Be the Quality in Quantity: Understanding Today’s Job Market

Standing Out in Today's Job Market

Everyone can agree that the job search market is more complex than ever before. The market is flooded with a constant and heavy volume of candidates (both qualified and unqualified) and it’s no easy task to ensure your advancement in the recruitment process.

To succeed in your job search, it’s important to understand what you’re up against.

The Problem

Competition is tough – not only against the quality of rival candidates, but against the sheer quantity. How does a recruiter condense hundreds of applicants into a manageable mass to find the best possible hire in a timely manner? That’s up to the recruiter – but it’s up to you to showcase your value as a quality candidate.

Who You Are

A job seeker assessing the current market, searching for an edge over fellow applicants to ensure you and your skills stand out to potential employers.

Today’s Recruiter: Asha

In our experience, a quality job posting can receive 250-400 applicants. Using 400 applicants as a benchmark, our “recruiter”, let’s call her Asha, has a formidable task ahead of her. It’s likely that 80% of applicants are immediately unfit for the role (too junior/senior, wrong location/industry, etc.). That still leaves 80 applicants (20%) who may be in the “criteria” ballpark.

For Asha to have any hope of successfully completing the hire, she will need to identify at least 20 people for the screening interview (either virtual or phone) from which she may be able to present 6-8 candidates for the hiring manager to meet.

It’s important to know, Asha could be working on 5 or 10 roles at any given time and may be dealing with upwards of 4,000 candidates. You do the math… it’s not likely that Asha has time to sift through every application. To make her life easier, she’ll be using an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) for her first algorithmic triage.

The question is, as a candidate, how do you present yourself as a quality applicant to make it through the ATS and get into Asha’s group of 80? Group of 20?

Be the Quality in Asha’s Quantity

As a job seeker, you have two key objectives:

1. Be one of the 20 candidates chosen to proceed to the screening stage.

2. Ace the screening interview to be included in the 6-8 final candidates.

Getting picked from a sea of candidates is a daunting challenge and every detail matters; a good quality, well-written resume is a must. Without this, recruiters like Asha may neglect your application.

To increase your chances of landing that first interview, check in with our blog in the coming weeks for resume advice targeted to today’s job market.