Getting no where applying for roles

[lizardbrain]

If most of the applications are for helpdesk positions, does the term "helpdesk" occur much more frequently, in the tailored cover and CV?

[APontus]

blueg33 said:

APontus said:

blueg33 said:

Sorry, but I am going to be blunt.

Not sure what roles you are applying for. But if your Grammar on your cv or covering letter is as bad as it is in your post on this thread then for me your cv would be passed over immediately.

Communication, written and verbal is critical in my business

As is understanding that 'verbal' and 'written' are effectively the same thing and simply mean 'in words'.

What you actually meant was 'written and oral'.

If your CV or covering letter made that mistake...

You are correct

I was on a call at the time.........................

Haha, me being pedantic aside, you make a fair point. People sifting CVs will be quick to dismiss those with glaring typos and mistakes. OP- If you're not confident, get someone friendly to check over a CV and maybe quiz you a bit at the same time.

[Aunty Pasty]

IT recruitment usually wants lots of key words and phrases to be scattered in their LinkedIn profile and CV. Not sure about helpdesk in general but maybe name specific systems and tools you have experience of?

[SeanyD]

I'm always recruiting for IT/tech staff, and my pointers would be:

1. As already said, physically call any recruiters rather than cut/paste the previous days applications.

2. Covering letter/email should be about you, your availability, your location, your qualities, your requirements for perm/contract etc etc, but brief. Not a technical summary as shown below, the recruiting contact is unlikely to be the technical contact.

3. Double/triple/quadruple check syntax, grammar, tone of voice, layout, spacing etc etc, the slightest typo can be picked up as an indication of lack of attention, detail, QA etc, possibly wrongly so, but still

4. Personalise your cover and cv to meet the vacancy requirements, choose very carefully from the detail which keywords/facts/names/departments etc you lift, and get the balance right between being personalised without being overly 'stalker'.

5. All comms should be polite, courtious, professional, with a small amount of friendly banter to take the edge off. Also dont appear to be begging for the job, which send out alarm bells, as much as you may be tempted, they should want you as much as you want them. Difficult at times I realise depending on your personal and financial situation.

6. Take time to research the company (if you know who they are), tons of info can be found online, linkedIn, companies house, bdaily, and the usual 'socials'. Not suggesting this for every single position, but those that progres to shortlist or interview this is a must. Learn their financial status, current SLT, key members, key milestones in the press, if they've moved office recently, all incredibly valuable to get yourself noticed.

Hope this helps, good luck.

(apologies in advance for any typos/syntax etc - this speedy forum post isn't representative of a formal job application )

Edited by SeanyD on Thursday 27th May 16:35

[Drl22]

I worked in recruitment for several years and never read any covering letters, most people copy and paste them and don’t tailor them and unfortunately, this means anyone who does bother will probably be missed anyway. All I cared about, and my clients, was whether your CV had the right experience and fit for the role with similar experience. If you have that experience then I would tailor your CV a little to demonstrate this. This is the ONLY thing that will get you noticed. So stop firing off your CV randomly and start being more targeted.

[GliderRider]

When applying for a specific advertised position, the first page of my CV always has a bullet-pointed list headed 'Relevant Experience'. Each item matches the advertised job requirements in turn with examples from my previous experience. By doing this, the employer doesn't need to look past the first page to know that I meet all the requirements they specify. That should get me on the shortlist pile. If they want to know more, the chronological list of jobs starts on page two.

Two other things to remember:

Firstly, if an agent can put forward someone already on their books, they will, as advertising the position not only takes time and money, but it also makes other employment agencies aware of the position, and they may contact the potential employer directly with their own candidates.

Secondly, once your CV is sorted, job hunting is simply a numbers game. Imagine it as firing a machine gun. Send out enough bullets in the general direction of the target, and sooner or later you're bound to hit it.

Set yourself a goal of sending out one hundred CVs. Start with job search engines, then specialist agencies already advertising jobs in your field, then more general agencies, and finally speculative CVs to employers themselves.

