Just been told by recruiting agency my CV is not a match?

bstu123

Hi All,

I applied for a job and recieved an email saying there is not a sufficient enough match for us to take your application further. I thought my CV was bang on but I now wonder what I will have to do to gain success.

Can anyone tell me how a recruiting agency matches CV's to the advertised job? do they perform a quick scan of the CV ( a search tool) or something?

Regards,

Brian.

WeakHeart

I'm sure there'll be others who can help more about how agencies work but a friend told me the other day that her sister gets lots of CVs and matches fast. Literally has a list of skills and competencies on one side and the CVs on the other and whisks through them to look for matches. Then takes the matched CVs and looks further into experiences etc.

Another friend said that in the past he seemed to get to interview stage fairly easily with an 80% matched CV but this time round it seemed he got nowhere unless the match was more like 95%+.

When I've recruited I've done similar depending on the response to the ads. I always at least skim read each CV but then formed a shortlist by checking matches against my essential criteria first, then shortlist further by matching further with desirable, noting actual experience etc.

You could always try contacting the agency to get more specific information about your own case?

Raksha

I got a reply from one agency saying I didn't have enough Accounting skills for them to place me (it was a specialist accounting agency), however, another branch of the same agency had just placed me in a perm position and I'm still there 18 months later........

Apolonation

If I was you I would market yourself directly to employers, walk about hand in your CV's - post them to larger company HR depts you might want to work for. Do you know anyone that works? Ask them if they know of any jobs going, and give them your CV to hand in at their place of work, that might be worth doing.

Re CV I think you get most success if you write it new for each position you apply for, read the job description and tailor it to exactly what they are looking for. CV's don't give you much space to sell yourself so every word needs to count. If you are unemployed there are some referals that will help you with your CV paid by the Jobcentre - it might be worth asking them.

Also some jobs don't require CV's - in fact a fair few don't these days, e.g. DWP jobs are all competency based so any jobs you see on DWP.GOV.UK for instance you could just apply to online. (Unless professional jobs which I think would need a CV - i.e. 40k+ a year).

I've had no direct experience with agencies myself but from the bits I've gathered reading others stories on these boards, I wouldn't be using them as my main focus for job searching. Good that you have them as a bow to your string though - but might be worth getting more active with employers directly?

Good luck !!!!

Raksha

Apolonation - how many people do you know who've actually got a job by pounding the pavements as you so often suggest?

dickydonkin

Apolonation wrote: »

If I was you I would market yourself directly to employers, walk about hand in your CV's - post them to larger company HR depts you might want to work for. Do you know anyone that works? Ask them if they know of any jobs going, and give them your CV to hand in at their place of work, that might be worth doing.

Re CV I think you get most success if you write it new for each position you apply for, read the job description and tailor it to exactly what they are looking for. CV's don't give you much space to sell yourself so every word needs to count. If you are unemployed there are some referals that will help you with your CV paid by the Jobcentre - it might be worth asking them.

Also some jobs don't require CV's - in fact a fair few don't these days, e.g. DWP jobs are all competency based so any jobs you see on DWP.GOV.UK for instance you could just apply to online. (Unless professional jobs which I think would need a CV - i.e. 40k+ a year).

I've had no direct experience with agencies myself but from the bits I've gathered reading others stories on these boards, I wouldn't be using them as my main focus for job searching. Good that you have them as a bow to your string though - but might be worth getting more active with employers directly?

Good luck !!!!

I have to agree here. My experiences of recruitment agencies are generally negative as I have had some awful experiences.

For example, given the wrong location for interview which I ended up missing, being telephoned to inform me that I had been selected for interview and I would be informed at a later date of the time - which did not happen.....I can go on..... I just hate using agencies.

Unfortunately, the reality is that many companies use recruitment agencies and most applications for jobs today are through such organisations.

Proc

Raksha wrote: »

Apolonation - how many people do you know who've actually got a job by pounding the pavements as you so often suggest?

I got my first ever job this way. And my second.

In the last week alone I've taken on 3 new-starters. Only 1 came from an agency - the other 2 approached me directly.

Armchair CV shooters show less desire, drive, confidence & determination than people who actually get off their backsides to go out and talk to recruiting managers.

Hermia

bstu123 wrote: »

Hi All,

I applied for a job and recieved an email saying there is not a sufficient enough match for us to take your application further. I thought my CV was bang on but I now wonder what I will have to do to gain success.

It could be that they just have too many applicants rather than it being your CV at fault. A lot of people have lost their jobs in my profession over the last year. We advertised a job recently and a lot of the people applying not only had every "essential" and "desirable" from the job description they also had a lot more. A lot of people were therefore rejected who fir the job description and would have been strong candidates in a normal economic situation.

It's always worth getting someone to look over your CV though.

bstu123 wrote: »

Can anyone tell me how a recruiting agency matches CV's to the advertised job? do they perform a quick scan of the CV ( a search tool) or something?

Regards,

Brian.

I briefly worked in a recruitment agency (one that was just for my profession, not a general one. I don't know if they do anything different). We used to scan through each CV to see how well it matched the job description. Then we would take the shortlisted CVs and read them in more detail.

Nixer

Raksha: I've got all my jobs by on spec applications (I didn't pound pavements, I googled companies in my line of work and did on spec applications). I'd be interested to know how many people you know who got their job through an agency. In my line of work (software development) most of the agencies I have dealt with have been atrocious.

WhiteHorse

Staff turnover in recruitment agencies is very high.

This may give you a clue.

Apolonation

Raksha wrote: »

Apolonation - how many people do you know who've actually got a job by pounding the pavements as you so often suggest?

I got my current job doing just that fwiw and I've since been promoted so it's now the highest paid job I have had to date, so it does work. Also I think others have suggested much the same.

As they say the definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I was just trying to suggest a few new ideas OP might like to try