Why You Cant Get A Job Recruiting Explained By the Numbers. Is your six seconds of fame enough to land you a job As a professor and a corporate recruiting strategist, I can tell you that very few applicants truly understand the corporate recruiting process. Most people looking for a job approach it with little factual knowledge. That is a huge mistake. A superior approach is to instead analyze it carefully, because data can help you understand why so many applicants simply cant land a job. If you can bear with me for a few quick minutes, I can show you using numbers where the job search roadblocks are and how that data supported insight can help you easily double your chances of landing an interview and a job. Your Resume Will Face a Lot of Competition Although it varies with the company and the job, on average 2. Finding a position opening late cant help your chances because the first resume is received within 2. If you post your resume online on a major job site like Monster so that a recruiter can find it, you are facing stiff competition because 4. Monster alone each and every week Be. Hiring. Understanding the Hiring Funnel can Help You Gauge Your Chances In recruiting, we have what is known as a hiring funnel or yield model for every job which helps recruiting leaders understand how many total applications they need to generate in order to get a single hire. As an applicant, this funnel reveals your chances of success at each step of the hiring process. For the specific case of an online job posting, on average, 1,0. ATS or a recruiter, 2. Talent Function Group LLC. Six Seconds of Resume Review Means Recruiters Will See Very Little. When you ask individual recruiters directly, they report that they spend up to 5 minutes reviewing each individual resume. However, a recent research study from The. Ladders that included the direct observation of the actions of corporate recruiters demonstrated that the boast of this extended review time is a huge exaggeration. You may be shocked to know that the average recruiter spends a mere 6 seconds reviewing a resume. A similar study found the review time to be 5 7 seconds Be. Hiring. Obviously six seconds only allows a recruiter to quickly scan but not to read a resume. We also know from observation that nearly 4 seconds of that 6 second scan is spent looking exclusively at four job areas, which are 1 job titles, 2 companies you worked at, 3 startend dates and 4 education. Like it or not, that narrow focus means that unless you make these four areas extremely easy for them to find within approximately four seconds, the odds are high that you will be instantly passed over. And finally be aware that whatever else that you have on your resume, the recruiter will have only the remaining approximately 2 seconds to find and be impressed with it. And finally, if you think the information in your cover letter will provide added support for your qualifications, you might be interested to know that a mere 1. Be. Hiring. A Single Resume Error Can Instantly Disqualify You A single resume error may prevent your resume from moving on. That is because 6. Careerbuilder. In a similar light, 4. Adecco. The use of an unprofessional email address will get a resume rejected 7. Be. Hiring. You should also be aware that prominently displaying dates that show that you are not currently employed may also get you prematurely rejected at many firms. A Format That Is Not Scannable Can Cut Your Odds by 6. Percent. The. Ladders research also showed that the format of the resume matters a great deal. Having a clear or professionally organized resume format that presents relevant information where recruiters expect it will improve the rating of a resume by recruiter by a whopping 6. And if you make that common mistake of putting your resume in a PDF format, you should realize that many ATS systems will simply not be able to scan and read any part of its content meaning instant rejection. Weak Linked. In Profiles Can Also Hurt You. Because many recruiters and hiring managers use Linked. In profiles either to verify or to supplement resume information, those profiles also impact your chances. Ey tracking technology used by The. Ladders revealed that recruiters spend an average of 1. Linked. In profile simply viewing your picture so a professional picture may be worthwhile. Search for job opportunities including government jobs, fresher jobs, banking jobs etc. on Monster India. Post your resume to apply for job vacancies across top. If you are a fresher and just passed out from your college or passing out in coming months then you need to prepare well for some software testing methodologies. Looking for a field of job ideal for you Or any institution you want to join for the first time Then a well prepared resume will surely matter to impress the higher. IAS Preparation tips for beginners and busting of some of the Myths and Lies surrounding IAS Exam Preparation. It should give a gist of the resume and any other information which is not mentioned in the resume can be covered in this job application letter. ResumesIndia is a dedicated free Resume Search Website. Employers can easily search for resumes and also contact jobseekers without even creating an account. The research also revealed that just like resumes, weak organization, and scannability within a Linked. In profile negatively impacted the recruiters ability to process the profile The. Ladders. 5. 0 Seconds Spent Means Many Apply for a Job They Are Not Qualified for. Recruiters report that over 5. Wall Street Journal. Part of the reason for that high not qualified rate is because when an individual is looking at a job opening, even though they report that they spend 1. The. Ladders. Most of that roughly 6. As a result of not actually spending the necessary time reviewing and side by side comparing the requirements to their own qualifications, job applicants end up applying for many jobs where they have no chance of being selected. Be Aware That Even if Your Resume Fits the Job Posting, You May Still Be Rejected To make matters worse, many of the corporate position descriptions that applicants are reading are poorly written or out of date when they are posted. So even if an applicant did spend the required time to fully read the job posting, they may still end up applying for a job that exists only on paper. So even though an applicant actually meets the written qualifications, they may be later rejected without their knowledge because after they applied, the hiring manager finally decided that they actually wanted a significantly different set of qualifications. Making it Through a Keyword Search Requires a Customized Resume The first preliminary resume screening step at most corporations is a computerized ATS system that scans submitted resumes for keywords that indicate that an applicant fits a particular job. I estimate more that 9. Unfortunately, this practice dramatically increases the odds that a resume will be instantly rejected because a resume that is not customized to the job will seldom include enough of the required keywords to qualify for the next step, a review by a human. Even if you are lucky enough to have a live recruiter review your resume, because recruiters spend on average less than 2 seconds of the total six second review looking for a keyword match, unless the words are strategically placed so that they can be easily spotted, a recruiter will also likely reject it for not meeting the keyword target. No One Reads Resumes Housed in the Black hole Database. If you make the mistake of applying for a job that is not currently open, you are probably guaranteeing failure. This is because during most times, but especially during times of lean recruiting budgets, overburdened recruiters and hiring managers simply dont have the time to visit the corporate resume database for that reason, many call it the black hole. So realize that recruiters generally only have time to look at applicants who apply for a specific open job and who are then ranked highly by the ATS system. Some Applicants Have Additional Disadvantages Because four out of the five job related factors that recruiters initially look for in a resume involve work experience, recent grads are at a decided disadvantage when applying for most jobs.