Phone calls to agencies and employers will help hone your speaking skills, and give you an idea of what the job market is like. Once you've got them talking, let them talk, you will find out a lot with just a few questions to steer them towards your field and level of experience. Aim to follow up with a CV the same day, and get the agent or HR person's own work email address, not just the general one.

Keep a spreadsheet of when you called, who you spoke to, which CV you sent and when, and set a date for a follow up call to see what has changed.

One final thing. Agents look at the CVs on job search engines to see when they were last updated. Clearly the ones updated recently are people who are actively looking for a new job, so make sure you log in and update some detail or other every couple of weeks.

Good luck!

[lyonspride]

If you're not getting anywhere it's probably because you're not getting past the ATS, the Applicant Tracking System used by ALL employment agencies, automatically scans your CV to match you to roles, a lot of them have now been programmed to look for a degree in any subject, so no degree = no one so much as reads your CV.

The big employers also use these same system, HR depts in those companies are full of graduates who failed to get a job in their chosen field, and many graduates genuinely believe that anyone who didn't go to uni is basically stupid.

This has crept up slowly, 15 years ago my HNC was more than enough, but now I need a masters degree for the same role, i'm 40, I can't justify the cost and I have family commitments too.
It's frustrating because I see a job I know I can do, a great engineering role, but I can't get anywhere near it without a degree in modern art (or some other unrelated subject).
On the other hand I can do simpler roles closer to home, just to earn a wage, but I have too much experience and have to go to painful lengths to make the interviewer see that I'm not going to leave in 3 weeks time when something else comes up.

Now there are other issues with agencies, mostly regarding posting fake job ads. Because i'll apply for a role I can do, hear nothing, but then 3 months later hear from said agency about a role which i'm not at all suited to.

[sociopath]

Just one small comment as pretty much everything else has been covered, but using the term "on prem" won't help you get past the HR monkey

[lyonspride]

sociopath said:

Just one small comment as pretty much everything else has been covered, but using the term "on prem" won't help you get past the HR monkey

I think applies to most organisation specific lingo too, i've always avoided going a long with that BS and continued to use full descriptions.

The people who go along with using these terms often have no idea what they're talking about and use it to appear more knowledgeable than they really are, then when you go to a new workplace there's a whole new set of BS terms and acronyms to learn.

[APontus]

You have to be very careful with acronyms and industry jargon.

[alorotom]

APontus said:

You have to be very careful with acronyms and industry jargon.

Agreed, public sector CVs are a nightmare for this and often become unintelligible.

[echazfraz]

lyonspride said:

If you're not getting anywhere it's probably because you're not getting past the ATS, the Applicant Tracking System used by ALL employment agencies, automatically scans your CV to match you to roles, a lot of them have now been programmed to look for a degree in any subject, so no degree = no one so much as reads your CV.

The big employers also use these same system, HR depts in those companies are full of graduates who failed to get a job in their chosen field, and many graduates genuinely believe that anyone who didn't go to uni is basically stupid.

This has crept up slowly, 15 years ago my HNC was more than enough, but now I need a masters degree for the same role, i'm 40, I can't justify the cost and I have family commitments too.
It's frustrating because I see a job I know I can do, a great engineering role, but I can't get anywhere near it without a degree in modern art (or some other unrelated subject).
On the other hand I can do simpler roles closer to home, just to earn a wage, but I have too much experience and have to go to painful lengths to make the interviewer see that I'm not going to leave in 3 weeks time when something else comes up.

Now there are other issues with agencies, mostly regarding posting fake job ads. Because i'll apply for a role I can do, hear nothing, but then 3 months later hear from said agency about a role which i'm not at all suited to.

Dear Pistonheads Poster,

I regret to inform you that your post has been assessed by the Automated Review System (English), or ARSE, and has been found to be complete...arse.

Yours sincerely,

Normal people

[lyonspride]

echazfraz said:

Dear Pistonheads Poster,

I regret to inform you that your post has been assessed by the Automated Review System (English), or ARSE, and has been found to be complete...arse.

Yours sincerely,

Normal people

Well done, dismiss other peoples experiences just because you haven't had the misfortune to be there yourself............ One day.

