Interview Stage

newbieni

Hi All,

I am currently facing redundancy and have been applying for new roles. It's not proving easy getting through to the interview stage and I wondered are potential employers reducing the number of people they interview and are there any industry standards? For example would one role usually result in a shortlist of 10 people for interview?

Thanks in advance.

Lomast

A lot will depend on the role and size of employer. I work in food production engineering and we would normally expect 3-5 interviews per role.

Bear in mind each interview ties up 2-3 people for around 2 hours.

LinLui

In the public sector, and we would normally have a maximum of 5. There would only be more (maybe 7-10) if there were 3 or more positions to fill. The last time I was in that position the interview process, including shortlisting and feedback, was a full week. 

But I think you may be asking the wrong question. The question isn't how many people are being interviewed, but why aren't you one of them? If you are consistently not getting interviews, then I'd ask two questions:
Are you applying for jobs that there is a good reason you are unlikley to get?
If that isn't the case, why isn't your application screaming "you must interview me, I'd be brilliant" at shortlisting? Because when we shortlist, that is the quality of evidence we are looking to have explained to us.

Soot2006

In my previous workplace, first round interview (online), we would have up to 5. Second round would be 2 or sometimes - rarely - 3.

I was made redundant in February, and I found it hard to get interviews at first, partly because I loved the job I was losing and I didn't really WANT another one. I wanted MY job back. But once the new reality set in, I became better at applying. In the end, I got an interview, on average, for every 6 applications. I did three interviews in the end and withdrew from one. I think what changed was the tone of my application, which to start felt a bit "sure I can do this job and I need a job so please give me this job" but then morphed to "omg this job sounds amazing and even if I had not lost my beloved job I would be considering a change to apply for your wonderful position ".

amanda1024

Public sector here - we’d usually interview up to 5 people, unless there were multiple vacancies to fill. Would agree with other comments that written applications really need to stand out to be successful at sift - make it easy for the recruiter to see how your skills and experience tick all their boxes

DullGreyGuy

As others have said, it will depend on the nature of the role being hired for, how picky they are going to be and how many vacancies there are. 

In my line of work some people are much better at writing CVs than they are at doing the job so normally interview 3-5 candidates for a vacancy. Can sometimes need to expand from the initial list if they dont hit the mark. Sometimes requirements are very specific (eg need experience of a particular software) and so there aren't even 3 candidates to interview. 

Back in my call centre days we would typically be hiring in blocks of 5 or so vacancies and there you'd interview maybe 8-10 candidates not the 50 the OP was suggesting. In one call centre the turnover was so high recruitment was every fortnight and so sometimes you could knock a couple of vacancies off by offering to the near misses from the previous round. It was also helped by having three entry points - sounds professional/confident etc you went to New Customers, a good enough person went to Sales and someone who turned up on time and didnt swear was offered Courier Enquiries.