Responses to Applications for Employment (Raleigh, Durham: how much, job market, bills)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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What does it say about companies in the Raleigh-Durham area that do not even acknowledge applications for employment, much less send rejection letters?
If you're involved with hiring at your company, please consider how much work and emotional capital are invested in applying for a job.
Having said that, are there any opportunities in this area for a recent graduates with liberal arts degrees and no corporate experience? Even the entry level positions listed in indeed.com, the various city, county, and state government websites, the VA, and the rest require some experience. Suggestions?
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It doesn't say anything about companies in the Raleigh-Durham area.
It is quite common, and has been for many years, for companies not to acknowledge applications.
No response reduces verbiage that may give the applicant anything to work with to file suit for unfair employment practices.
From time to time I am involved in hiring for my function. Sorry, but no, unless and until you get to the point where you are speaking with one of our recruiters, you're not going to get any feedback from us just because you sent a resume in.
What does it say about companies in the Raleigh-Durham area that do not even acknowledge applications for employment, much less send rejection letters?
If you're involved with hiring at your company, please consider how much work and emotional capital are invested in applying for a job.
Having said that, are there any opportunities in this area for a recent graduates with liberal arts degrees and no corporate experience? Even the entry level positions listed in indeed.com, the various city, county, and state government websites, the VA, and the rest require some experience. Suggestions?
What do you want to do?
I know Fidelity is pretty much always hiring to work the phones and help people with retirement decisions. If you are willing to start there and learn, you can get promotions and training for securities licensing there.
I've always gotten at least an automated canned e-mail response to any application (i.e., "We've received your application, if you're a good fit, you'll hear from us. If not, we'll keep your application on file for XX days.") Sometimes an e-mail form rejection letter, sometimes not.
It's nice to at least to get confirmation that your resume was received, but it's definitely the exception and not the rule. Keep plugging along. It took me two months of applying to jobs 9-5 before I landed something.
What does it say about companies in the Raleigh-Durham area that do not even acknowledge applications for employment, much less send rejection letters?
If you're involved with hiring at your company, please consider how much work and emotional capital are invested in applying for a job.
Having said that, are there any opportunities in this area for a recent graduates with liberal arts degrees and no corporate experience? Even the entry level positions listed in indeed.com, the various city, county, and state government websites, the VA, and the rest require some experience. Suggestions?
This isn't just a local phenomena; it happens all over the country, and is the norm.
Companies generally do not notify applicants of anything unless they want to interview the candidate. Otherwise, they'd spend tons of money on man-hours alone.
To those saying that it would take too much time to respond to applicants... given that 90% of applications for white-collar jobs are submitted online through automated systems, it seems completely reasonable to at least expect an automated "we received your application" and another automated "sorry, the position has been filled." Personal rejection letters are of course not feasible. I had the unfortunate experience of filing applications with a company I wanted to work for for almost a year before finding out that the application was supposed to also be filed through a different email address; since this company wasn't in the habit of sending out any acknowledgement, no one would have any idea (I only found out after being lucky enough to establish a personal connection with someone there).
I have found these practices to be slightly more common here as opposed to in other regions, but that is most likely dependent on the types of industries here rather than some local hiring culture.
What does it say about companies in the Raleigh-Durham area that do not even acknowledge applications for employment, much less send rejection letters?
Are you certain that this is unique to the Triangle? Post this on the Work and Employment forum and I strongly suspect you'll find that this treatment is universal. If it is more prevalent here, it's probably because we have such a saturated job market for applicants, and each listing gets so many applications, they don't have time to acknowledge them like they used to (and should, IMHO).
Also, I think the fact that so many applications are done online now makes it seems less like "real people" are submitting them than in the days when people would write cover letters on real stationery and have resumes printed on fancy paper. Now it's all just a bunch of digital data.
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...are there any opportunities in this area for a recent graduates with liberal arts degrees and no corporate experience?
And sadly, with no "hard skills" nor experience, there is even less reason to acknowledge you.
Consider getting involved with a volunteer organization where you can get "corporate experience" as far as working with budgets, operations, etc., even if you pay the bills with a "McJob" as so many liberal arts new grads have to do (as did I, back in the day).
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It's nice to at least to get confirmation that your resume was received, but it's definitely the exception and not the rule.
I actually did get a "your application has been submitted" email every time I sent in an electronic application lately, to at least know that much, but it was rare for anything beyond that. I did just get a notification for something I applied for 5 months ago, that it had been filled--so sometimes they might do it, but the hiring process takes so long sometimes, you might have forgotten you even applied there before you hear anything from them if it's negative.
Semantics, perhaps, but we don't "reject" candidates. I can see little good from communicating with applicants that we choose not to interview. As it is, we get the occasional candidate (or worse, their parent) who berates us via letters and emails about the fact that we didn't hire them. Sending applicants a "no thanks" letter is only going to invite more questions about why, and more challenges that they weren't selected. Hiring is enough of a hassle as it is.
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