3 Reasons You’re Getting Job-Ghosted
You know you’re a top contender for that dream role. But, for some reason, you can’t get companies to even respond to your job application. Why?
There are a few critical reasons why your application is getting ignored by employers and hiring managers. Here are the top three challenges current job seekers face and ways to overcome them.
1. Ghost Jobs
According to Forbes, a ghost job is “a lousy way to run the company’s hiring process, where they advertise a job they don’t plan to fill.”
How to spot a ghost job posting:
- Look for openings that have been open for longer than 30 days. With the speed in the job market recently, employers don’t need to leave a role open for very long before they have plenty of applicants. Leaving a role open for a long time (or indefinitely) is a sign that the employer isn’t hiring for a specific position.
- Scan the job description for specifics about team, hiring manger, etc. If a job posting is vague about what specific projects you’d own (for example, a product manager or engineering role with no team specified), it may be an employer’s way of keeping their pipeline full.
- Be aware of the company’s hiring history. I recently coached a job seeker who applied for one of just three open positions on a company’s website. If there are very few roles open — or, even more significantly, if there were a ton of postings that have recently been removed — it’s a sign the company may have frozen hiring. This happened at Amazon right around the time 18,000 employees were laid off.
2. Your Resume
A resume is a distilled version of your accomplishments. It doesn’t fully represent your personality, emotional intelligence, or interpersonal skills — but, boy, can it make it harder (or easier!) for employers to get in touch with you.
There are two big parts of your resume to focus on improving: readability and keyword relevance.
Q: Can HR tools read it?
Over 98.8% of Fortune 500 companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS). You may have seen this term before; recruiters love to talk about it. If that statistic doesn’t mean much to you, here’s one that will: 75% of resumes are never read by a human. One of the reason ATS are so popular is because it significantly reduces the number of resumes that are “qualified” to be read by a real person.
A: How to get seen by a human.
Use a free resume scanner like jobscan.co to see if your document is readable. Remember: images, text boxes, tables, headers & footers, and non-standard fonts are all invisible to ATS.
Q: Are your keywords relevant?
You have excellent skills, pages of accomplishments, and killer experience. Your resume is ATS-friendly, but your resume is still not getting responses. Companies typically run a keyword match between the job description and your resume. If you don’t have a high enough match rate, your resume will go to the discard pile — without giving you any reason for the rejection.
A: How to choose the right keywords.
Copy the job description and paste it into freewordcloudgenerator.com to identify the most important keywords. Include these in your resume in the summary section and skills. Optional: try to work the top terms into each role summary. For each application, complete this quick exercise to tailor your resume.
ATS is a huge reason you’re not getting noticed by employers. Once you get to a real person, your resume will be judged on the strength of your accomplishments, writing / communication ability, and relevant skills. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, reach out to a professional resume writer to help increase your confidence and chances of your resume earning interviews.
3. Personal Touch
Let’s say you’ve identified a real job opening (not a ghost job), perfected your resume, and you’re STILL not getting responses. One sure way to get noticed is to personalize your communication.
Use LinkedIn as a networking tool. Put a face to the application by finding the relevant hiring manager, team leader, or team member for the role or company you’re interested in. Do a “network analysis” by thoroughly reviewing their profile:
- Are they an active poster? What are they most interested in?
- Are they based in the same town as you, or did you go to the same school?
- Do you have mutual LinkedIn connections?
When you reach out, make it easy, valuable, and interesting for them to assist you.
EASY
Come prepared with the exact job posting link, job title, etc. that you’re most interested in.
VALUABLE
Find a point of mutual connection or interest — add value to their interaction with you.
INTERESTING
Be friendly and polite! Send a cool article they might enjoy. Ask for their opinion or advice. I’ve even seen someone offer to donate to their favorite charity as a thank you for their time.
Stay Strong, and Stay Focused
Job searching is difficult and takes time. Even the best people skills can get tangled in the hiring technology loopholes and convoluted application processes.
Focus your energy on getting an interview using modern job search techniques (watch for ghost jobs), relevant resumes, and that hard-to-replicate personal touch.
About: Kat Sabatini is Chief Resume Writer and Founder at Tuesday Resume. Head to www.tuesdayresume.com for one-on-one Resume Writing and LinkedIn Profile Writing that gets responses.
