You Didn’t Get An Interview Because….
It can be very frustrating sitting around waiting, hoping, and still that call for an interview never comes. Here are some reasons why you may not hear back:
You rely on an attention-grabber
Capturing the attention of the reviewer is a good idea. However, it must still be professional and congruent with the company’s profile. For instance, if you are applying to a law firm you want to present a crisp, clean cover letter with your resume. If you are applying to a high tech, creative environment, you would more appropriately get away with sending in a video or some pieces from your portfolio. Just remember, you cannot leave it up to your attention grabber to get the interview. It is still going to depend on the most important thing—your work.
Your resume is a mess
Resume reviewers go through a lot of resumes which means scanning rather than reading. The last thing they want to do is interpret some illegible font or hunt for the information. Borders are another important piece of a resume. If your resume has uneven borders, it tells the reviewer that you 1) do not take pride in your work, are not detail oriented or organized 2) just too lazy to fix it, or 3) are not able to do simple tasks on the computer. Any of these three possibilities equals no interview. Your resume should be neat and orderly. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for the reviewer to read.
You don’t follow the instructions
You must follow the instructions provided in the job description to a tee. If the job spec requests to provide your salary requirement, provide it. I know that compensation transparency is a point of contention with many people. If it is between providing your salary requirements, which are going to come out eventually, or getting passed up altogether which are you going to pick? If you do not follow the instructions, reviewers will have a hard time believing that you take direction well; a necessity for all jobs.
Many applicants get turned down for an interview because they didn’t mention why they were interested in the particular role and/or company in their cover letters. Your cover letter should include your relevant experience, but it should also connect your experience to what the job requires. You want to make the reviewer feel like this is the role you have been waiting for all your life.
You annoy the reviewer
Unfortunately, there are numerous ways you can annoy the reviewer. And each reviewer has different hot buttons. The best thing you can do is stay away from the major no-no’s. Do not mark your email as high priority, do not be even slightly demanding and do not suggest that your time is more valuable than theirs. Any action that insinuates elitism should be avoided at all times.
You make careless errors
Do not address your cover letter and resume to a specific person unless you know exactly how to spell their name. If you do not get the name correct, it highlights that you did not do your homework or did not pay attention to getting it right. You should also make sure you know if you are addressing a Mr. or Ms. before adding to a name. Additionally, do not make spelling errors. Check, recheck and have someone else check your cover letter and resume before sending in to a company.
As you apply for jobs for which you hope to land an interview, go through this check list to make sure you are not making little mistakes that could cost you big.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:38 am
This is great information. As a technical recruiter it never ceases to amaze me and my coworkers that so many people with advanced degrees can’t write a resume or use spell check.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
The article starts truthful and blunt. However it ends up favoring the use of hypocrisy over the use of spontaneous honesty.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
These are simple common sense items except for resume writing. If you go to 10 HR recruiters you will get 10 ways to submit a resume. Additionally I find that more emphasis is placed in academic degrees rather than on qualifications and usually this will end up costing the company more however they continue to do this everywhere. Go ahead someone tell me I am wrong.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
These are simple common sense items except for resume writing. If you go to 10 HR recruiters you will get 10 ways to submit a resume. Hr personnel selecting candidates for a potion do not have all the necessary knowledge, detailed knowledge of a job requirement and as a result look more at degrees rather than skill and experienced qualifications and usually this will end up costing the company more because they select the wrong candidates. However they will never admit this and continue to do this everywhere. I worked along side many HR personnel in my career and see how the selections are made.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I am extremely frusrated as I have been on the web and email responses since I started a year ago. I have worked my entire lifetime in the field I have listed. My tenure with most of the companies has been 5 to 10 years, yet I haven’t received one call back or response from Career Builders, Jobs, etc. A lot of other people agree with me. I am a Senior looking for work and I want to and am certainly capable of holding down a job. I have vast experience in Management and in Real Estate, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone that will even respond. I am going to start looking into other areas of finding the job that suits my skills. Instead everyone wants you to go back to school, change your Resume, etc. No one seems to believe there is someone out there that will even intervue me. I am thoroughly disgusted with all of these systems. Thanks for the comments.
Thanks
Rita Blevins
April 17th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Rita B.
I totally understand your frustration. What I have found in your situation is that a company wants “more for less” from their employees. Many have been victims of being layed off or forced to retire from the work force because they can hire someone out of school to do your job for less money. We all know that they can’t do the job as well as you can, but the bottom line is that they save money and if the new employee cant handle more responsibility with less pay, they will fire him/her and find someone who can. Unfortunantly the times of those with time and experience in a specific field are no londer respected or treated with such.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:43 am
There is alot of truth in the article
However, its not that easy to get a good job esp in Africa despite one having the qualification and following through all the best do`s and donts on how to get your dream job.
May be its the way resumes are written
I am a chemical engineer by profession.
Hey, how about i drop you my resume and you have a look at it?
You can respond using my email address, i will be very glad to hear from you
April 24th, 2009 at 8:23 am
If the job says Geologist, then I am qualified. I have two degrees that say I am a Geologist, plus I passed the FG exam, which means I am not one of those people who was “grandfatered in”. Recruiters tend to be rude and judgemental. I have been searching for a job for over a year. Maybe my resume sucks, but I paid $500 for a guy to write it! Training on the latest, greatest software is needed, but without a good paying job, I can’t afford it.
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
please sir,i got your mail i want to find out if i have beign making such mistakes since i have being aploading my c.v for a job in your firm,because i need a job in your firm.
October 9th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I love these guru’s explanations of why we are not getting interviews. It is so stupid and idiotic to think the way we present are cover letter or use certain words provides us with the golden pass for that interview. It has come to experience that if a company really needs you, they are not going to look at words or phrases you use in a cover letter or resume. Let’s get serious here my friends..lol. If I need a computer programmer with certain experience or a specific degree I’m not going to look at the way he wrote his cover letter or resume. If he has what I want I will interview him asap. We are now in a time where the pendulum has swung in the favor of employers. One day it will swing back in the favor of the employee and they will have the upper hand.
November 19th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
I agree Jason. It is definitely an employers market but when the dust settles they are going to have a big group of disgruntled, under paid and over qualified employees. It is good for now….How about the big picture? We all need work including the recent graduates, but I’ll bet if you look alot of those recent graduates are living with parents due to being underpaid. The parents that cannot find work due to their experience and pay requirements. A vicious circle.