#JobSearchStruggles #HiringProcess #CareerFrustration
Hey everyone! I wanted to talk about something that’s been seriously bugging me lately. 🌪️ Have you ever applied for a job that you just *know* you’re perfect for, only to get that annoying automated rejection email? 🙄 I mean, what’s up with HR departments and recruiters these days? It seems like every time I submit an application where I meet all the qualifications—and maybe even exceed them—I get shot down. Then, just the next day, I see the same job reposted! 😤
It’s even more puzzling when I notice that the rejections often come from junior HR professionals, some of whom barely have a couple of years under their belts. Meanwhile, more experienced HR folks tend to see the value in my application and actually bring me in for interviews. This leads me to wonder:
- Why am I getting overlooked for positions I’m clearly qualified for? It’s tough to believe that after just one day, someone could outshine me when I’ve got the experience to back it up.
- Why do less experienced HR professionals often cut me from the running? No offense intended, but shouldn’t experience lead to better hiring choices? 🧐
Now, these experiences don’t just hurt my feelings—they can be pretty damaging to your confidence and job search motivation. 💔 It’s like you start questioning your worth and capabilities. But I think part of the problem stems from:
- The sheer volume of applications HR departments receive, leading to reliance on automated tools that might not always make the best decisions.
- A lack of training or mentorship for junior HR professionals, which means they might not fully grasp the nuances of evaluating candidates against job requirements.
So, what do we do about it? I think it could help if companies allowed for more comprehensive training for HR staff and encouraged a more human touch in their hiring processes. 🤝
Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Have you faced similar struggles in your job search? What strategies have you found helpful? Let’s share experiences and support each other in this challenging journey. ✊💬
>Why am I getting rejected for roles I’m clearly qualified for, only to see the job remain open or be reposted shortly after? It doesn’t seem possible that a better candidate was interviewed in just one day.
Meeting all the qualifications and being a good fit for the team are two different things. Perhaps this is the reason you were rejected.
>Why do junior HR professionals, who have less experience, reject my application more often than those with more experience?
This entire thinking is just a waste of time.
>I don’t even get the chance for an interview. What’s even more baffling is that I often get rejected by HR professionals with just 6 months to 2 years of experience, who are responsible for hiring for senior positions.
You present this almost like they shouldn’t reject you because their experience, in a completely different position, is less than yours, The two have nothing to do with each other.
Honestly, take the rejection as a sign to move on, find a better job to apply to (there’s always a better job). Lots of company’s keep these ghost postings up and don’t actually hire anyone – some statistical tactic.
Good luck OP!
Fake job maybe?]
My take is jaded but… Recruiters see experience and think you’re too expensive. The metric in this job market is cheapness, not effectiveness.
That said, continue to apply, don’t lose your belief in your talent, and ride it out knowing that thousands of anonymous internet strangers are on your side. Don’t lose sight of who you are. Maintain a sense of humor.
Network as best as you can, apply where your skills fit, and eventually, you will regain employment stability.
Keep in mind that while you know your value, recruiters do not. One of the biggest challenges when job hunting is communicating your value proposition effectively; this applies to every step of the process, from your resume to interviews.
If your issue is not even getting called back or your application not being noticed, then there may be an issue with your resume.
If you get invited interviews but are always getting rejected or fail to move forward, then you may have an issue with the way your interview performance.
You can try to second-guess the ability and experience of recruiters, but frankly that won’t help you. The only thing you can control is your own performance.
So, if you can, try to get feedback on your resume from someone you trust. Look up ideal resume formats and resume writing tips online. Constantly revisit your resume rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Your resume should be a living thing that you are constantly improving throughout the process.
On interviews, practice with someone if you can. It’s hard to critique our own behaviors and you might not notice the negative points about your communication style. Practice, practice, practice.
Yeah, I’ve been looking for work for a couple of months now. Applied to a large flurry of open positions at the beginning before switching to “maintenance mode”. Tumbleweeds, not a single answer, for jobs I am eminently qualified and experienced for. Only to see those jobs slowly getting reposted, obviously unfilled. And although there is the phenomenon of “ghost jobs” I don’t think this is always, or even often, the case in these positions. I think it comes down to the “skills shortage” issue companies are facing.
…and by “skills shortage”, naturally I mean “unrealistic expectations”. Unicorn hunts without ever thinking that their requirements are unrealistic. Jobs that require a level of experience you can only get by getting these jobs which you don’t have the experience for. It’s fucked up.
