How big is your pile?
A client of ours recently had a leadership level finance & accounting search that got over 600 inbound applicants.
Now, my first reaction when my colleague told me this was: “Let me guess, only a small handful fit? And the rest were yolo applies from people nowhere near the right skill set?”
Nope. At first glance over 400 were a reasonably close fit. They had the baseline skills. Some ended up being too junior, not the right location, etc., but still ‘close’ by inbound standards.
Which means they all required live vetting to truly determine fit. (Which we do.)
And that’s not an edge case. Every week this year I’ve talked to at least one internal TA leader with a similar issue: applications are through the roof, while their internal recruitment teams have already been cut to the bone.
👉Technology made it easier for everyone to apply to everything. Now there’s not enough time in the day to vet all the ‘good’ applications.
If it only takes you a minute to apply to a role, it takes everyone else a minute to do the same.
That’s not what any job seekers out there want to hear. A lot of them instinctively know that at this point.
But I’ll state this to prevent future frustration: if you’re applying to jobs you’re well qualified for – over and over – without getting a response, it’s most likely because there’s not enough people on the other end to respond to it.
There’s a few trickle down effects from this:
1. Overwhelmed hiring teams are forced to short list candidates by any less-the-ideal means necessary. Read: who got referred and/or who was on top of the stack.
2. Job seekers are applying to more and more role, escalating the problem. (Think covid era toilet paper hoarding.)
Until they hit the point where they’ve given up.
3. Company reputations are taking a hit. A no response is bad. A template rejection is even worse.
Multiply either across thousands of people.
4. AI tools will promise to screen all these applications for you. Creating a whole new ethical dilemma of how they’re determining who is a ‘best’ fit.
Note: a ‘best’ fit is something that can’t be determined until a live conversation occurs (and that’s another debatable topic for another day).
LLMs reading resume can only make the same preconceived errors that humans can make, but on steroids and harder to course correct.
Aaaand here’s the pitch:
👉Friendly reminder that firms like Hirewell don’t just find great candidates. We also help our clients vet their own inbound.
Hit me up if you’re in this boat.
Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.
