Or the posting requeing 5 years experience in ____ when ____ has only existed for 3 years…
Lots of job postings are for jobs not requiring external certifications, and it is those that tend to overstate “requirements” beyond the actual requirements. It is likely that these make up most of the kinds of jobs that new college graduates in majors other than stuff like health care professions and civil engineering are looking at.
Define “lots”. I don’t want to be argumentative- but big companies (at least the US) are very aware of the “paper ceiling” and are working aggressively to eliminate the kinds of roadblocks (requirements listed that aren’t actually requirements) which tend to impact populations which have traditionally been blocked from certain functions and professions.
But in my experience- there are tens of THOUSANDS of people out there doing a “spray and pray” job search strategy, where they set the parameters to a couple of vague screeners (i.e. jobs paying over 100K in the following five geographies or fully remote) and then technology does the tedious job of actually applying. And there are folks on Linkedin bemoaning that they applied to 200 jobs last month without a single interview… and I’ll bet you dinner that they weren’t qualified for most of them. Actually qualified. As in “must be Board Certified in Pediatrics” and the person applying isn’t even an MD. My friends who recruit for large hospital systems are ready to declare the hiring process broken.
But it impacts everyone else as well. I’m not sure what people think is going to happen when they randomly apply to jobs they aren’t qualified for, but it must be disheartening to be rejected so often even if they aren’t even in the ballpark.
The experience thing has been a real issue. So many entry level jobs have “2-5 years experience” as a requirement. One of the jobs my D applied for was with a major chain bookstore, part time, retail. They wanted min 2 years book selling experience. I don’t understand how these kids break into entry level jobs with these kind of expectations. She did do a summer internship her junior year in her field (not book selling :)). But every job she has seen so far wants at least 2 years experience
It is common in computing to have over specified requirements, and for applicants to apply when they have minimal match to the requirements. Indeed, I have even had an employer’s recruiter try to get me to interview for a job that I met 0 of the 7 listed requirements (after interviewing for but not getting a job where I met about half of the listed requirements).
Yes, mandatory for the job external certifications are different. But do most new college graduates outside of health professions and civil engineering apply to those kinds of jobs?
CPA, CFA; jobs that require Series 7, CFP. Teaching licenses in a particular state which are not automatically transferable elsewhere.
ANYTHING requiring a specific security clearance and there are several levels with particular requirements.
Things that are not external certifications but are usually hard requirements (i.e. if you need it, you need it)-- specific language fluencies, experience manipulating large datasets with R, SPSS or similar; Have edited in AP Style is not the same as APA Style. Etc.
Can someone learn these things? of course. But don’t apply for a job requiring these things and then wonder why you didn’t get an interview. It’s not just health care- there are a lot of roles where the knowledge base is substantial, and you either have it or you don’t.
Many companies have the frustrating practice of posting jobs even when they’ve already chosen a candidate. Some job descriptions are tailored for a specific person, making the whole process a waste of time for other applicants.
When it comes to ghosting, there’s no excuse. It takes minimal effort for a company to simply inform candidates that the position has been filled and thank them for applying. Simple courtesy goes a long way.
I understand the frustration recruiters feel when totally unqualified applicants are shotgunning their resumes. It frustrates me as a hiring manager too.
But the kind of ghosting I’m referring to is with qualified candidates who have already been screened and gone through one or more rounds. I’ve seen this happen with plenty of college kids I know who are applying for internships and their first job.
Here are some real examples (from the many CS kids I know)
This is so disrespectful, and really discouraging for these young applicants. Just send a simple response letting candidates know they didn’t make it.
I’m sorry, but there’s really no good excuse for not getting back to candidates who have been interviewed.
Ghosting doesn’t just happen to young applicants either. We have friends who applied to C suite level jobs, had a couple of rounds of interviews and were ghosted! IMO, that’s a big tell about the quality of their HR department and company culture so I think they dodged a bullet.
Agree 100%.
Agreed. I’ve seen that too. But I think it’s particularly discouraging for young applicants. Seasoned candidates are more likely to accept it as being symptomatic of company culture that they wouldn’t want to be part of.
