An ever-increasing gap between employers and jobseekers has been identified by a Sustain Group survey, as employers battle to respond to an overwhelming number of applications sent by keen jobseekers.
In the survey of more than 400 hiring managers, recruiters and jobseekers, The Sustain Group found over 50 percent of jobseekers apply for more than four jobs at a time, and 41 percent never receive a response to an application filled for a role.
83 percent of jobseekers said they felt their resumes were relevant to the role, but 52 percent of hiring managers and recruiters thought resumes were poorly constructed.
CEO Matthew Tukaki said it is remarkable there is such a large gap between jobseekers expectations and those of the hiring manager or recruiter.
“There was also criticism from jobseekers that they either are not getting a response or the response was more than a month off – yet, on the employer side, for single roles, some of them were being inundated by applicants, sometimes in the hundreds,” Tukaki said
“Ask yourself if it is feasible for a small to medium sized business hiring manager to respond to more than 200 applications for one role?” he added.
According to Tukaki, data also showed employers are becoming increasingly concerned with the embellishments appearing on resumes.
“It seems as if there is a growing number of jobseekers out there who are prepared to ‘prop up’ a resume by embellishing what they do or what they have done. There are more than enough examples of people falsifying qualifications, but experience falsification is becoming a bigger and more costly – you put someone on the role because you feel they have the experience, but once in it, it turns out the employee has next to no experience,” he said.
The Sustain Group suggests the following for employers:
- Set up an automated response to a job advertisement and use a single email address when accepting applications. This will set the expectation up front that a response may be some time to come or not at all
- Make it clear what you want when you advertise a job role. Too many employers or recruiters waffle with rubbish that says to the jobseeker ‘I’m open to take all applications’ – if you want 200 plus responses write a bad job advertisement
Want to learn how to source good talent online? Check out this blog from Chandler Macleod Recruitment‘s Scott Wesley.