Stop me if this sounds familiar.
You are in the job market and have been applying to every position that you think might be a fit. You are going through each application process, page by page. It is time-consuming and annoying to continuously answer the same types of questions. You are being careful to accurately depict your experience in the “correct/desired” format and uploading resumes and cover letters, when appropriate. (As an avid reader of this blog, you know when a cover letter is a must and when it is just a waste of time.) If not, read this article:
After you do the math, you realize you have applied, on average, to 10 to 15 roles a week for the past month and have not received one call back on your application. To make matters worse, you track the jobs you have applied to, and they are either still active, which gives you hope. The sad part is the companies who have removed their posting never contacted you to either tell you your application was received, or the position had been filled. If this story sounds familiar, you are going to want to keep reading as it will help you get a higher response rate to your “cold calling” or the “spraying and praying” method you have been following with your resume.
There are many articles out there about how resumes get to the recruiter’s desk. Keywords search, AI, algorithms, and knockout questions to name a few, but I couldn’t find one article out there which will give you better results with callbacks.
The following steps, when taken by the candidate, catapulted their profile ahead of the hundreds of others who had applied, and I would always send them a note letting them know their status. Now, I can’t promise you all recruiters will respond to you the way I did to them, but I can promise you this, if you follow the below steps, you will have a much higher success rate in getting a response to your applications and resume submissions.
Step One: Know the age of the requisition.
This is important. This will usually let you know if there are hundreds of people in front of you, who have already applied, or if you are one of the first. This information is not always available, but on many career sites, there will be a “number of days” since the job was posted somewhere on the page. For example, on Indeed.com, it is located at the bottom of the job description. It will say something like “20 days ago.” This means the company posted the job 20 days ago. Depending on how unique your skills are, this information could be critical. If the job is 20 days old, and you are an administrator, chances are there are already over five hundred applicants in the company’s applicant tracking system. If that is the case, honestly, chances are the recruiter is never going to see your resume, because they probably already selected a candidate or two they are going to be interviewing. Unless those don’t work out, they are probably not going back to the “well” of new applicants. Spending time and effort on older job postings will usually yield a very low response rate.
Step Two: Do your research.
If you are actively looking for a job, you should be checking the job boards you monitor on a daily basis. This will guarantee you are catching the job postings within the first two days.
After finding a role you are interested in, your next step should be to visit LinkedIn and see who works with that company. Do you have any connections that are one degree of separation away from you inside the organization? (The closer your contact is to HR or the department to which you are applying for an opportunity the better.) If so, make note of them and then apply to the job.
Immediately after applying to the role, reach out to each person you made not of, and are connected to on Linked with a message.
If your contact is in HR, your message should read something like this,
“Hi Joe,
This morning I applied to the “Associate Specialist, Procurement (Job Number: 10817460)” at your company. I am not sure if you are the person over this requisition, but I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss this role further with the correct person. I feel my experience is a strong match for this position and would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment and give me your thoughts on my qualifications.
Best Regards,
Tony”
If your contact is not in HR, your message should look something like this,
“Hi Joe,
This morning I applied to the “Associate Specialist, Procurement (Job Number: 10817460)” at your company. I see you are the head of Procurement, and while I understand HR is probably handling this search for you, I would appreciate your expert opinion on my qualifications. If you could take a moment and review my resume, which is attached and give me your thoughts, I would be tremendously grateful as your company has been on my radar for some time, and I am excited to have a chance to interview there.
Best Regards,
Tony”
I can’t tell you how many times a hiring manager has sent me a resume based on the above type of email, or how many times the above email to HR was received by myself or my team, and whenever it was, I would feel compelled to review the resume and provide feedback.
I guess the best analogy I can give is, when you are in your car, it is easier to ignore the person at the intersection that is looking for money if they don’t have a sign and are just standing there, but it gets harder the closer they get to you. When they start talking to you, make eye contact, it becomes very hard to take action. This email/message you send it designed to get the person on the other side to take action.
The action might not be a yes, it might be a no, but it is always better to know where you stand so you can focus your energy on other potential opportunities.
Step Three: No connections on LinkedIn or other social media sites? Not a showstopper.
If this is the case, and the requisition is new, I would apply to the requisition today and try to connect with anyone at the company that could be able to help me. Then tomorrow, after I get a few connections in the company I would follow “Step 2” above.
The only concern in following the order outlined for this step is if your application is not a perfect match for the role to which you applied. If that is the case, your application might be dismissed by HR before you can leverage your newfound connections. If you think that is going to be the case, it might make sense to connect with people today, and then apply tomorrow, followed by “Step 2” above.
Step Four: Call the company’s corporate HR team.
This last step should be followed with caution as you don’t want to get noticed for the wrong reason – being a pest. After 3-4 days have passed since you applied to the position, you might want to take a chance by calling the company directly. You can ask to speak to one of the contacts you have made on LinkedIn. Most of the time, you will get their voicemail, but take the time to leave a well thought out message. This will help get your profile raised ahead of others.
If you want to be even bolder, perhaps your connections on LinkedIn have allowed you to see their phone numbers. If that is the case, try texting them a message similar to the email you sent. Only a fraction of emails that are sent get read, especially if the recipient does not know who you are. Text messages, however, are usually met with a much higher response rate and certainly met with a stronger read rate.
These are all things that you can do to help get your application noticed. If you have some other ideas that can help others, I would love to hear about them in the comments!
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