To Apply or Not to Apply?

I recently read an article where a job seeker was complaining that he had applied to over 1000 jobs and had not been successful. He went on to explain, “I apply to everything and anything, even if I don’t have the skills or the qualifications.”

This was upsetting reading!

One of the biggest frustrations as a recruiter or hiring manager is processing a high volume of applications, reading resumes which do not have any of the pre requisite experience required or requested.

Recently, I met with a hiring manager, who stated this is also her biggest recruitment frustration. In her particular case, she was advertising for a full-time permanent vacancy and many of the applicants who had applied were seeking for part-time work, or had working holiday visas and were unable to accept a permanent role, due to their visa restrictions.

If an advertisement says you must be available or eligible for fulltime employment or you must have full working rights… it isn’t worth applying if you are on a student visa, restricting you to 20 hours of paid employment per week.

If the advertisement says you must have previous legal secretarial experience or must be CPA qualified… it’s very unlikely your application will be considered.

You are wasting your time and also that of the Hiring Manager’s.

Of course, in some cases if the advertisement says a minimum of 3 years’ experience is required and you only have 2, it is definitely still worth applying. You never know!

But if the advertisement requires a CPA qualified Accountant, then the hiring organisation or the recruitment consultant aren’t going to be able to make an exception for your application.

Some suggestions…

If you really want to move into a new industry and you do not have the necessary experience or qualifications, recruitment agencies may not be the way to go. The hiring managers who utilise our services request us to source candidates with a certain level of experience or certain qualifications. We are very rarely requested to source Graduates or entry level roles.

The best advice is to apply directly to the hiring organisation and write a cover letter which will cover why you want to join that industry and why you think you would be suitable.

Another idea is to do some volunteer work! Volunteer work is a great way to get into a new industry. If you want to get into legal secretarial work for example, look into volunteering with your local legal centres.