> This wasn't some LinkedIn "quick apply", these were direct "Fill out the form" on our website. Not a single one of these applications got read.

Surely this would basically immediately backfire as people would presume a rejection and not apply when you actually wanted to hire. Why would you do this?

It's so common place that few are going to remember they applied to a specific company years ago to begin with.

> It's so common place that few are going to remember they applied to a specific company years ago to begin with.

Additionally, it take a single lazily-managed spreadsheet to identify this dysfunction. Surely any positive effect from doing this would be muted (again, likely into the negative) because the company doesn't want to hire you.

>Surely any positive effect from doing this would be muted (again, likely into the negative) because the company doesn't want to hire you.

In my experience, it's because they didn't actually see you (or they were never hiring anyone to begin with. Hence the article). If I don't get to a step where I speak to a human, I don't really count it as a rejection. Just a filtering.

Rejection implies that my skillset was not fit to the role, or that someone else was better than me and selected. Definitely not the vibes I get in this current market.

> In my experience, it's because they didn't actually see you

Are we supposed to simply assume that nobody ever reads any application we send in? I don't see how this works out anyway but negatively for the company. If I don't hear back from you, I'll just assume you don't want to hire me. There's no semantic difference in my mind between this and sending me a note that you've read and rejected my resume—especially in an industry where it's normal to simply ghost someone rather than issue a formal rejection.

I see we're talking in circles. I'll drop the conversation.

In this modern market? Yes. Hence the article. It's the Tree falls metaphor in my eyes, and in this specific case it does not make a sound as far as I'm concerned.

But if you're taking my "assumption" as an absolute, I don't know what to say. An assumption based on this precise slice of time. Not something that will always be true in all contexts. It's not even always true in this context.

>There's no semantic difference in my mind between this and sending me a note that you've read and rejected my resume

Bots don't send hand written notes. They can, but the costs are a much higher margin than an auto reject email.

You're pretty close to what my main point is, though. Bots aren't an automatic bad, but there feels to be zero effort on the recruiting end this day to try and get quality candidates. That lack of care means I shouldn't spend any energy regarding their (lack of) feedback if all I'm getting back is slop. So I'll just spin the AI roulette again.

Take care.

With BS postings, low response rates, and the effect of having to apply to many jobs at once, how else can applicants manage their many applications but write things down?

The last time I did ran the job search, I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of things. When a recruiter reaches out to me, I'm going to see if their company is in there, and what my notes say about my last experience with them.

If I'm anything like the trend, I just move on. If a posting comes up and it's been more than a few weeks I apply anyway. All such a spreadsheet would show for 90% of my apps is "applied, never got a response". In both good and bad markets.

If anything I'd only remember postings I actually interviewed and was rejected for. Which is sadly a small enough number to keep in my head.

I completely understand why you would behave this way, but I would absolutely not apply to the same place. I've never hired someone I've seen twice. I'm sure it could theoretically happen (hell, it's likely to happen for a certain pair of personality and company) but the first rejection is generally a precedent for the second.

>I completely understand why you would behave this way, but I would absolutely not apply to the same place.

Well that's exactly why I apply multiple times.

Had an example last year. I applied once, got rejected, coincidentally met someone at that same company and team later in the week. They sent me a referral, and then boom, recruiter call the next day. My resume was the same. It's just the referral pile got me visiable.

I'm pretty convinced even pre-AI that there are so many times when I'm simply not seen. Getting no response or an automated response just tells me these days "okay, I didn't make it to a human. Maybe next time" instead of "welp, I'm not good enough right now".

Also note that those kinds of companies are pretty big with hundreds of roles for software. The hiring culture between each team may as well make it a few dozen companies. I'm not trying to re-apply (on purpose) to a small group of a a few dozen after one rejection from the exact same role.

Unless I have an “in” and can directly send/hand a cover letter to the opening’s hiring manager, I can’t imagine ever writing a cover letter again.

When I was in uni, I found that just having a boring cover letter drastically increased the odds of an interview (for internships and post grad work). I bet a lot of places just have a filter that adds you as a higher priority purely on the existence of a cover letter.

I've never read a cover letter that I found valuable for hiring anyone, though. And I'm sure mine were never of any actual value either.

I like that insight and should I ever be back in the kafkaesque nightmare of blind online job applications, I will take your advice. As you point out, barring typographical mistakes a cover letter being too generic isn’t likely to result in a rejection, but not “checking the box” very well might.

cheers

May you never have to write one again, but if you do, it might be helpful to think of the cover letter as a reflective writing exercise. You might be able to gauge your level of interest in a particular role by how easy it is to write about, for example. Or it could just be some practice at communicating your strengths and abilities (this would definitely apply to me).

IMO it's too disheartening to put effort into such personal writing without the awareness of some kind of direct value or benefit, since chances are it's going straight into the void.

I'm just going to use LLMs to write them, because they're exactly the kind of B.S. work that I hate, and LLMs are great at generating B.S.

Nicely put.

I like writing them when I think there are aspects to why I'd be a good fit for the role that don't get revealed sufficiently by listing skills on a resume or I have questions that can save everyone a ton of time. It seems like people do at least read them before interviews most of the time so I think there's some value.

I remember a post here where some recruitment manager (at a company) said "Always write a cover letter, which is not generated by AI, otherwise you're an automatically trashed".

I rolled my eyes.

Although this might be sound advice, it's not the reality of a lot of people looking for work.

Yes, they might do this for the few months, but after what 6 months+ of no or canned responses (even though you have ALL the skills they want) it gets tiresome and you just say F-it, copy-paste a canned cover letter.

You can't even be sure a cover letter is read. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are skipped. When I have 100 applicants I don't have time to read cover letters, I'm looking for the first bullet that suggests you can do the job otherwise I'm trashing your application (The goal is to get down to 10-20 resumes that I then spend a minute on to see if you go into the interview or not pile). I'm only going to read that cover letter if something suggests you despite lack of the experience I'm looking for you might have a different background and so be worth hiring anyway.

Remember I have lots of more interesting things to do than read your application. When we are hiring (like many we are not today) I take time to do the process, but I really want to be doing the more interesting work.

This is making that company not look very good, is it?!

Awful company. They could post “here are our standard job roles, we aren’t actively hiring but if you’re the perfect match please tell us why”, which warns the prospective applicant.

Doesn't hurt them either I don't think. Nobody knows. It sucks because the whole job hunting system is borked.

> Doesn't hurt them either I don't think.

Well those are 3000 resumes that won't be resubmitted when you actually want to hire. Many of those resumes will belong to people who since found work. Weeding through that would be a nightmare, so you'd have to toss it and write it off as a loss.

Or you could just post jobs when you're actually interested in hiring and turn it off when you have enough applications to process. Super interested candidates can always cold email.

They don't care about those 3k and they could reach out.

And maybe next round they do apply again. I sure don't remember when I last was applying who I applied for except some big names that ... yeah I'd submit it again if I was looking.

I don't like the system, but I don't think they're hurt by it.

If 500 people apply for a fake job and don’t get to an interview or personal response stage, then when they need a real job filling they’ve already wiped out a lot of applicants who won’t bother applying next time.

I doubt that's how it works out. Last time I was looking I applied so many places I can't remember most of them.

It is not making that company look very good.

Enticing job seekers to waste their very precious time is not ethical.

Edit: fix double negative.

Just an FYI.. the double negative means you said it makes the company look good.

(I don't think you intended that)

Thank you - fixed it.

What do you mean? They have open roles so they must be growing? Seems like a good investment.