Kate Ross: One job - 600 applicants

Kate Ross.

With the employment market showing strong signs of improvement weekly (over 450 new jobs listed last night on Seek, Trade Me and other job boards), we are finding that overall our clients have a very positive feel for the year ahead.

However, the candidates in the market do not reflect that positivity.

Overnight we are getting hundreds of applicants sending their CVs to us; the volumes are consistent and across the board for all types of positions in Auckland and Wellington.

Applicants to roles in the current market regularly exceed 600; these applications usually come in over a 48 hour period and from those applicants we will, on average, have four candidates come in for interview. This is what the majority of agencies and clients will be dealing with if recruiting right now.

For us, with a lot more than one role to recruit at a time, the volumes of CVs coming in to the business are vast but as always we get quantity and not quality.

A candidate called me recently to find out if a role I was recruiting was still available and she happened to ask how many applications we had received. I told her I had over 500 and she said, with disbelief in her voice, "and you haven't found anyone yet?".

I realised how unbelievable it must sound to her so to give you an idea of what we are dealing with, below is an example of a cover letter sent accompanying an application for a role we have on our books at the moment.

Hi there

This is exactly the sort of job I've had for the past several years. I am living at home and unemployed. At the moment, my mother won't allow me to go anywhere but the gym and with her. I am longing for a job. I am expert at archiving work.

Yours sincerely

Jacqui

Jacqui will highly likely remain unemployed - yet fit! We firmly believe in getting back to every candidate but to give each one the personal touch is extremely difficult. We do make contact with every applicant who sends their CV to us, either by phone or email.

Some clients will try and fail to recruit for themselves and they come to us once their need has become urgent. When you have your own job to do and then you try to recruit staff on top of that you become very busy, very quickly. Candidates are being placed in jobs in record time with multiple offers to choose from. Of the 34 roles we have placed over the past two weeks, 58 per cent have had more than one offer to choose from.

For an employer, this means starting the process from scratch if you are outbid! My best advice right now to employers is that if you are looking and you like someone - move on it.

As an agency, our main advantage when dealing with candidates is that we store historical data on our applicants. We encourage them to keep us up to date with their job search and we know if they are attending multiple interviews or if they are choosy and focussed. With this in mind, it is part of the process to give our clients the heads up and let them know when they can take their time and when it's time to take action.

It's a total myth to think that because we have been through a recession, candidates with excellent resumes are lining up willing to take on anything, anywhere. The reality is that people available and looking for work in the market feel like it's their turn to have choices. We know that as always, the good ones still have options.

We have seen candidates turn down job offers because the salary was $2k less than what they wanted or because they would have to travel over twenty minutes by car to get to work.

Some of these people have been out of work for months, some of them are receiving benefits from the government - they have got used to the income level they are on and the sun is shining, so they will wait. People feel that things are improving and it's early days for 2010, they are managing and unless the job on offer ticks 98 per cent of their wish list - no thanks. It's all about lifestyle.

So, as recruiters, we have to come down a little firmer on the candidate to ensure they are aware of our expectations.

What they fail to realise is that we communicate all the time internally, we have a very good database where all of their information is recorded, so when they call us about opportunities we know who they are and can easily review all our past interactions with them.

This week I had an applicant send me a resume with a photo on it; she was not right for the role and I rejected her application.

Two days later another resume was sent, same photo with a different name! Tactics like this do not work - there are real people at work behind the ads you see on Seek.

So as we go through the year getting busier each month, the candidate market will probably get worse. Head hunting will become more appealing for employers looking for the best person, salaries will have to remain stable to retain good staff and flexibility will need to be on offer for good employees - the ball is clearly in their court.

Kate Ross