I find this topic of ghosting really fascinating, as I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have NOT been ghosted in the job application process. The only one I really took offense at was when I was offered a position and then they didn’t follow-through with a contract (apparently a board member had a friend or family member that came to them for a position in the intervening time and got the job I had been offered).
Additionally, there have been times that the hiring process has been so lengthy that I thought I’d been ghosted. I think I had applied for my current organization in December. Then it was at least a month before I was asked to do the performance task, then maybe another month or 6 weeks before I got asked back for an interview. It wasn’t too long after that before I was asked back for a second interview day, but I applied for the position in December and wasn’t offered the position until March, and it was not an instance of others being asked to do the position and them turning down my employer. It just takes forever to do hiring in our district (as evidenced by seeing the other side of the process since I’ve been here).
But yes, I do agree that it would be courteous of employers to let candidates know when they have filled a position, particularly once an individual has done a performance task or interview.
The country I come from originally, with admittedly a much smaller and skills-scarce white collar jobs market, would never ghost applicants. It’s been quite a negative surprise to see how applicants get treated here. How much effort does it take to send a form “we regret” email to someone, especially when you’ve got AI probably embedded in the process of filtering a bunch of those people out anyway?
Agree completely. Totally understand that hiring managers sometimes get thousands of resumes BUT if you have met the initial screening/gotten an initial assessment or Hirevue interview you deserve a response.
I am following this topic closely as i screen a lot of applicants for various customer facing positions and can provide some context on how the current job market/applicant pool has evolved in the last 18-24 months.
After every candidate’s resume screening and/or interview, i summarize my observations and provide feedback to my HR team on their viability for the position offered to avoid “ghosting” as much as possible.
a little over 2 years ago while trying to fill a graphics designer role, we got about 4/5 applications for that position and i interviewed all of them and was able to hire an awesome applicant who is on my team now(my HR team is awesome in finding these hidden gems 
). Fast forward to now, for a similar advertised position, we received over 1700 applications 
:confounded. As @blossom mentioned up thread, the shot-gunning or “spray and pray” job search strategy seems to be at work here which is making matters worse for hiring teams to even short-list the candidates.
My son has mentioned he would probably encourage every engineering student to minor in CS - honestly, you need it in real life. High school kids can code as well as college kids these days but knowledge of aero or mechanical or electrical engineering with CS skills will likely get you into an interview and possibly hired faster.
CS was built into a many of my D’s chem E classes/curriculum starting on day 1, as it was for all engineering majors. I don’t think that’s unique to her school.
Can even be important for business students. My business kid is minoring in analytics, and has taken classes in SQL and python. Taking a class in R next semester.
UF where I go is encouraging all business students to get the AI certificate to get an edge in hiring. It’s important
My D just came back from a recruiting trip. She said the trend they are seeing is that professional associations for specific majors are hosting networking events the night before the career fair. D says they have been extremely successful in identifying candidates at those events, even more so than the career fair. She says the same is true for SWE events.
So, have your student join the professional association for their major, professional clubs on campus, SWE (if applicable), and go to all the networking events.
My son is a sophomore ME at a highly-ranked state flagship (Madison) with a 4.0 major (and 3.9 overall) GPA, leadership in an engineering club, etc. As far as I can tell he’s done everything else ‘right’: he went to the mock interview and resume review sessions before the internship fair, then spent hours every day at the fair, then applied for a ton more online, etc.
So far he’s had three interviews but no offers, and now has nothing else in the pipeline. None of his friends have offers, either, and many of them haven’t even gotten any interviews!
Is this just a tough year? Are companies not hiring sophomores anymore? Any other thoughts or advice?
He now know that he needs to cast a wider net for locations. (He was hoping to either come home to the Twin Cities or else stay in Madison, but now he’s open to going almost anywhere.) I also think I’ll have him do a mock interview with a friend who works in HR in case there’s a gap there despite all his prep. And I’ll talk to him about maximizing on-campus networking as @momofboiler1 mentioned above.
Anything else? He’s starting to get discouraged and even a little worried, as am I. Thanks, all!