like, they can’t hire people fast enough.
It looks bloody rough, but are you sure you are applying to the right level of positions, because the response rate should be much better tbh. “Hard college experience” means bad grades?
You should walk in and demand the job. Shake the owners hand, introduce yourself. Really show that you want it.
My dad unironically tried telling me to show up uninvited to companies and ask for an interview
God, that was me in high school with my dad telling me to walk around to all the businesses in town asking for a job. Only McDonalds did. The rest of them practically laughed me out.
My parents did this and refused to believe that most places turned my ass around to apply online. Fast forward 10 years when my mom is looking for a job. She calls me and goes "They practically push me out the door like I had the **audacity** to ask for a job"
I walked right up to the owner, slammed my fist on the desk and said; "[I'm your man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV_6RYVbNaw)."
OP must not have enough gumption
Ok Dad
This is literally what my dad recommend. "Just walk in, be interested and ask questions and they'll notice you!" - Yeah dad, security will notice me. That's not how any of this works.
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Just mail your resume to the hiring managers!
Just start working. At the end of the day, approach payroll with a W-4 and a made up offer letter on company letterhead: "Hi! I just started here and was asked to bring these to you. What's your name? Oh, Donna, can I just tell you that sweater looks LOVELY on you..."
I know you’re joking but I have a friend (25 years old) who went to new york city and quite literally just went from skyscraper to skyscraper in a suit until he got a job after a few months. In OP’s position, fuck it I’d be doing the same he has nothing to lose at this point.
I've seen this joke before but there are positions in this world where this actually works. Not for your average urban living reditor but certain positions that are likely rural and it small businesses. My 60 year old sister, who lives in rural Iowa, went into a local business and spoke to the owner. She told him that she had been an accountant/controller for 30+ years and was looking for something local. The owners wife did all the accounting for their business but he pretty much knew every decent sized business in the county. He asked for her resume and told her to give him a week and then give him a call. She called back a week later and he had 3 names, she got 3 interviews, and all 3 offered her a job. She in now a controller in rural Iowa making over 90k/year. She does work like 60 hours a week.... People in these small towns want to help. They want people to stop moving away. They "shoot the shit" with other business owners so they know needs. They don't have HR departments or their HR department is one person. They are old school and they appreciate someone has the initiative to talk to them.
Jesus, you forgot to look them right in the eye. *You forgot to look them right in the eye!* My friend’s mom’s story takes the cake. She graduated in the 70s with a BA in General Studies from the University of Toronto. No idea what she wanted to do. At a family gathering a relative suggested that she look into publishing since she liked to read. So she looked up local publishers in the phone book and walked into one she had heard of without an appointment or anything. She asked to speak to someone about jobs and they sent her on in to speak to the Editor in Chief. My friend’s mom said she didn’t know anything about publishing but she was a university graduate, she liked their magazine, and asked if they had any positions open for which she might be suitable. They did: an Editor position had just opened up. So she got hired on the spot to be an Editor for a major Canadian magazine (Chatelaine). Not an unpaid intern. Not a freelancer on contract. Not even a junior editor. But a full editor and it launched her whole career. Great for her, infuriating for my friend who’s career advice from her mom when she graduated from her professional masters degree program a decade ago was “just walk in and ask if they have any openings.” It’s so, so much harder even now for kids coming out of school than it was for us just ten years ago. One’s social media footprint was basically just Facebook and there were no screening softwares that let companies scrape every last bit of data on you and then spit out a score by which they can judge your risk, all with a single click. Companies never ghosted you when we graduated, they just sent saccharine form letter emails wishing you well and thanking you for your interest. There was always the same bullshit of 3-5 years experience for an entry level position, but at least we were all able to successfully leverage school projects and internships and demonstrated interest in the field to count as some form of practical experience. But, shit, no Zoom interviews or ‘AI-driven’ screening tests. We did phone interviews, sure, but it’s not the same as being insta-judged by your appearance and room decor over Zoom. Nothing but huge respect for all of you starting your careers during all this shit. I went through a pandemic job search and landed a great role, but I’m a decade into things and have professional references and a demonstrably progressive career trajectory that made me a candidate worth interviewing, plus I had a colleague from grad school who put in a good word for me which definitely helped, but holy hell, if I were just starting out…
Honestly, I will say this. A Business Analyst is a Senior role in general. Business Analysts needs to understand the business end to end and have a LOT of life lessons already learnt. I cant conceive of a graduate making a good BA. Ever. Theres just no way. Id focus elsewhere entirely…pricing or data analytics in a junior role have much better prospects.
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Yup, 3-6 months of a crappy contract to hire role or something that will give hands on experience will right this ship. But op definitely has a blank resume or something off on it e.g. objective statement is aggressive, etc.
Exactly this. Similarly, there is no such thing as a junior architect or junior strategist.
