So according to this article, most jobs aren't posted and most jobs are filled through referrals. Even if you somehow make it through the arbitrary automated tracking system gatekeeper you're still really unlikely to get the job from a random application. Any hiring managers here that can share if this matches their experience?
As a department head I've hired almost 100 people over the last 12 months (We are growing very fast at the moment). The majority of these are applications that come in through a normal application, although I'm not sure how many resumes never make it past recruiting.
Next to this, we have grown the team by moving over employees from other departments asking for internal transfers, these have about the same success rate as external applicants.
And then there are referrals from people who already work in the department (can be for people who already work for the company). The success rate on these candidates is indeed higher. I think this is because the person referring them has already thought about whether the person referred is a fit or not. We give them the same interview process, and don't always tell the interviewer that the candidate is a referral.
That said, I see 3 things that might push the reality closer to what you said "most jobs are filled through referrals".:
1. If you're hiring only a few people, the statistics will probably bias towards referrals. It is easy to get a few referrals for a specific position if you need them.
2. Referrals might end up on the desk of the hiring manager earlier (e.g. from employee to hiring manager) compared to an official application (webform to recruiting to manager). Sometimes we can close a position before the first resumes from recruiting even land on my desk.
3. As jobs get more senior, a hiring mistake becomes more expensive, and in that sense hiring a strong referral is on average going to reduce this risk. So, for higher level jobs I think indeed that many are filled through networking or targeted reach-outs rather than open applications.
From my experience at startups, I feel like causality is backwards here. We get very few leads through our website compared to referrals and recruiters, so naturally most of our hires don't come through cold website leads. Its not like we get thousands of website resume submissions that we then just ignore. I do think referrals (including from a good recruiter) are likely to have a higher quality since they are pre-vetted a bit, but I'm more than happy to hire direct and save $20,000+ in recruiter fees.
I saw a post the other day where a guy set up a fake job posting on craigslist. He got hundreds of applications and around 40% even had master's degrees. Like 5% were self-taught. If each job posting gets potentially thousands of resumes, you really need to stand out and the easiest way is to know someone.
Banks hire knowledge workers/creative types/snowflakes.
In fact, they hire the absolute best-credentialed and most-experienced in the market. Our receptionists, mail and facilities staff at minimum had a Masters degree, went to a Tier 1 school and did something very interesting/exceptional with their off-time.
They just try to turn them into drones via compensation schemes and internal politics.
its really hard to apply to a large number of non-tech companies though. they make you go through sign up processes, ask you to fill out everything you already put on your resume, etc.
And people wonder why the hiring process is so broken. Of course recruiters and HR departments need to treat every application/resume like crap... Except yours. Because you're a unique snowflake and they can easily discern your application from this guy's spam...
(And I fully expect commission-renumerated recruiters are doing this pro-actively without even having any candidates yet to get ever-so-slightly-warmer intros than their cow orkers...)
Good article! I've found out while working for the career center at a major university in the US that one should spend 80% of their job-searching energy in networking vs 20% applying. Even though applications are part of the process and personalized cover letters and thank you notes take up a lot of time, the odds are definitely in favor of those who make an effort to connect with the right people, who show genuine interest in their experience and learn as much as possible about the opportunities they pursue. Keeping a good relationship with former coworkers and employers is another great way to keep a healthy network. You never know where the next job or project will come from.
You can kind of think about it probabilistically: good jobs should be filled quickly because they're desirable (and they should be reasonably effective at attracting good talent to fill them)
Good candidates should get offers quickly.
Thus, the best way to get a good job is to be there the moment it's posted (or even better, before)
There are good jobs for every individual at every stage of their life. Are they all the same?
Some like shit for salary while getting the thrill of being a cofounder, some may like a flashy brand and half the comp in stock, others might prefer a lesser brand but more cash. There are also boring 9-5 jobs that leave tons of time to be with the family. Which one is a "good job"?
I was disappointed with the direction this article took - when he said he built a robot to send personalized applications I was hoping it would be reading the requirements and then sending personalized resumes and cover letters specifically built to get past the robot stage, but then waste the recruiter's time to show how stupid the automated system is and how easy it is to game... Something like that anti-spam bot that was posted here a few months ago...
Does anyone have experience with job marketplaces? I don't mean the mainstream ones, but ones like Stackoverflow jobs or Github jobs. Do they get closer to solving the problem of resume blackholes?
I think this data is interesting, like the author, I would have assumed some difference between the version that effectively said "written by a bot" and the other one. On the other hand, the conclusions are identical to what Richard Bolles [1] has been telling job seekers for the last 47 years. If you've never read this book, you really should, I remember when I first read it and realized "Oh, THESE are the actual rules of how to get a job, no wonder my job application success rate is so dismal"
[1] http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/537247/what-color-is...
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