[okgo]

I may be unusual, but I know (as in, first name terms, I'll take their call and respond if they ask me something) maybe 3 or 4 recruiters in my industry. If I'm looking for a job, I drop them an email and see what they've got, if there's anything decent that I am interested in, I'll send over an updated CV and they'll get me an interview (I assume there has to be some interest from the company in what I've done and where I've done it) - does this sort of thing not exist in most sectors? Do you not ever get approached by recruiters on LinkedIn? This has slowed down, but it's still maybe 1 or 2 a week that I get sent through.

Of course I also have applied directly for roles, but I've never found this to be as useful as getting referrals or using my network, again, is this not something people do?

To me, filling in a form and attaching a CV on a company website without any other form of 'in' is basically a waste of time, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I've been invited for an interview via this method.

[Fittster]

Hints about setting up a CV for the IT industry:

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/02/cv_improvem...

[Drumroll]

TheAngryDog said:

Scrump said:

You asked for advice on why you are not getting invited to interview, what else were we supposed to base our answers on other than your post?
Post your CV up and we can comment on that instead.
Username checks out!

That is correct, I asked for advice, I didn't ask for my OP to be given grief because I missed the odd word out it and put a comma or two in the wrong place.
I am hardly going to post my CV on here for all to see.
My username does indeed check out, especially when poked with a stick. Sticks are for throwing.

Sticks are also used to guide, take on board the criticism.

The problem with CV's is there is no such thing as the ideal format.

There certainly does seem to be a certain amount of degree "creep" for many roles where it was previously not required.

[Aunty Pasty]

okgo said:

I may be unusual, but I know (as in, first name terms, I'll take their call and respond if they ask me something) maybe 3 or 4 recruiters in my industry. If I'm looking for a job, I drop them an email and see what they've got, if there's anything decent that I am interested in, I'll send over an updated CV and they'll get me an interview (I assume there has to be some interest from the company in what I've done and where I've done it) - does this sort of thing not exist in most sectors? Do you not ever get approached by recruiters on LinkedIn? This has slowed down, but it's still maybe 1 or 2 a week that I get sent through.

Of course I also have applied directly for roles, but I've never found this to be as useful as getting referrals or using my network, again, is this not something people do?

To me, filling in a form and attaching a CV on a company website without any other form of 'in' is basically a waste of time, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I've been invited for an interview via this method.

I'd say that's more the exception than the norm if the particular role / skillset is in demand. I am in a similar position so if I am interested in a new position I start responding to recruiters messages. However I am mindful that this is not the case with many others who have to apply many times before they get a look-in like I used to do when I was younger many hundreds of years ago.

Edited by Aunty Pasty on Thursday 3rd June 17:34

[lyonspride]

Drumroll said:

There certainly does seem to be a certain amount of degree "creep" for many roles where it was previously not required.

I've certainly found that younger graduates have this belief that they are in every single way superior to someone who has industry experience, at least the one's who didn't go to uni because of genuine interest in a subject. I feel like this how further education is sold to people now.

The problem this creates is HR departments and recruitment consultants who follow the same way of thinking, and so the requirement for a degree creeps into low paid low skill roles, whilst roles that used to require experience and a HNC/HND level qualification (which lean more toward practical stuff than being all theory), now ask for masters degree in any subject.
So my 20 years experience and HNC in electronics, are basically null and void because I don't have a masters degree in modern art....... And then when they can't get good people, they have the nerve to perpetuate the "skills shortage" myth.

[67Dino]

A few additional thoughts I’ve learnt over the years, perhaps more generally managerial than OP, but hopefully useful to some reading this:

- CVs. Sorting a CV is less about the look and more about the harsh objectivity. A good expert will help you be clear how you define yourself and put a red pen through a project you died for but just isn’t relevant. People think they can but can’t do this themselves.

- Approach. Applying to a job ad via an online application is the easiest but least effective approach. Far more effective is to identify people in companies or sectors you’re interested in and ask them for ideas and connections. Time meeting and talking to people is better spent than time surfing.

