Blue by You

You’ve made multiple applications to the same company? Why’d you do that?

End up feeling like Blue looks?

You’re not alone. Pete’d been whacked a.k.a. downsized. He knocked himself out with job-hunting verve and blanketed the market. His aggressive doggedness was a transferable skill he’d have been better off losing, not using.

He was convinced direct competitors would scoop him. His strategy to stay in his industry meant getting maximum advantage from his experience. The downside? A mighty teeny-tiny job market; a dozen principal and about 50 indirect players comprised his skimpy target market.

Every day Pete cruised the careers sites of the majors. He’d find 5 to 15 roles posted with the same company. Convinced he qualified for many, he applied to at least a third of them. Some were more junior than his previous positions, others more senior. Pete didn’t care. He’d shoot the same resume at 5 or 6 different openings at the same organization.

Result? Pete’s ambitious attack on the job market recoiled hard enough to knock out a tooth.

Here’s the process his online application went through:

1. It was plucked by search engines because his keywords matched. BUT,
2. A humanoid reviewed his resume (not an android or bot)
3. When inputted into the database there was a record of how often he’d applied – and when.

What message did Pete send? That he was potentially:

1. Desperate.
2. A liar – did he really qualify for 6 divergent jobs?
3. Overqualified. If he could do all those jobs, was he beyond all of them?
4. Unfocused. He didn’t care which job he got (or maybe how he did it). Any job would do.
5. Blind. Wouldn’t he consider the optics through a recruiter’s eyes?

The tip? Be selective. Apply for only one position with the same company. In unique circumstances two. Look, your resume is typically coded so you’ll pop up for any position you qualify for. Recruiters have to be imaginative. If you’re qualified for a different role, they’ll see the match. That’s their job. Not yours.

Blue subscribes to winning by badgering. Leg-attaching & cloying are favored techniques. His rationale? The more in your face he is, the likelier you’ll fold and he’ll get walkies or a snuggle. Apparently not.

So submit just one astonishing application.

Are there exceptions? Of course. When the population of the company is 50,000 and they have multiple hiring centres. Or when you’re applying to the same company in different cities. Or when you’ve been advised by an insider who’s savvy to their process. But most of the time, less is more.

Have you been trying too hard? What were your results?

Jody Phillips