I spent ~2 hours Friday night filling out a job application online and submitting my resume and a nicely tailored cover letter. This would have been an awesome job to have, a good fit to experience I have and room to grow. The position was definately more work to apply for than most.
I got a rejection email today from HR. They said I did not meet the minimum qualifications, which I did (a HS diploma, bachelor's degree preferred, and administrative experience... have the B.S. degree and admin experience). I want to fire off an email back to say "YES I DO have the minimum qualifications!!!" but I'm putting my big girl panties on and just deleted the email instead.
I don't love my current job, but it is a dead end position with crappy ass benefits/pay and I'm beyond ready to move on. I'm holding out hope that one day their will be a new job for me. One day.
Misery loves company, thanks 9-5 for letting me vent!
Re: Sometimes I just want to give up searching...
I understand. .That same thing happened to me twice last week. While I appreciate hearing something back at all, after working on a tailored CL and sending it off, both times, I got a response within a couple of hours that "at this time we're considering only people with proven record of......" and both times I was almost in tears because they obviously didn't read the cover letter at all. And I try to throw in the reasons why I am qualified up front on the top.
It's really frustrating, I get it.
I was talking to my MIL this weekend, her work is looking to hire and although she doesn't have hiring power, she hears the hiring managers go through the pile of resumes. it's interesting to hear how the hiring managers trash the resumes looking for the "perfect one". "Oh she lives in X, too far" while 4 out of 10 people in the company also live in X. "Is that a boy or girl's name? That'll be an awkward one, move on to the next." some of the other stuff she was saying are totally illegal discrimination of candidates....
Since you are apparently ok putting the position you listed above out of your mind, would you feel comfortable contacting them and asking for an explanation of the minimum qualifications you did not meet? You don?t have too much to lose and if it is a big enough company there is likely recruitment assistants whose job description includes responding to application follow-up inquires.
Maybe you were mistakenly missed (either you had an error on your side which you could fix in the future, or they missed something important), or maybe they just had better applicants.
If you are polite to them, and not critical of what they have to say, you are not burning any bridges and might gain something.
Online applications SUCK - plain and simple. The key is to apply online and then use LinkedIn, Google, etc. to find the name and email of the hiring manager and reach out to them directly with your cover letter and resume. I've been job searching for 6 months and have landed at least 3 interviews with companies that rejected me from the online application almost immediately, but I was given an interview when I sent someone my resume directly.
Keep your head up. It takes time! I've had to realize that over the past few months. I've had what feels like countless interviews, two offers I chose not to take because they really ended up being the wrong step for me in my career, and lots of let downs. I'm still looking and some days are better than others. If you're interested in a job, get that resume to as many people as possible who can connect you to that company and hopefully the online rejection won't matter.
I sent an email response back. The HR person reviewed my resume again and we have an interview set up for next week! *fingers crossed it goes well*
Thanks ladies for your encouragement!