I work in SAP and I see a nonsense that has arisen. There is the legacy system (ECC) which almost half of companies are using (and even then I’ve seen reports that as low as 14% of companies have actually migrated fully so this could be much larger in terms of actual production environments). And then there’s S/4 HANA (and its various incarnations) that is the new version. So there have been a large number of migrations facing a 2027 deadline for support cut off of the former. So everyone wants someone experienced in specifically S/4 HANA versions and fuck those who only have experience in the former. I have had one S/4 HANA project yet this is usually seen as “insufficient” and SAP have been relentless with updating their tech stack so there are lots of new things which no one has, nor can get, experience in – and the issue with SAP is that you can’t just give it a go as the cost of implementations tends to be huge and requires serious hardware, and the only free version SAP have available is an ancient version of ECC – not much use to try and get up to date.
So you constantly get overlooked because of lack of experience in S/4 HANA yet the jobs go unfilled because…yep…you guessed it…no one can get on these projects to get the experience. It’s fucking crazy.
And to add insult to injury the practical differences between the two systems aren’t that great (with a few exceptions, but I work in the QM area where it is virtually the same). I have used the technology listed but in slightly different ways to what they want. I am well versed and understand the differences but this is never enough. And I think that these recruiters are too fucking thick or inexperienced to comprehend this (one who I applied to who rejected me was a fucking trolley dolly for Ryanair up to a year and a bit ago, I mean, it’s a complex market, how much can she possibly understand it). One rejection I had was because I didn’t have experience in CDS, although I’d clearly written Core Data Services in my CV, just without reference to the abbreviation. I mean, it pisses me off that these fuckwits preside over my very fate, that they are the gatekeepers of my career.
I mean it isn’t just the rejection but the complete lack of even any kind of contact to say “thanks but no thanks” that gets to me. Jobhunting is massively difficult with ADHD and I’m not good at rejection (or perceived rejection), especially when up to a few years ago I could just leave one job, give a shout out to a few recruiters and probably have a job sorted within a few days. But now, it is all mental.
You aren’t the only one.
I have experienced this and I could only tell you that
1) HR are people – where they do not have experience in the job that is needed to be staffed so they do not know what is expected only to be told what is needed.
2) Hiring Managers – They may have seen your CV as a “Threat” since you might be qualified and expected to take the manager’s space if really do perform well.
Yeah, that’s how the world works nowadays.
Job postings to make it look like there is growth, not making the arbitrary cut to have someone actually review your application. Hired another person that also qualified and the actual posting got forgotten. The person doing the hiring and the person managing the posts may not be the same person and there is bad communication. My advice, find the place you want to work for,then find the person responsible for supervising or hiring for that specific job and introduce yourself. Thats what i did and had 3 offers to pick from, I wasn’t arrogant enough to try and leverage any of them against the others. Just picked the one that I was most interested in.
I was recruited to an interview, 3 stages, went quite smoothly, everyone seemed excited.
Then got told that they gave it to an internal candidate instead.
Then saw the same job posted. Contacted the recruitment team to ask what gives and was completely ghosted.
That same job got reposted for 3 months at least until i blocked them, I know this cause linked in kept spamming the job at me as I was a perfect fit for the role.
First, if they had an internal candidate that you had earmarked, why would you bother wasting my time and yours.
Secondly if that candidate didn’t work out why didn’t you Contact me then.
Thirdly if you are struggling to fill the position 3 months later maybe lower your requirements and stop looking for a unicorn, the position was easily trainable even if you didn’t have my level of experience
If you were automatically rejected, it wasn’t your experience, it was keywords missing from your resume.
If it was an actual human rejecting you then my opinion is they’re either not actively recruiting for it or they have an internal candidate they’re looking to plug in. This assumes you’ve done a good job on interviews etc.
Job postings stay up after a role is filled due to the length of how long they signed up to have it listed for. Doesn’t mean they haven’t filled the position. If you’re not getting interviews it’s probably your resume getting auto rejected due to missing key words or skills. For every job there’s a ton of qualified applicants. There’s a ton of people out of work and applying.
Apparently it’s fairly common to use these job postings to collect candidates for future actual job openings. Though I don’t know if I’ve heard of anybody getting a call out of the blue within the year after they were rejected. I guess maybe a couple anecdotes I’ve seen could have been that, but nobody’s mentioned that they knew for sure that’s what happened.
Not necessarily the case here, but I’ve definitely run into listings that are up simply to gauge the market or present the idea that a compaby is still growing. No hires, just listings.
I am trying to relocate from CT (working in NYC) to Nashville, TN (where I have family)
And the job market is tough. Granted,I’ve only been looking for little over a month, but I can tell it’s going to be a while.
I have a few things going against me:
1. Relocation – companies don’t usually want to take a risk like that.
2. Economy – We are in a recession, believe it or not. Don’t believe what the news says. The numbers speak for themselves. This can cause a lot of companies to be afraid to spend on anything deemed ‘unnecessary’
3. Job market – Companies want more, for less. They want more YoE, certifications, education to find the ‘prefect’ candidate. Even then, I’m sure you’ve noticed, you’ve applied for jobs where you didn’t meet much of the job description, but you still got an interview or sometimes even the job! This is because sometimes even the hiring managers/HR have no idea what they want.
