An overwhelming response

I’ve been job-hunting more or less since January. And more often than not, I get responses to jobs that I’m more than qualified for with something akin to this:

“This volume of response makes for an extremely competitive selection process. Although your background is impressive, we regret to inform you that we have decided to pursue other candidates for the position at this time.”

And this is not a once in while thing. It’s a routine that I’ve come to expect and detest.

A thing that shouldn’t be so hard, that is. Because organizations don’t have a better way of finding the talent they need. Or rather, because job candidates don’t have a better way of getting the job they want.

I’m not huge fan of the traditional hiring process (resumes, cover letters, etc.) for this reason. Because it makes no sense to go through the time of filling out all this stuff if the sheer act of doing it—fueling the volume of applicants—does little but ensure that you have a slim chance of even making it to the next round in the selection process, regardless of your qualifications.

There’s got to be a better way around this problem. (Outside of spamming people, or spending countless hours ‘networking’ with people who may or may not be able to help.)

It seems to me that recruiting is the problem and the answer. Because if organizations put in the work to ’sponsor’ recruits (as in, gave them a game plan to learn the skills they needed to get a job at their company) then applicants could spend their time focusing on obtaining those skills and be guaranteed a job once they ‘graduated.’

Of course, this is what internships are supposedly for, or at least what they’ve become. And the problem with internships is that they’re not widely available (particually for people not in school), and they’re often not paid (which is ridiculous). They’re also scarce…which means that even internships at small companies will be overwhelmed with applicants, which only exasperates the issue.

I’d love for designers and recruiters and CEOs and hiring managers (and perhaps a few college presidents) to come together and design a solution to this problem. (Because it’s only going to get worse).

But I realize that’s merely wishful thinking. Because a one-size-fits-all platform won’t cut it. If we want this to work, if we hope to make it scale, everyone is going to have to be onboard—from our businesses to our schools to those with and without work.