State of the Market

[eek]

Working with several recruiters to hire people recently, I'm fairly confident that most agents, whilst sympathetic to people in the current climate, don't appreciate being inundated with hundred of pointless, ill fitting candidate CVs. Assuming they are using an ATS system, they simply ignore the vast majority of CVs. There isn't time to look at more than a very small sample. If say, they get 300-500 applicants for an online advertised role, they might pick the 20 top rated to read. And read for about 30 seconds each.

Apart from hot skill sets and hard to fill/niche roles, most individual agents already have many thousands of personal contacts. Big national agencies have databases of hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of CVs. They are not generally short of CVs and I personally would think more highly of candidates who target their search better rather than apply for every vacancy under the sun, even in the terrible market we have now.

DWP should cop a lot of the blame here - universal credit wants to see job applications regardless of the chance of getting the job.

[jayn200]

Working with several recruiters to hire people recently, I'm fairly confident that most agents, whilst sympathetic to people in the current climate, don't appreciate being inundated with hundred of pointless, ill fitting candidate CVs. Assuming they are using an ATS system, they simply ignore the vast majority of CVs. There isn't time to look at more than a very small sample. If say, they get 300-500 applicants for an online advertised role, they might pick the 20 top rated to read. And read for about 30 seconds each.

Apart from hot skill sets and hard to fill/niche roles, most individual agents already have many thousands of personal contacts. Big national agencies have databases of hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of CVs. They are not generally short of CVs and I personally would think more highly of candidates who target their search better rather than apply for every vacancy under the sun, even in the terrible market we have now.

I already explained why targeted applying doesn't work. It would only work if job ads/specs were accurate which they aren't. My own experience plus others shows we routinely get contracts out of applying to job ads that don't match our profiles.

But anyway do you really think they only spend 10 minutes (20 x 30 seconds) scanning cvs when they get 500? They spend longer than that on the phone to a single candidate.

How much money do they make on a single placement?

How much time is spent writing and posting a job ad?

How much time is spent on phone to candidates?

How much time is spent on phone with client?

How much time is spent reaching out to existing contacts/searching databases/etc

Etc, etc, etc

Yet they spend 10 minutes looking at CVs when they get 500 responses?

Come on... no way you believe that.

[Paralytic]

Yet they spend 10 minutes looking at CVs when they get 500 responses?

Come on... no way you believe that.

As above. Keyword searching to whittle the list down from 500 to 10, 15, 20, whatever. If the search returns too many, add more keywords. Then quick CV scan/review those to whittle down further to a short list, then actually contact/speak to those.

Or, they get their junior/admin staff to do that first level filtering, then the recruitment consultant who "owns" the req takes it forward with the candidate list.

If you think a person reviews every application received for every job, then you'd be wrong.

(the above is for run-of-the-mill jobs - PMs, BAs, developers, testers, sysadmins etc - more senior/critical/niche roles might be handled differently)

[eek]

As above. Keyword searching to whittle the list down from 500 to 10, 15, 20, whatever. If the search returns too many, add more keywords. Then quick CV scan/review those to whittle down further to a short list, then actually contact/speak to those.

Or, they get their junior/admin staff to do that first level filtering, then the recruitment consultant who "owns" the req takes it forward with the candidate list.

If you think a person reviews every application received for every job, then you'd be wrong.

(the above is for run-of-the-mil jobs - PMs, BAs, developers, testers, sysadmins etc - more senior/critical/niche roles might be handled differently)

Not really you would still need to filter the 500 CVs down to plausible ones and that means keyword searches.

[Paralytic]

Not really you would still need to filter the 500 CVs down to plausible ones and that means keyword searches.

Is that a reference to my final sentence? I should have added that my assumption was that there would be fewer applicants for those roles and the "apply for everything" lot would have some level of self-awareness that means they'd pass it by. I now realise that might not be a valid assumption

[jayn200]

As above. Keyword searching to whittle the list down from 500 to 10, 15, 20, whatever. If the search returns too many, add more keywords. Then quick CV scan/review those to whittle down further to a short list, then actually contact/speak to those.

Or, they get their junior/admin staff to do that first level filtering, then the recruitment consultant who "owns" the req takes it forward with the candidate list.

If you think a person reviews every application received for every job, then you'd be wrong.

(the above is for run-of-the-mill jobs - PMs, BAs, developers, testers, sysadmins etc - more senior/critical/niche roles might be handled differently)

I don't disagree they do all of that, just 20 seems like a really small number. 10 minutes spent looking at CVs for the sum of money they are being paid for placing a candidate and how much time they spend for the rest of the process just doesn't seem logical at all. Why spend 10 minutes on CVs and then spending hours or days talking to candidates when you could have spent an hour reviewing the 50-80 relevant CVs (out of the 500+) you received and potentially come out with higher quality candidates, more time spent up front means higher probability placing the candidate.

[Antman]

I don't disagree they do all of that, just 20 seems like a really small number. 10 minutes spent looking at CVs for the sum of money they are being paid for placing a candidate and how much time they spend for the rest of the process just doesn't seem logical at all. Why spend 10 minutes on CVs and then spending hours or days talking to candidates when you could have spent an hour reviewing the 50-80 relevant CVs (out of the 500+) you received and potentially come out with higher quality candidates, more time spent up front means higher probability placing the candidate.

They spend more time talking to candidates because they are people persons. They can filter candidates better by talking to them than reviewing CVs. Obviously it doesn't scale hence their blunt tools for getting down to a reasonable number.

I always remember Dave Brent getting a pile of CVs roughly getting half of them and throwing them in the bin. When asked why he answered he didn't want people working for him who weren't lucky!

[jayn200]

They spend more time talking to candidates because they are people persons. They can filter candidates better by talking to them than reviewing CVs. Obviously it doesn't scale hence their blunt tools for getting down to a reasonable number.

I always remember Dave Brent getting a pile of CVs roughly getting half of them and throwing them in the bin. When asked why he answered he didn't want people working for him who weren't lucky!

Yeah but again you're speaking about half which still means human eyes on 12.5 times more cvs (250) vs what you suggested (20)....

Obviously if only 20 are returned on their keyword searches sure they look at 20.. I'll believe that but if they get 80 back, they still only look at 20? Why such a small number when you can review cvs so quickly. Just doesn't make any sense.

I think we can just leave this though, we won't agree on this.

[wattaj]

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[perplexed]

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