Companies also usually aren’t keen to train someone to do the job (as they want their hundreds candidate immediately). Which eliminates 100s of not thousands of great candidates based on being unwilling to train them. Which is ridiculous as most jobs can be trained for.
And sometimes if you don’t meet these qualifications, you are rejected.
With ridiculous requirements for even entry level jobs nowadays, it can feel like you’ll never win.
The job market is terrible as companies are crunching on money, as they are not sure where the economy is going.
4. Time of year – Historically, summer can suck in terms of hiring. Many people take vacations during this time, which causes major slow downs.
There are definitely more, but I thought I’d do the main ones.
Don’t give up man! I was fired last year and thought I was an irredeemable failure, but I kept at it, got a great paying job and finished my masters.
Point is, you will get what you are meant for. I hate these sayings, but seeing how it works first hand, I strongly believe it.
It will all come in time.
P. S Don’t forget to stretch truths, embellish on your resume, it really does help (just make sure you know what you are applying for and writing down on your resume!!)
These are all guesses, but some companies are required to post a position when they are hiring internally. Some companies post jobs so they can have resumes in their files for whenever they are hiring. Some companies post jobs so they can show that they are growing rapidly.
But one thing that people overlook is the reality of actually reviewing the applicants. Every job I applied to post-COVID has had 100+ applicants. They’re probably not going to interview all 100 people, so the recruiter quickly scans resumes for the exact experience the company wanted, picks out 5-10 of them, and then interviews those. Then they narrow it down to a handful to actually speak to the team. Maybe after that filtering, the team doesn’t like any of the choices offered to them.
It sucks, but I’m inclined to believe that the sheer quantity of applicants is causing qualified applicants to slip through constantly.
Not all roles are actually “open”.
Currently in a final round and the job go reposted although I’m meeting with the head of the department today and that they have 2 other internal candidates who have already interviewed.
Work on your social game. They want to hire someone they can “see” themselves working with. Follow and be pleasant. The second you get pushy or angry, you’ve lost.
There could be one little disconnect here that people don’t realize. I’m don’t know what you do or what job you applied for but it’s where my thought goes when someone says that are a great fit.
I am currently hiring for a product manager role for an electronics manufacturer. The hiring manager wants someone with experience launching an engineered product (electronic or electrical) as it is relevant to what the company does. I get people reaching out and applying to the role that match 90% of the job description. The only thing missing is that person for example is a product manager for a bank or grocery store. They do not match the industry or product that they need the knowledge to be able to market, sell and explain in depth to the customers.
Sometimes it comes down to this one fine detail, they check off all other boxes where they would be a good fit but it’s this one detail that leads to rejection. There could be other reasons why you are rejected but just want to put into perspective this could be one of them as I see a lot of it.
I HATE RECRUITERS SOMETIMES
I had a 15 minute phone screening for an internship a while back. The Lady on the phone was in HR and couldn’t even tell me what I’d be doing day to day. How are these people supposed to know who is a good candidate if you don’t know what they’re doing???
> I receive automated fucking messages saying other candidates are a better fit.
Many of those people are lying or embellishing their resumes. A more senior HR person might see some inconsistencies, a junior one is easily duped.
They need an overqualified young junior who’s okay with lower pay and more hours.
the market is filled with fake jobs or even jobs that have expired but no one bothers to deactivate the advertising. Also, some of them are just collecting CVs for their database.
Rest assured though, when revolution comes, HR and recruiters are gonna be amongst the first people eaten
Probably a fake job. Home depot and Revature do this like clock work. They have had the EXACT same job postings being reposted every week for the last 7 years. I know this because before I went to college I saw both of those postings and said “that’s not too bad of requierments if only I had the experience already” 4 years of college and 3 years of work experience later I still see the exact same postings from both of those companies.
Applied to them, got rejects for “better candidates” then jobs reposted again in a week like clockwork.
They likely aren’t looking for a candidate it’s likely so they can get around some kind of loop, like a requirement of having to screen at least so many minorities and people with disabilities so they dont get hit with discrimination law suits.
I’ve been stuck in the recruitment hell for years and years now (as a lab technician, it’s hard to get any perma-work and I have to settle for contracts). I feel you so hard on this, my dude.
From my experience, recruiters and HR can be so disconnected from the actual job that your experience might be very new to them and confusing. If it’s not word-for-word what they’re looking for in the job description, they may take it as a completely different skill.
My interest-check with my recruiter for my current job felt absolutely pointless because she was re-typing up my resume into her company’s format and every so often was asking “what does this mean? Is it the same as __?” and it was frankly worrisome that she wouldn’t advocate for me correctly.
