What share of your applications end in a rejection? How often are you simply ignored?

There was a time when I took every rejection as a small drama, a point off my professionalism and my ability to present myself, put together a resume and highlight the right skills.

Then I sat down and counted how many rejections I sent in a day when I worked as a recruiter. It turned out that I rejected a hundred out of a hundred applications I received! Did that mean all the candidates were not good enough? Not at all!

Sometimes the resume simply does not match the job requirements, I agree, that happens. But it is far from the only reason for a rejection.
The client can have all kinds of requirements, from age and gender restrictions (sadly), to “too expensive for us” or “overqualified” - meaning too smart for us - and also “no hires from that company” (agreements, NDAs, all of that).

Sometimes your former colleague works at the company you sent your resume to, or it is even more complicated (when it was not just a colleague, but that very office romance, yes). And a good HR person remembers who came from where and how (they remember the key and difficult candidates, the “stars” and the ones who fainted at the interview, all sorts and many of them. Including an employee's previous companies, scandalous dismissals, and those who were hunted for a whole year).

In short, HR knows who your former colleague is, goes to them for a reference on you, and gets it. A thorough one, not always fair, not always positive, but that is reality. And this can also be a reason for rejection, you just will not find out about it.

I will not claim that every employer is obliged to invite every applicant, and that anyone who is not ready is a fool. My point is that your job will find you. An employer's rejection in no way, to no degree, says anything about you or devalues your experience and skills. Somewhere they are definitely waiting for you, and waiting eagerly. And if you get a lot of rejections, there is a reason for it. We will find it and fix it, or find a company for which that reason is a plus, not a minus.

Author:
Ekaterina
Career consultant, Edisoft Russia, REC.Expert, Yulmart