We’ve all done it before and we’ve all had it happen to us. We see a job posting or hear about one through the grapevine and we immediately go after that job like it were our last chance. We figure out who to send our resume to, what department they work in, their address, yadda yadda yadda, and we start gathering up our job seeking materials. We take another look at our resumes and make sure that they have all of the pertinent information, we make sure our cover letter is a real attention grabber, and we send them both off either electronically or the U.S. Postal Service and then….
….nothing.
In most cases that’s what happens to us, right? We send out all of our credentials and then nothing happens. No phone call, no messages – nada. Of course that’s if we are lucky…
…if we are unlucky then we get an e-mail from them because we were smart enough to include our e-mail address in our cover letter as a possible contact. The e-mail, unfortunately, is one that we have all seen many times before:
Dear (insert your own name here):
Thank you for your submission for the job with our company. As you can imagine we recieved hundreds of applications when the ad first appeared. We looked very closely at your qualifications and we’ve decided that you are not a proper fit for our company at this time. We have since gone with a candidate who we feel has the right qualifications for the position.
Good luck with your job search.
Human Resources.
Now we’ve all gotten those e-mails and phone calls at one point or another, right? I know from first-hand experiance that it sucks to have someone tell you that you are not good enough to work for them (and let’s face it, that is exactly what they are saying – just, you know, without actually saying it.) It sucks when you have to hear or read that they think that someone else is better qualified then you for a job that you know you can do in your sleep. You know you could do that job if only you had been able to get in there for an interview to prove it to them – but you didn’t even get that chance!
What’s even worse is when you do get an interview, you think that it goes well, they say you’ll hear from them within 48 hours and you never hear from them again! Or in my case, you do hear from them but it’s later then they said only to hear them tell you that you didn’t get the job because they went with someone who has 15 years experiance to your 3 years.
We have all been there, and whenever it happens to us we all feel like they are telling us the same thing over and over again – that we are all a bunch of losers who don’t deserve an opportunity to support our families. To those of us who are unemployed, underemployed or underutilized it seems as if some of these HR honks have gone to the Rick Santelli School of Thinning the Herd. So what’s next, do we now have to just give up looking for the jobs that we are qualified for and are obviously capable of doing in favor of the jobs that “nobody wants” like working at Wal-Mart, flipping burgers at McDonald’s for minimum wage part-time or cleaning offices only to be told that we are “overqualified” because we went to college?!?
Oh wait…been there, done that!
So I have to ask all of you out there who just happen to work in HR – just what are the “right” qualifications for getting a job these days? If we are unemployed there is only so much that we can do to improve our chances since we are not working at the moment so that our qualifications do improve. How can we better ourselves and our chances if we don’t have a job? More importantly, how can we do this without having to spend any money that we don’t have in the first place on courses or admissions fees for schools that don’t serve our interests in the first place?
The reason I ask this is because I got a rejection e-mail today for a job that I thought I stood a great chance at getting. Here is that e-mail with the names changed:
Dear name removed
RE: Your interest in the position, Office Coordinator I/II/III DOE – AB/Caldwell, ID (286938-547), with The J.R. Simplot Company
We have reviewed your credentials and job experience against the requirements of the above mentioned position, and feel that you have many of the qualities we are looking for in this type of position. However, because we’ve had very strong interest in this position, we’ve had to narrow the group of qualified applicants down to a manageable number to take to the next step in the process. Unfortunately, you have not been selected for an interview at this time.
We are always looking for strong candidates to join our Company. Please feel free to review our website for any current openings that you would like to be considered for and resubmit your application or you may contact us and we can copy your resume over to a new job. Again, we appreciate your interest in our Company.
Typical right? Well here’s something that made this letter different than the rest:
Please do not consider this experience a wasted effort. We are now familiar with your resume and applaud your efforts in seeking out new opportunities for your personal growth and development – which is something we at the J. R. Simplot Company, feel very passionate about. We appreciate your time, and give you our sincerest wishes that you are successful in your search.
Regards,
HR Person’s name removed
It was the “Please do not consider this experience a wasted effort” that surprised me.
Now this is different because usually I get the “we’ve gone with someone who has better qualifications,” or “we’ve decided to go in a different direction” and not a word about trying again. It’s usually understood that once you’ve failed to get in the first time, you really shouldn’t try a second time because what’s really changed if you try again?
But this is a first for me, I never get this from someone in HR telling me that I should re-apply for something different in their company – I usually get the brush-off.
So I’m going to reply to her and ask her to keep me in mind for any other openings that might come up at the Simplot Company. I’m going to try to turn what has become a very negative day into a positive.
Somehow…
