Reply to: Why people donot get feedback about outcome of their application???

[cherhill]

I am an IT Professional and have been working as a Freelance for 10 years. Over time I’ve always have been proactive and very professional in my career and always reach out to companies for work whether via Agency or Direct.
Here are my experiences which I am writing here so that I do hope others would take this into consideration and understands this.
1. When I was in between jobs I’ve wrote to my local organisations via email and sent them my Covering Letter and CV to organisation directly for Permanent and Contract opportunities. I know they were looking people but I didn’t know anyone within the organisation to put a wording in for me.
a. I have not heard any feedback from HR or the IT Director/Manager despite emailing few times nor received feedback on my CV.
2. Also same as above I was determined to hear from them so this time I’ve hand delivered my Covering Letter and the CV to companies Reception, followed by an Email to HR about my CV which handed to them 2-3 days ago for an outcome.
a. The result not surprisingly “no news or reply to emails”.  Deserves Three SAD Faces.
3. I’ve started new contract and start working for my new client everything is going very well “I think I am the lucky one on this occasion” Deserves  Three Smiley faces and I am happy at the moment. However, I was determined to know, why organisations small or large couldn’t bother to send feedbacks or notify candidates for the receipt of their CV/Applications…
I needed to understand this why many people like me who determine and are looking for work do all the leg work but they don’t even get feedback from their applications…

4. I’ve put out my own experiment and sent out my CV and covering letter to organisations local area where currently I am contracting and the Local companies where I live as well as further afield to see who will reply and send me the outcome of my CV, I believe I have submitted about 100 applications. Also I have hand delivered some of organisations myself and emailed the others to the companies those are looking for candidates like myself hoping somehow I will receive some information and feedback on my CV.
a. Out of those only the very few small organisations provided feedback

The question is: - Why Recruitment Agencies and the organisations cannot be bother to write couple of sentence to say “We sorry but your application is not successful for this and that reason”. Surely this is not complicated.

Think this is a wind up right?

[Tasslehoff]

I guess the OP is not at the stage where he or she is even getting interviews or face-2-face yet. I will modify my advice, then. Make the spreadsheet biased to 'their' behaviour and not yours. (Of course that does not mean that you do not have to modify yours!)

Play the game of top trumps sort of

OFF offer is the champion
F2F trumps a TI (Face 2 Face is better than a Telephone Interview)
AT trumps IT (Agent telephone me (you) is better than I called the agent)
AE trumps IEA (Agent email me (you) is better than a I email the agent)

You get the idea

If you play the game for even week or a fortnight as you say that are doing, I bet you will see maybe a real gem in there.

Best of all with Google spreadsheets, you add notes and comments to the individual cells that you can see at a glance. Search the Internet for examples of these campaign spreadsheets. You might find weird things like political or web marketing sheets, but persevere.


The people responding in other replies in this thread have also good advice. If you are not getting feedback or replies initially then you are spreading your marmalade thinly! You are not targeting the jobs that reflect your core strengths.

When you start to getting regular telephone interview and then F2F and the feedback is not coming back from the clients, most importantly, and the agents then I do agree that you have a bigger problem. I think most people reading this thread here would also think that is a problem. Because how does anyone know what they should improve on lest they receive some true feedback? However you (the OP) need to be getting to second and third stages of these interviews.

PS: my advice is works perfectly for permanent roles too.

I am looking currently and I do almost exactly this

Although I have slightly differing "status" field

Applied
Agent Phone Me
Company Name (for me once you know the company name it's a serious post)
Interview
Offer

[jmo21]

You'll find that those who have tried to turn this question around on you, to make you look bad or unreasonable, always seem to be giving the benefit of the doubt to the same groups of people.

[TheFaQQer]

Ooerrr...I'm the same. It's 2014, do people still fill in forms for jobs?? I can't remember the last time I got one filling in a form.

The only time I've filled a form for a job was when I graduated and took my first permie role.

[tractor]

..

If the economy comes back and clientco's start realising the job market doesn't suit them again, just you watch all these hurdles disappear one by one. People will get offered jobs without having their time wasted by HR bureaucracy.

We all hate human remains but the sensible amongst us have adapted and moved on. There are better and more deserving objects out there to be concentrating on.

As for the 'giving the same people the benefit, yada, yada, yada...' comment, I think that you will find you are witnessing the experience and wisdom of the majority at work there. Just because your paranoia doesn't allow you to believe it, does not mean that it isn't so.

[DTexas]

If the economy comes back and clientco's start realising the job market doesn't suit them again, just you watch all these hurdles disappear one by one. People will get offered jobs without having their time wasted by HR bureaucracy.

[Elliegirl]

So you deliberately discount yourself from the prospect of getting a job that is well paying because you don't like form-filling?

That is completely irrational behaviour. I suggest you correct it.

