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Part of my job is to review resumes and give reccomendations to my manager to contact for possible interview opportunities. This is in the finance industry doing mostly back office financial analysis. Usually for every job posting we receive anywhere between 200 to over 400 applicants. As I start to sift through all these applicants to determine who would be a proper fit for the position, I notice that a good majority of these applicants have no experience in this field and come from backgrounds with degrees in music, art history, even some biology degrees etc.
I do understand why some of the applicants feel compelled to apply for any job just to see if they can get an income, but what makes you think with your Bachelors in Art History and no previous finance work that you are qualified to write complex financial analysis reports and present them to Senior Managers? I certainly wouldn't apply to work in a laboratory as a chemist, it would just be a waste of not only my time but whoever reviews these resumes. I can understand how some HR reps can get overwhelmed especially dealing with a 'desperate' job seeker that will call multiple times to check the status of their application.
I guess I pose this question out of curiosity as to why one not even remotely qualified for the position would even bother wasting their time.
FYI: What I AM NOT SAYING is that someone with a History backgorund could not do my job, we have plenty of people with degrees in other fields that come here, but they get the proper experience and training first at other positions. Insights always appreciated.
I guess they feel like they could be trained on the job, particularly if it is a junior level posting. I applied to some jobs where I didn't meet every single requirement (one wanted X degree, 5 years of experience. I had X degree, 2.5 years) if I honestly felt I could do the job or because I felt like I should give them the chance to say no to me.
Because many people apply when they meet 80% or so of the job requirements. So if there are seven requirements, yet only two of them actually list something to do with the core work, while the rest is fluff like "organized person", "capable of multi-tasking", "proficient with MS Office", etc, then you will get these applications.
Perhaps the job posting is written poorly. Finance type things (among many things) should be specific like "requires degree in or 24 semester hours in accounting, or 2 years minimum direct work experience doing blah blah".
I have seen more than a few poorly worded job postings.
Plus people have that thread of hope they can get in, and it has happened.
Because most educated people are smart enough to LEARN a job. Most job postings today are extremely specialized and expect the candidate to have experience in something where theres absolutely no way they could have experience in it. I saw a posting the other day for an accounting role requiring SEC reporting experience and FP&A analysis experience. It was an entry level position. These are two different roles in most organizations and theres no way anyone that has ever served in both roles would consider applying for a job that is entry level. However someone who has worked in FP&A could easily learn SEC reporting, its not rocket science.
It comes down to the fact that companies are not willing to train. They want to hire someone who already knows what theyre doing. Im sure you HR people are just doing what youre told to do but seriously, stop and think for a while. If you are getting tons of applications from people who "arent qualified" maybe its because what you are requesting is absolutely, completely, retarded.
Part of my job is to review resumes and give reccomendations to my manager to contact for possible interview opportunities. This is in the finance industry doing mostly back office financial analysis. Usually for every job posting we receive anywhere between 200 to over 400 applicants. As I start to sift through all these applicants to determine who would be a proper fit for the position, I notice that a good majority of these applicants have no experience in this field and come from backgrounds with degrees in music, art history, even some biology degrees etc.
I do understand why some of the applicants feel compelled to apply for any job just to see if they can get an income, but what makes you think with your Bachelors in Art History and no previous finance work that you are qualified to write complex financial analysis reports and present them to Senior Managers? I certainly wouldn't apply to work in a laboratory as a chemist, it would just be a waste of not only my time but whoever reviews these resumes. I can understand how some HR reps can get overwhelmed especially dealing with a 'desperate' job seeker that will call multiple times to check the status of their application.
I guess I pose this question out of curiosity as to why one not even remotely qualified for the position would even bother wasting their time.
FYI: What I AM NOT SAYING is that someone with a History backgorund could not do my job, we have plenty of people with degrees in other fields that come here, but they get the proper experience and training first at other positions. Insights always appreciated.
When you hear people say they have applied to 300 jobs and haven't gotten a single reply these are the type of people that are applying to those jobs. It may be that they actually have done some of the work, but they don't bother to tailor their resume to the job posting.
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I see this too when we have one opening and get 100 applicants of which only 15 meet the minimum requirements. You can tell from the resumes that some people are just applying for everything that comes up, sometimes even forgetting to change their "career goal" to match the opening. In other cases I think they do hope to get an interview without 100% match of skills. They must not realize that in most cases we will get at least several that do match, and if not, are likely to re-open the position rather than settle.
Because people are hoping to at least receive some kind of training or they're clinging to that shred of hope that they'll be called in for an interview. I remembered doing some recruiting work for my brother's company and there were plenty of resumes that didn't meet the requirements for the job.
FYI: What I AM NOT SAYING is that someone with a History backgorund could not do my job, we have plenty of people with degrees in other fields that come here, but they get the proper experience and training first at other positions.
I think this quote pretty much sums it up. It's the 'ol "Why should I have to invest in their training? Someone else should do that for me" mentality held by many hiring managers and employers.
See, we all had to start somewhere. None of you were magically born with any sort of skill set or experience in a particular field. Someone took a shot on you, gave you a chance, which in turn allowed you to build experience. There are some companies out there that are willing to give folks with little experience a shot. Perhaps they don't have the exact experience match of the position being offered, but something else on their resume may have portrayed them as a "go-getter", intelligent, or all of the above.
My first job out of college was for a position in a field/industry that I had zero experience in. However, I had some good admin/technical skills that I marketed on my resume. The company took a chance on me and hired me with the idea that they would be training me in this new position. I'm pretty certain that the same applies to everyone else on this message board. Someone gave you a shot at starting your career and that's why many of you are where you are today.
OP, it appears you work at a company that isn't willing to take chances on people or train them for the positions you offer. That's fine if it's working out for you. There are plenty of other companies out there that are willing to give people a shot and train them for their particular role.
On the opposite end we have employers writing job ads that are patently rediculous in terms of how specific the exerience they are asking for and declaring that there is a skills shortage because noone can meet their criteria. I've seen Chemist ads asking for specific instrument control/data software, equipment make and model numbers, and even specific testing protocols.
It is bad enough companies would rather leave jobs unfilled for years rather than train but come on how stupid do you think people with science degrees and experience are that they can't even learn to perform a new test procedure?
You have a job posting problem, not an applicant problem.
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It's the Catch-22
