Responses (or lack of)

Dakta

Hi Fellas, posting this for a bit of fun and to get some opinions really when it comes to jobseeking.

I'm self employed, but I do occasionally seek work due to pits and drops in workload, and I've been thinking of a bit of a career change so took some courses and have been looking for an etrypoint into a new field potentially.

But one thing I've noticed, not recently but over the years is just how few companies ever actually get back to you.

It's a very competitive environment, so I was expecting like a heap of 'sorry we think you are unsuitable' generic letters, is keeping prospective clients up to date not fashionable anymore?

At first I thought I was tetchy, but then looked at the statistics, I've nearly 60 applications 'still potentially open' from when i first started keeping saved copies of my cv's for each app starting from a few years ago, I have 2 (two) roles which I got a response for, one was a generic no thank you, the other response I got the job.

I'm just thinking it's a bit disheartening, because as a potential applicant you do a lot of homework on a company, review your cv, customise it, prepare a fresh cover letter and to be frank, you invest some time in offering a company what might be some talent that not only gets you a wage but on the opposite hand should also really help the business go forward, it very much is a mutual gain, or it should be. But your time is invested and you've put something into it.

Not saying you should get it, but surely some knowledge of whether you got it? It seems a bit of an epidemic of silence.

Anyway I'm just posting this for fun really, to see if I'm the only one and see what people think. Maybe my CV is just awful and nobody dares tell me :rotfl:

But on the other hand, their ability to be professional with me as an applicant is no different than as a potential customer, so those that don't communicate do go down in my estimation a bit.

thoughts on a postcard?

Neil_Jones

If the positions are agency work its usually because they get swamped with applications for vacancies and its far quicker and cheaper for them to just respond to the successful ones. A lot of the applications can be because of the pressure of the jobcentre to apply a scattergun approach and hope something hits, and some of those won't be suitable.

As a general rule if there is no reply after, say, three weeks its usually safe to assume you weren't successful.

[Deleted User]

It's a mixed hand.

While it is said there is a job boom, a recruitment agent told me today not enough people had applied to a Telesales job to give their client choice! The company want to continue advertise and seeing new interview candidates well over a month on after initially advertising. (I was getting a bit fed up of the agent despite knowing they had already set one interview up and then knowingly trying to send me to others, they could not see the problem) if recruitment agents are now doing mass applications and this is acceptable then I actually deeply think things are changing.

When recruiters/companies take so long to appointment and mule it over, I guess they don't have the risk of even replying to anyone.

elsien

It's now normal not to send thanks but no thanks letters.

In my last company we stopped sending them because a fair few applicants were clearly just making up the numbers of applications to keep DWP happy and had no interest in the job whatsoever.

If you then add in the people who accept interviews but don't bother turning up or letting you know and those that ask you to rearrange the date but still don't turn up, I got quite cynical after a while.

On the other hand, when I was job hunting and not getting a response it didn't bother me so much because I'd seen it from both sides. Just how things seem to be nowadays.

Wyndham

Hi Fellas? Really?

Dakta

Thanks for the responses thus far.

I'm lucky because I can work for myself, but looking back to before being self employed when I threw a lot of applications out there (I still casually search when workload is low) I can't actually beleive how little feedback you get,

I think a lot of it does stem from agencies, obviously in some cases they are just their to fill positions and the pleasantries of dealing with people proper get pushed aside to 'getting the job done'.

Looking at my own stats, it really must be quite bleak for people looking for a job and not even getting any kind of response even though they might have put tens of hours into it. I've been thinking of having another look about to see whats out there but you sort of know it's 20 hours you can throw down the drain for not a single acknowledgement. Bit poor really no individual to blame just society where peoples time isn't of value

It's not always agencies or small key jobs though, i once applied to quite a high end job in the trasnport sector, I had to sit tests, a management assessment, medical and finally a major interview that one had to cross the country to get to. Not a problem but weeks went by and despite being apprehensive about pushing for an outcome I eventually chased it up to find i'd missed the opportunity but had 'done really well'

The missed opportunity is obviously sore (or was at the time), but it's life. But you could have waited forever and that really does seem the norm these days.

Dakta

elsien wrote: »

It's now normal not to send thanks but no thanks letters.

In my last company we stopped sending them because a fair few applicants were clearly just making up the numbers of applications to keep DWP happy and had no interest in the job whatsoever.

If you then add in the people who accept interviews but don't bother turning up or letting you know and those that ask you to rearrange the date but still don't turn up, I got quite cynical after a while.

On the other hand, when I was job hunting and not getting a response it didn't bother me so much because I'd seen it from both sides. Just how things seem to be nowadays.

Hi thanks for that post. Putting the shoe on the other foot it must be a bit of a put off when people don't show and you've given up time for an applicant. I can understand that and whether applicant or recruiter you would expect people to just communicate or whatnot.

I know I'm talking very much tongue in cheek 'ideal world, never happen' but the scale of it is actually, on reflection quite large

jonnygee2

Problem is, when you start sending 'thanks but no thanks' emails, people start replying to them (can I have some feedback? Is it because of my Visa? What else is coming up? etc). You can end up with hundreds of concurrent conversations that take up all of your time. Not replying is safer.

Appreciate that it's not great for external communication. Applicants are often also customers or work at related businesses. Tricky, but I still sympathise with those who choose the silence approach.

theoretica

jonnygee2 wrote: »

Problem is, when you start sending 'thanks but no thanks' emails, people start replying to them (can I have some feedback? Is it because of my Visa? What else is coming up? etc). You can end up with hundreds of concurrent conversations that take up all of your time. Not replying is safer.

My work has an outgoing only email address it uses for such things.

MovingForwards

It does get disheartening not getting a thanks but no thanks.

Two roles I applied for directly, entered into email dialogue, discussing salary expectations etc, still continued to email me, then dropped off the face of the earth; I saw the latest one had readvertised the role. That I thought was rude.

I'm finding agencies no longer say you haven't been picked for an interview, even those I get on really well with and are sole trader agencies!

You just have to keep plugging away and wait for the fish to bite.

Dakta

jonnygee2 wrote: »

Problem is, when you start sending 'thanks but no thanks' emails, people start replying to them (can I have some feedback? Is it because of my Visa? What else is coming up? etc). You can end up with hundreds of concurrent conversations that take up all of your time. Not replying is safer.

Appreciate that it's not great for external communication. Applicants are often also customers or work at related businesses. Tricky, but I still sympathise with those who choose the silence approach.

I read your post and it made a lot of sense, thanks

I did re-read it though, and thought a lot of the questions in bold, actually don't seem that unreasonable. Surely a HR department, as a part of functioning as a HR department, be able to handle requests for feedback (ort if feedback is too much, how about just notification of a decision)?

I totally agree with your core point the workload may be too much (depends on the company I guess) but I don't know if radio silence when it comes to role decisions is that productive, it puts the onus on the candidate to decide whether to push for a confirmed answer (wastes candidate time in an attempt to save company time which gets lost if you presumably get an answer to the 'chase up' anyway).

Don't get me wrong, I do agree that if people try and get into an extended dialogue rather than accept a decision once known it can be drawn out and wasteful, a similar thing happens to me a lot in my current work and I find myself putting hours into helping people who aren't even considering being a customer but think we're some kind of advice line

Which at times can make replying to enquiries that you know are going to lead nowhere seem not very appealing, but then you have to kick oneself up the !!!! and remember its ones job