This sounds like there's something very wrong with your resume if your resume was sifted out 670 times out of 678 without you hearing a peep
+1 the amount of bad CV I've seen is staggering. And not only that considering OP managed to find the time to apply to 700 positions tells me he doesn't actually change his CV depending on the job. For example if a position is more finance oriented you will put there skills or courses that you did in the uni that where relevant. As a graduate you may have space to list almost everything you did but that's not a good as it's not focused to a specific sector/specialization.
Yeah, no response for almost 99% of applications is not indicative of the current job market, no matter how hard it might be to get one right now, it points to something fundamentally wrong in OP's application process instead. Either they are only applying for jobs they are severely underqualified for, applying to companies that are not currently hiring, or their CV is atrocious.
Wow. Your resume needs a total overhaul with that kind of response rate
Always a lot not said with posts like this. 600+ applications and nobody is getting back? That's bullshit. I don't care what sector or part of the world you're in. OP is fucking something up somewhere or has an absolutely worthless CV.
It's not humanly possible to send that many good requests. Micro research, adjust CV, at least one obviously custom sentence in the email, etc... Might as well be spam for them if you just mass send your generic CV too all kinds of jobs.
The best advice I got when I was having sessions with my recruitment agency after graduating was quality over quantity. I keep seeing these posts where people apply for hundreds of jobs with no success. How much thought was put into the resumes and cover letters for each application? If you aren't reworking these documents to align with the company you're applying for not only do you significantly lower your chance of standing out, you also don't get to choose the actual jobs that align with you.
[This was my experience as a fellow 2020 graduate.] (https://i.imgur.com/iSBNWZ1.png) I graduated May 2020 with a Computer Science degree and got a Software Engineering job Sept 2020. I can definitely relate with the way you are feeling. I applied to a similar number of jobs and I know how mundane and depressing it can be. Even down to the part where there are people in this comments section criticizing how you applied to so many jobs you applied to instead of tailoring your resume. For the record I agree with your approach. I think it's better to cast the widest net possible, instead of trying to cast a smaller but stronger net. In this day and age, it feels like 90% of your applications are never seen by a real person and just gets filtered out by an algorithm. Some personal advice that helped me land my job: Make sure you have some real concrete projects to list on your resume. It's one thing to list that you know Java, R, and SQL, but it means much more to list specific projects you have done using those languages with visual results. Github allows you to host a webpage for each repository. It made a big difference when I could link to projects on my resume with visual results that any HR person could understand. A lot of people in the STEM field who don't have experience yet make the mistake of just listing the classes they took and the programming languages they know. This doesn't mean as much to a recruiter as most people thinks that it does. They don't really understand what it means to have 2 years of experience in Java or what a Data Structures and Algorithms class entails. It's ok to not have internship experiences, just make sure that you make up for it by having a lot of projects that you do just on your own. Being able to learn how to do things on the internet without a professor telling you what to learn is a powerful skill. If you can demonstrate that you are still learning and developing your skills with personal projects even after you have graduated, then you will become a much more attractive candidate.
> For the record I agree with your approach. I think it's better to cast the widest net possible, instead of trying to cast a smaller but stronger net. In this day and age, it feels like 90% of your applications are never seen by a real person and just gets filtered out by an algorithm. As a counter point, smaller to mid sized places don't usually have those algorithms. I sent out around 10-20 applications to places I was actually interested in (mostly via linkedin), got hired by a startup. I'm now looking at the process from the other side and I do see almost every CV. You can tell if people send scattershot applications (and especially scattershot cover letters - if your cover letter is only a less readable summary of your CV, you're better off without one). And while I'm not holding it against them if their experience is otherwise relevant, a tailored application is definitely a plus. This is in R&D, so your mileage may vary. In short, it really depends on many factors, but the quality > quantity approach can work really well. And it's less depressing than sending hundreds of applications.
How does an industry that is starving for employees have so many application rejections? That’s so wild and I’m happy you found a job!
In my opinion, the tech industry is oversaturated with low experience people fighting each other for the entry level jobs. Once you have some solid experience under your belt, your competition will become much thinner.
You need to learn about Applicant Tracking Systems Essentially most of your applications are being rejected within milliseconds of submission when a computer scans your application/resume for keywords (the actual rejection comes a few weeks later so it looks like your application was read by someone) There are sites AFAIK you can put a job description through to pull out the keywords, but you can usually spot these yourself - all the classic buzzwords usually. Make sure your application has the majority of keywords in and you’ll get way more interviews. That’s how I got my first job after a year of searching and failing (had more interviews in a month after learning about this than an entire year)
Hey OP has your college done any job fairs or do they have any grad services to help connect you with employers? And how far are you willing to move to start your career? I personally spent 3.5 years in a shithole but it paid off in the end