23 Applicants per Job

6166lesley

I have just read a report in the Daily Mail saying that there is an average of 23 people going for a vacany and over 40 per customer services vacany,

I lost my job last Wednesday (with gardening leave for a month) so was wondering if you had any ideas in which I could stand out from the crowd on the CV application front?

DCFC79

Spelling is correct 100%
CV is laid out correctly or in a way so it flows
Make sure contact details are correct
Dont tell porkies

As mummytofour says blank market your cv to firms local to you

mummytofour

You are kidding yourself if you think it is only 23. There were over 80 for my job which I started in August. My friend went for an interview for an admin job and they had over 200 apply. A couple of ppl I know run their own businesses and have recently employed people who sent in a cv on the off chance, so perhaps that is an idea?

dandelionclock30

The majority of jobs I've gone for have had around 100 applicants.My friends department at a University advertised for an admin assistant and recieved 300+ applications.Some of these were from people who had PHD's.
Also it was in the paper the other day that DFS-the sofa shop advertised for 11 shopworkers and recieved 2000 applications.
I think networking is a good idea, if you know people who have their own company ask them to keep you in mind.
A lot of council jobs are taken anyway and they just advertise because they have to.I believe also that agencies are compulsive liars.

Realbairn

I'd love to know where they get their figures from. I've applied for jobs not that long ago and they've said in excess of 400 people applied for 1 job.

6166lesley

Thanks all = I think the estimate is low as well as the i/view i previously went for, people said over 100 applicants!! oh well, have to make sure that I stand out some way or other

TeaCake

If you see a job, apply to it there and then. Many jobs stop accepting applications after a certain number have applied. I missed out on applying to a supermarket position because of this, a new 'local' store opening, 25+ roles available at midnight the night before, no positions available to apply for at 10am the next day.

Dont think its you when you dont get rejection letters, ive applied to near 500 positions of all kinds since August and only received a dozen or so rejection letters.

Send your CV to all firms in your job area within the travel distance your willing to travel with a personalised cover letter, see if you can get a name (ie addressed to Mrs Smith, Head of Personnel rather than Dear Sir/Madam)

Good luck with your job search

dawyldthing

networking is a big thing. When you send off applications, e-mail and phone the person who is dealing with it so your are fresh on their mind when they receive your application.

If sent for interview - drop everything to go to it, cos if you try and rearrange it you'll have no chance

dress smart and be on time - shake their hands and find out who is who

ask questions that are related to the job - and be armed with facts about the job and the company

send off speculative e-mails but to specific places

ask on facebook if friends know of places recruiting

tell the truth, be honest about any gaps

mention any courses that are relevant and sell yourself - think of a car showroom - you have to stand out

TrickyWicky

23? - Seriously where the hell is that cos I'll move there - it's an improvement on this area.

4 years ago I rang about a job that had been advertised at 9am that morning. It was about 12:30 and he said he'd had over 300 phone calls and had no application forms left to send. That was before the country ran into the ground.

heretolearn_2

It's true there are lots of applicants for every job. However, whenever we've advertised a vacancy most of the applicants are ruled out within a few seconds as

1) Not having the right experience/qualifications mentioned in the ad (so even if they have those skills, they haven't bothered to tell us about them, but most just don't even come close

2) CV and letter full of spelling/grammar mistakes.

So if you apply for the right vacancies and put a bit of effort in, you have a good chance

MattLFC

I think people are missing the point here... of course there is often more than 23 people applying for the same job. Recently, we recruited a PA, and within 3 days, we had 40 applications. We pulled the job a week early because we ended up with over 200 applications in just under 2 weeks (one of the joys of giving the option of email for applications I guess). There wasnt actually more than about 30 with the relevant skills and experience to do the job, from looking at the CV's, but there was still over 200 applications.

However, of the 200 that applied to our job advert, I'd hazard a guess most of them applied for a few other jobs in the same week, in fact a great deal of them had probably applied for countless jobs in the same week.

The figure of 23, will be arrived at, say there is 2.3million people currently counted as "unemployed" (I know the true figure is higher than this), then that means there will be ~1million jobs currently advertised/available, hence there is 23 people for every available job.

There will be a lot of people (those happy to sit on the dole for example) who don't even apply for one job. But there is also a lot of people who apply for more than one job - hence the figure of 23 seeming rather inaccurate in the real world.

In addition, it's also a nationwide figure, so in some area's of the country, there may be statistically 4 enemployed people for every available job, and in others there may be statistically 40 unemployed people for every available job.