So Many Candidates, So Many Jobs! Don't Get Lost In The Shuffle.

By Carmen Jeffery

As a free-lance search consultant I've seen an overwhelming response to postings and blast emails, especially this quarter - what's with that?

Seems like a lot more people are looking for work this year than last, that makes finding a job harder and finding talent harder too. A little more vetting than usual is happening at the search side of things. After a good round of head hunting, I'm often overwhelmed with a high volume of candidate applications.

Sad thing is that a lot of candidates apply without any experience related to the job at hand. Shame Shame, if you want to stand out you have to line up what you do with what the job calls for. If things don't stack up, your resume gets ignored. Recruiters don't have a lot of time to look at "maybe" resumes, especially when so many relevant ones are at their disposal.

Applying for jobs and vetting rants aside, why are so many of you looking?

My sense is that we have come out of the issues that the financial crisis in 2008 brought to us and a few things have started to happen. The US is re-centralizing many of its Canadian operations back to home base, heavy lifting leaders that were called upon the get us out of the mess post 2008 are no longer needed, people that went contract because they couldn't find work are coming out to play and lastly employees that got out of dodge by sticking with jobs they took before or after the crash are starting to poke around to see what's out there.

In the end, employers luck out because they have much more to choose from and candidates luck out because they get hired. With so much to choose from, recruiters can easily skip over resumes that don't line up for the searches they have. I am much more apt to reject a resume that doesn't line up perfectly these days, the high volume of applicants assures me I can be very specific about what will work.

If you're a candidate applying for jobs, what you need to know is that the recruiters on the receiving end are NOT going to give you a chance if you send your resume in hoping someone will pick up the phone and call you even though haven't done everything the job calls for, your transferable skills don't impress. Please don't think that sending in a long cover letter to justify yourself will help. I guarantee recruiters don't read covers until after they've picked up the phone to screen you.

So here's my advice, there's lots of work out there and plenty of great opportunities to choose from. If you want to make a change, apply for jobs only when you have at least 85% of what the job calls for. Bottom line, if you want to get a recruiters attention, you've got to have what it takes. If you do, don't just send in your resume, pick up the phone and introduce yourself. All it takes is a search on LinkedIn or Google and you're apt to find the phone number for whom ever it is you're looking for.