Hey guys, I recently hired for an analyst role in my organization in Toronto. I want to share our experience from the other side of the curtain. We opened the position on September 13 on Indeed and by September 16 we had 2,100 applicants at which point we were forced to close the applications. Our talent acquisition specialist told me this was atleast 5 times the response she has ever seen for any job position she's opened for the company in the last 10 years.
Here's a couple of observations:
1. The bulk of the applications were qualified and relevant to the job position.
2. About 10% of the applications were not qualified or did not meet the minimum criteria
3. About 10% of applications were from recently landed immigrants who had not done their homework (for example there was 1 resume which spanned 21 pages, I mean, why?)
It was really tough to go through the bulk of qualified individuals and in the end we used very shallow techniques like scrolling through resume's for about 15-20 seconds to put them into a yes or no pile. The yes pile were resume's that really grabbed our eyes and felt like some more effort had gone into making those. I was adamant we atleast put eyes on every single resume even if we were not going to give them the detailed level of processing these people deserved
At the end of the day we interviewed 15 people. Do I believe these 15 were the best out of the 2,100? No! Certainly not, It was just a tough decision we had to take.
Why am I posting it here, well the thing is, those of you who are finding it really hard to find a job right now? Just accept that this is not because of you but because of the situation. You may be the best candidate for a particular job but there's just an overwhelming demand for positions right now and you may not be getting the due process you deserve. Don't lose hope, keep applying and keep trying. Eventually you will break through. Meanwhile try to make sure that when our eyes land on your resume it's not generic but it's something that stops us from scrolling to the next candidate. Be bold, don't worry, there's no wrong answers right now. If you're not receiving callbacks right now, stay positive, it may take less than a week for everything to turn upside down and go from that first HR email to joining on your first day.