Not a week goes by without job seekers complaining to me about their frustration over the entire recruitment market’s lack of response to their applications. They send their resumes and make calls to all the recruitment and executive search firms and companies in Moscow, hoping to be contacted for an interview. Most of the time, they are left with no response and a complete feeling of frustration.

Recruiters do not respond to most applications they receive because they simply do not have the time or resources. Recruiters are hired by their clients to find suitable candidates matching their very specific requirements. This is where the recruiters’ priorities are.

The typical work of recruiters includes pitching, negotiating, confirming job orders and preparing contracts for clients. They conduct research, headhunt and screen potential candidates, prepare and present candidate resumes and interview notes and arrange interviews. They communicate and help with the negotiation process between the client and short-listed candidates all the way to the job offer and acceptance stage.

The amount of time and energy that goes into filling their clients’ requirements leaves little or no time for anything else. Most good recruiters are known to work long ‘investment banking and law firm hours’ in order to meet their expected results.

Recruitment firms may receive hundreds of candidate applications a month from job seekers. Only five to ten percent of those might be invited in for an initial screening interview. Usually only those candidates who have potential for matching the current clients’ requirements get invited for an interview.

The biggest complaint that ‘frustrated’ job seekers have is that they send in their application, but then have no idea where they stand because nobody responds to them. Were they put in a database? Was their application interesting enough to hold for a possible future position at least? Was their resume crumpled up and thrown in the trash bin? The ‘not knowing’ part is their biggest frustration.

This is a major problem worldwide, not just locally.

Staffwell’s new online recruitment system called Staffwell Post was designed in part to lesson the frustration that job seekers suffer. Our system makes it almost effortless to communicate with candidates who apply to our listed positions by offering a unique one-on-one communication system linked to every candidate application and recruiter/client posting.

The Staffwell system also has a candidate withdraw feature that requires the recruiter to notify candidates if they have been rejected for the positions applied to. It offers a drop down feature that lists varying reasons for the rejection or an optional text message area should someone wish to leave a more detailed message.

Getting a simple rejection notification may not give a detailed description or consultation to candidates, but at least they know their status for every job to which they apply. They know that their application has been received and reviewed. This alone is a huge improvement in the response category for frustrated job seekers.

In the end of the day there will never be a perfect solution to this industry-wide problem, but making clear the role and demands on recruiters and the amount of applications they receive will hopefully help explain the mystery behind ‘the silence.’

The best advice I can give to frustrated job seekers is to keep applying because at the end of the day it is a numbers game. You just never know when a recruiter will get the position where YOU fit the requirements!

(Originally published: The Well. Issue 1. March 2004)

The Well is a member of Staffwell, Specialists at Recruiting in Russia. For your corporate hiring needs, please contact sales@staffwell.com or +7(495) 790-7490. For assistance with finding new employment, please email your CV to resume@staffwell.com and search our current job vacancies at www.staffwell.com.