How not to get an interview call

In an email sent to me, a job seeker indicates that she has sent out 1,884 resumes in the past four months (that's 471 a month, roughly 15 a day). In these four months, she has landed only three phone interviews. Allow me to do the math: She's looking at a 0.016 per cent success rate in landing interviews. It's exhausting to consider how one pounds out 15+ job applications every single day, for 120 plus consecutive days. It also truly bums me out to consider how much time overwhelmed job seekers - who are often quite clear on what's not working, yet have few ideas on what will work - invest in in strategies that just don't work very well at all.

The girl wants to know why she is not landing interviews. I'm guessing that many of you have wondered this very thing. Here are some of the ideas on what might be going wrong.

Here are some reasons on why candidates don't get interviews:

You are spraying the universe with unfocused resumes and cover letters: You must keep at the forefront of your mind that machine-gun spray methods of job search rarely work. You're far better off with a single, well-executed rifle shot. For every job you apply for, at least a short handful of candidates are going to make absolute, perfect sense to the reviewer. If you're blasting out 15 resumes a day? It's nearly impossible for you to compete with people who are delivering customised, "I make perfect sense" resumes + cover letters.

You used a functional resume: This is especially bad if you applied for that job via an online application process. Most companies and recruiting agencies today use resume scanning software at the front end of the recruitment process. Some scanning software is ill-equipped to read resumes that aren't formatted in reverse chronological order. Always use a clean, standard resume format if you're applying for jobs via online application.

You lack one or more required credential: If under the word "REQUIRED" on the job description, you saw a skill, certification or other qualification that you just don't have ... yet you applied for it anyway ... ? Don't act surprised that you didn't get the interview. Sometimes, there is no way around a barrier like a missing credential. However, sometimes there is. Unfortunately, you can't expect the resume scanning software to wave your resume through if it was told to go look for that one thing. So, if you're missing a mandatory requirement and still want to take a run at this, you need to find and endear yourself to someone on the inside, and explain where you are coming from.

They already had someone in mind for the job: This is a maddening one, I know. But it's a reality. Some organisations have policies that require them to advertise / post openings publicly for X amount of time, even when they have an internal or external "favourite" already in mind. There's just not much you can do about this, except curse them silently and move on to something else.

You're aiming at only the "most popular" jobs: If you're centering your entire job search around the behemoth "everybody wants in" corporations, you're going to want to up your game. Sending resume after resume in through their online application processes may not get you anywhere, at all. You may also want to consider approaching smaller firms that work with the mammoth players (e.g., a supplier, a vendor or a temp agency). This could be a very wise way to get your "in" with one of the biggies.

You're applying for out-of-state jobs, with no explanation: If you applied for a job out-of-state and never heard back, part of the reason may be that the company either wasn't considering offering a relocation package or you gave them no clue on why you were applying for a job in Baton Rouge. Decision makers within organisations sometimes get nervous about relocating people (especially if they don't do it often), not only because of the added expense involved, but also because they fear you'll arrive in that entirely new geography ... and promptly decide you hate it. If you are looking to move for your next job, always try to make it instantly clear (via the cover letter) that you have a specific tie to that region, or reason to want to be there.

Source | Business Standard | 23 February 2015