- Time. Job hunting is a full time job (with some breaks, it’s hard, see below). In terms of time, a good rule of thumb I was given is it take 3 weeks for every £10k of salary to land a good role. You will need to be working 30 hrs a week at it.

- Volume. You will do a lot. Expect to end with a list of 50-100 firms or roles you went for. That list shouldn’t include ‘not really me but worth a try’ hopeful shots though. It’s easy to fire off hundreds of random ones but the ‘mud on the wall’ approach doesn’t work.

- Look after yourself. Job hunting is mentally very taxing, and it can feel desperate. The right state of mind is ‘positive that there’s a great role out there, I will get it, I’ve just not found it yet’. To keep that state of mind you need to keep physically fit, do some things you enjoy, and talk regularly to people who are encouraging.

Good luck!

[lyonspride]

67Dino said:

A few additional thoughts I’ve learnt over the years, perhaps more generally managerial than OP, but hopefully useful to some reading this:

- CVs. Sorting a CV is less about the look and more about the harsh objectivity. A good expert will help you be clear how you define yourself and put a red pen through a project you died for but just isn’t relevant. People think they can but can’t do this themselves.

- Approach. Applying to a job ad via an online application is the easiest but least effective approach. Far more effective is to identify people in companies or sectors you’re interested in and ask them for ideas and connections. Time meeting and talking to people is better spent than time surfing.

- Time. Job hunting is a full time job (with some breaks, it’s hard, see below). In terms of time, a good rule of thumb I was given is it take 3 weeks for every £10k of salary to land a good role. You will need to be working 30 hrs a week at it.

- Volume. You will do a lot. Expect to end with a list of 50-100 firms or roles you went for. That list shouldn’t include ‘not really me but worth a try’ hopeful shots though. It’s easy to fire off hundreds of random ones but the ‘mud on the wall’ approach doesn’t work.

- Look after yourself. Job hunting is mentally very taxing, and it can feel desperate. The right state of mind is ‘positive that there’s a great role out there, I will get it, I’ve just not found it yet’. To keep that state of mind you need to keep physically fit, do some things you enjoy, and talk regularly to people who are encouraging.

Good luck!

I don't think this stuff applies to "normal" jobs, and I don't think you have done much job searching for "normal" jobs lately.

I will see maybe 8 per week which are within the range I want to travel, and that range has decreased substantially as I care less about chasing carrots on sticks and more about just having a job to pay the bills and feed my family, I treat jobs as temporary now. The whole concept of the "career" is bullst for most people, for anyone not in management, and even then things are changing.

All my effort and hard work has ever done is painted targets on my back, "work hard and you'll go far" what a load of bks, i've never seen a single colleague get any kind of promotion through hard work, but dozens of bullies and backstabbers have.
I'm not being over dramatic, everywhere i've worked, i've ended up having to dial myself back to "mediocre" just to survive the politics.
4 years ago I got employee of the month and a £50 bonus for each, 3 months in a row, then 4 months in a row, what followed that was a barrage of attacks from a manager in another department (who wanted my managers job), leaving my reputation in tatters, so I ended up making a formal request to NOT be given employee of the month status ever again.

I don't tailor my CV to each role, have you ever used a job website? You upload a single CV, some of those sites take that data and create a CV in their own format, which you then have to pick through and reformat, because it makes a real mess of it. It not realistic to change your CV for each role.
When you apply to a role, your CV is sent to the agency or employer, if it goes to an agency or employer with an ATS system, your cover letter will get dumped and nobody will ever read it, so you have to make sure that EVERYTHING is in your CV.

Now I had an interview recently with quite a nasty/aggressive prick of an interviewer who kept saying "management experience, where does this fit in?" and I said "that CV contains everything relevant to any job I might apply for, if you'd ever used a job site to apply for jobs you'd understand".
I actually ended up withdrawing my application because this guy was such a knob and if that's how he is on best behaviour then what is he like to work for?

Edited by lyonspride on Friday 4th June 07:45

Edited by lyonspride on Friday 4th June 07:47

Edited by lyonspride on Friday 4th June 07:54