Keep applying and keep your head up! I wish you the best.
perhaps your resume is just getting auto-rejected by ATS and not by an actual human
I’m in that boat. I recently spoke with a corporate recruiter and before we started talking about experience (which was completely in line with the job description) she said that my resume looked expensive. The role was more technical judging by my resume. I have a “manager” title but clearly my resume reflects technical hands-on. She wouldn’t even tell me the salary range. She said “you would be offended”. So I asked her why she reached out to me then. She said “she overlooked the manager title”.
I expect to be compensated fairly for the job description. I am open to a lower paying position but it has to be something online with my skill set. At this point in my career it’s more about happiness.
“4 in 10 companies say they’ve posted a fake job this year—what that actually means”
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/06/27/4-in-10-companies-say-theyve-posted-a-fake-job-this-year-what-that-means.html
Look guys, we are trying to recruit… We just haven’t found the right candidate yet so pls continue to do 3x the work.
Meanwhile, manager gets bigger bonus.
This is your answer.
What makes you think the job description is complete? Or current?
It’s the kind of positions that are only closed when they find right idiot. Take it as a badge of honor that you didn’t get hired.
What I’m trying to say is that the company is not interested in employee development, they just want a cheap-enough person, possibly a smartass that can convince them that the impossible is possible.
It could also be a fake position to make the company appear more attractive than it really is. Over the years, I’ve seen plenty of postings that were kept open or reposted for months, despite the recruiter rejecting me because they decided to hire, allegedly, somebody else.
LinkedIn is terrible these days. Too much toxic positivity and humblebraggers that copy/paste their moronic posts from ChatGPT.
There’s no sense to be made. My brother works for a huge company that puts high priority on referrals. He’s put me up two or three times for my EXACT job that I have over a decade doing in this exact category. I don’t even get to the HR screener.
This has happens so often. I applied for a job posting that I’ve done extensively before for 3 years and more functions along with it. (1 year of experience was required)
Got through to final interview and that went great in my opinion too. They ghosted me and reposted it, called them out and they said the hr manager decided to reject everyone and start with a new pool of candidates…. SPEECHLESS.
Ghost jobs. Internal hiring. Unmentioned requirements. I was once turned down because I knew too much (overqualified, literally “ruined” in their opinion, because I wouldn’t be able to fit in with the other people they were “molding” … )
I know the feeling. I’ve noticed over the years my “job” in tech has slowly been eroded by combining tasks and skills from other jobs and specializations, or by adding one skill that I don’t have to a JD.
A resume is supposed to be your past, not your future. A job description describes the future, not the past. Unfortunately, they want your past to be their future.
Example: I match 95% of skills. I do not match one skill. Everyone down the chain except for me has no idea what the 95% or the 1 skill are. None of them. I am the “SME” not them. If I see one thing on the laundry list of technical knowledge that I do not have skill in, I’m supposed to straight up lie that I have experience and invent something on my resume that shows the experience, skim the tutorials so I can pass a tech screen, and then play like nothing happened.
Job market is getting worse by the day. This is insane. I feel for you. This happened to me multiple times.
Maybe they just didn’t like you as a person. Didn’t fit in with their environment
Some people learn way too late that’s it’s about personality & likability more than skills. You’re better investing in socials than a degree to be honest
That is so true, I worked for a company that does exactly the same thing. (HEALTHCARE)
Companies have key words they are looking for
👋🤡- Hello
Maybe add in the next application “Since you already re-posted this 27 times your better fits dont seem to fit at all, you might want to try something different this time”. Nothing to lose there.
I think it’s because you’re good at your current role.
Many managers prevent development in order to keep employees in their current role even if it means to hire someone less qualified for the higher role.
The companies that let recruiters make hiring decisions are idiotic. If I was looking for an AI programmer, I wouldn’t leave that up to someone who thinks AI is a rapper.
If you get eliminated by one of those clueless recruiters that tells you that this company is not a place where you want to work long term. I get the argument that you need a paycheck but these places are miserable and usually run by idiots or bullies.
You don’t want to find your future ex-wife. You want to find to a place to have a long-lasting career and that takes time.
When your dad says the election was stolen and is running again.
I applied for a job, interviewed for the job, didn’t get the job. 2 months later I see the same job re-posted. Apparently they chose poorly on their candidate.
Same here, buddy! After 4 rounds of interviews (including an assessment and business Case Study) they rejected me too :(. Sad and harsh truth most of these interviews and job postings seem to be fake.
I got that beat.
Applied and got an interview. On the 3rd round of interviews, I we start talking about the actual project (so many red flags). I tell them they don’t need a project manager, they need a director level position because they need to rethink their entire pipeline.
Not only did I not get the job (which I didn’t want at this point), they added a new open position, a Director level position with a job description nearly verbatim to the one I gave them.