Ooerrr...I'm the same. It's 2014, do people still fill in forms for jobs?? I can't remember the last time I got one filling in a form.

[DTexas]

So you deliberately discount yourself from the prospect of getting a job that is well paying because you don't like form-filling?

That is completely irrational behaviour. I suggest you correct it.

That's his prerogative. He is free to exercise his own judgement.

[DTexas]

The question is: - Why Recruitment Agencies and the organisations cannot be bother to write couple of sentence to say “We sorry but your application is not successful for this and that reason”. Surely this is not complicated.

You'll find that those who have tried to turn this question around on you, to make you look bad or unreasonable, always seem to be giving the benefit of the doubt to the same groups of people.

[tomtomagain]

P.S. I don't apply jobs that's need require for me to fill in forms, even electronically, that's my principle and I wont change that even if that the job paying very well money.

So you deliberately discount yourself from the prospect of getting a job that is well paying because you don't like form-filling?

That is completely irrational behaviour. I suggest you correct it.

[rocktronAMP]

"Over time, a period of months or even years, you will build data chart that you can glance at" and realise what a waste of time and effort it all is and wish you had done something sensible instead.

FTFY

I guess the OP is not at the stage where he or she is even getting interviews or face-2-face yet. I will modify my advice, then. Make the spreadsheet biased to 'their' behaviour and not yours. (Of course that does not mean that you do not have to modify yours!)

Play the game of top trumps sort of

OFF offer is the champion
F2F trumps a TI (Face 2 Face is better than a Telephone Interview)
AT trumps IT (Agent telephone me (you) is better than I called the agent)
AE trumps IEA (Agent email me (you) is better than a I email the agent)

You get the idea

If you play the game for even week or a fortnight as you say that are doing, I bet you will see maybe a real gem in there.

Best of all with Google spreadsheets, you add notes and comments to the individual cells that you can see at a glance. Search the Internet for examples of these campaign spreadsheets. You might find weird things like political or web marketing sheets, but persevere.


The people responding in other replies in this thread have also good advice. If you are not getting feedback or replies initially then you are spreading your marmalade thinly! You are not targeting the jobs that reflect your core strengths.

When you start to getting regular telephone interview and then F2F and the feedback is not coming back from the clients, most importantly, and the agents then I do agree that you have a bigger problem. I think most people reading this thread here would also think that is a problem. Because how does anyone know what they should improve on lest they receive some true feedback? However you (the OP) need to be getting to second and third stages of these interviews.

PS: my advice is works perfectly for permanent roles too.

[Lastlonger]

They always give you feedback.

Positive feedback - You get the job offer.

Negative feedback - You didn't.


What other "feedback" do you want?

Why do you think they should waste their time telling you what they thought? Are you paying for their time?

They've already wasted enough of their time interviewing you. What's in it for them?

I am not talking about interview feedback, I have always received feedback from my interviews whether I have successful or not. Annoying thing is that when after completing 12-15 pages of application form people don't hear back.

P.S. I don't apply jobs that's need require for me to fill in forms, even electronically, that's my principle and I wont change that even if that the job paying very well money.

[Lastlonger]

Get over it!

Advice:

Start a self-marketing spreadsheet. Note down the agents and responses over a time (weeks in the year). Use or learn conditional formatting to turn abbreviations into colours as you mark the cells. NR becomes No Response (Red), ACT (Agent Contacted me by Telephone) , ACE (Agent contacted me by Email) in green, ICAE (I COntacted Agent by Email) .... you get the idea. Keep on filling in this spreadsheet for every agent, connection, networking contact and every conversation. Sometimes you will not have a computer, so always use pen paper or grey matter memory. Over time, a period of months or even years, you will build data chart that you can glance at. You will see the chalk from the cheese in other words. A spreadsheet is better unless you want to keep a massive chart in your living room.

Already been doing this for the last 2 years:

What they say What goes around come around. when I work for a company and be friend with people and tell them the ones who are bad apple not to bother working with them and most are taking credit for this type of info. Perhaps I told you too, never know who we are talking with in this small world...

[Lastlonger]

Seriously, do you really think you are the only person contacting companies and agents?

NO, but they are the ones who put an advert out...

[Lastlonger]

It's just the way it is. But you decided to send out hundreds of CVs to prospective employers as an experiment - with no intention of taking an interview or job if offered? Somewhat pot calling kettle is it not?

It has nothing to do with Pot or the Kettle...

It was just a small scale experiment I did some calls this Market Research. I had a time over the weekend when kids were out and I have done so... I agree with you "its just the way its", but it will be helpful to get some form of feedback... I am not talking about recruitment agencies, I am actually talking about the companies who are the worst culprit to this process. even though people take their time to fill their 12 page application forms... IF you don't find that annoying I would take my hats off and you must be Saint.