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Written by: Tracy P. Miller
Editor, Publisher
TearTaylor's Career Corner
Does the highlighted passage below sound overly familiar? If it does, then you're probably one of the countless jobseekers that have just gotten a rejection letter in the mail or received one several months ago with the same sort of mild "get-lost-loser" lingo. Despite the smooth wording of many of these letters, they're still just plain bad news letters that nobody in their right mind ever wants to lay eyes on.
Now, if you're wondering why I led off this piece with a rejection letter illustration, trust me, it's not my intent to make those of you who've gotten a letter recently, feel any worst than you probably already do right now by painfully reminding you of the content. Instead, the objective of this article is to simply point out likely reasons why you got the letter, outline viable sources for locating a job, besides the Help Wanted section of your local newspaper, and suggest ways to keep your spirits up if you're going through an unusually rough job hunting period about now.
Who Gets Rejection Letters?
Before joining an overtaxed recruitment department years ago, I was always under the mistaken impression that rejection letters were reserved for jobseekers who were either highschool dropouts or the habitual late arrivers at their G.E.D. classes. I don't know why, but I naturally assumed that rejection letters were reserved for those students that had the lowest GPAs, or those with the fewest skills, or those who had attended the lowest ranked colleges in the country, or those who hadn't taken the time to properly develop their resumes or cover letters, but I found out early in my recruitment career that this type of thinking was way wrong. Rejection letters were just as readily mailed to jobseekers who were considered at the top of their games as well as those that were considered at the bottom.
Jobs Hardly Ever Match Demand
Almost a third of jobseekers that receive rejection letters in the mail don't get them because of poorly developed resumes or because they're lacking in required job skills, but actually because employers simply don't have enough jobs to go around. To give you a glimpse of what I mean by this, I'm going to share the details of a situation I found myself in years ago, which concerned an ad that was placed in the newspaper announcing a job opening for my employer at the time.
In just one short week, in response to the ad, we received more than a hundred resumes, and not surprisingly, many of these respondees had impeccable skills and credentials. As much as we were thrilled having so many exceptional candidates to choose from, we were also faced with the difficult challenge of deciding who should and who shouldn't be invited in for an interview. It was really tough. We only had one job to offer, but more than a hundred interested job applicants lined up to compete for the same position, and as much as we regretted having to reject so many qualified and well-deserving candidates, unfortunately, we had no choice but to.
Applicants outnumbering jobs didn't just end here, but this type of outmatched cycle occurred repeatedly. Each year we offered between 40 to 50 CSA jobs. About 50 resumes came in each week in response to these openings, which meant that we received about 2,600 resumes per year. This also meant that only 1.5 to 1.9% of those that responded to the job openings would actually receive a job offer. While the number of people that we invited in for interviews was higher than this 1.5-1.9% figure, actually somewhere between 25 to 30%, this unfavorable breakdown still guaranteed that 7 out of 10 job respondents would receive a rejection letter from us no matter how well put together their resumes were.
Other Reasons Behind Issuing Rejection Letters
Having few jobs wasn't the only reason behind applicants disproportionately receiving rejection letters in the mail, but jobseekers could also accumulate these undesirable letters because of the following reasons:
What You Should Do If You Get A Rejection Letter?
So what's my advice to you if you're a jobseeker right now? Especially a jobseeker with a long list of useful skills and a superbly written resume to boot, but you're still not getting invited in for interviews? Well, first off, try not to take things personally. More and more these days, jobseekers are accumulating unwanted rejection letters in their mailboxes simply because employers don't have enough jobs to go around. Because of this dismal fact, you should definitely avoid looking to blame yourself first. Instead, remind yourself that the country is experiencing economic problems and you'll just need to work harder at landing a job until the economy recovers. Instead of responding to two or three job ads a week. Increase it a tad, consider bumping the number up to 10, 15 or 20 even.
Try Online Job Sources
Next, explore other avenues for locating jobs. If you're use to exclusively searching the standard printed version of a newspaper's want ads' section, then try going online to peruse job openings. Many papers have teamed up with CareerBuilder.com to provide extensive online job listings. Nowadays, you can conveniently apply to a job right from your home computer.
Also, there are some other great sources for finding jobs available to you also through the Web at Yahoo's! Hot Jobs and MSN's Monster. To uncover additional sites that regularly aid jobseekers in finding jobs, just type jobs or help finding jobs in the search field of whatever search engine you're normally accustomed to using and the engine should return pages upon pages of job sites. Plus, we have our own list of helpful job sites right here.
Try Locating Jobs in Different Career Fields
Next, open yourself up to jobs that would normally be considered outside of your career range or career specialty. If you have heavy experience as a sales consultant, but lately these days, you're having a hard time finding work in the field then consider applying for teaching jobs or jobs in the healthcare field. Both are two fields that are well known right now for being seriously short staffed and are aggressively seeking new talent to fill numerous positions.
Explore Job Openings Through Career Fairs
Next, try connecting with companies through career fairs. Some useful resources to uncover job fair dates, locations, list of employers attending particular career fairs can be gathered at the following sites: Career Fairs.com, Women For Hire, Hire Quest, Carousel Expo and PSI Job Fair.
Also, you can just as easily type career fair or job fair in the look-up field of whatever search engine you're normally accustomed to using, and naturally, after you hit enter on your computer, the engine will generate the url addresses to thousands of sites/companies offering details about job expos.
Once you land on a site of interest, take your time to review the details about upcoming career fairs. If there's several events unfolding in your area, make sure to record the dates and locations on your calendar. Now, if you're still without a job as the fairs get closer, make sure you get up early the morning of the event(s) and go meet your potential new employers. Make sure to dress professionally and always bring copies of your resume (at least 20-25 copies) with you.
Don't Beat Up On Yourself: Stay Positive
Now, during the in between periods, as you're sitting and waiting patiently for the phone to either ring with good news or tearing up vile rejection letters, make sure to keep reminding yourself of your long list of achievements. Pull out your resume again and review your professional and academic accomplishments. Look them over thoroughly as if you were laying eyes on your resume for the very first time, and while you're doing this, think about your stint with each employer.
Think about what you've achieved with each employer. Think about new programs or services that you might've helped to introduce. Think about assignments that you might've tackled single handedly that no one else before you could do without the help of other coworkers at their side. Think about occasions when a former boss might've told you that you did a great job organizing a huge event. Think about an occasion where your boss might've told you that you did a great job writing an important letter or a time when your boss might've complimented you on a task that you completed way before its critical deadline. Keep reminding yourself of these different tasks that you completed successfully and then also make sure to remind yourself how you'll have a chance someday soon to prove your talents to your new employer.
Read & Update Skills at Creating Job Letters
Besides the tips outlined just above, make sure to read motivational books and/or listen to inspiring audio tapes to help keep you in a positive mindset during a lengthy or unproductive job-hunting period. Also, while you're at it, make sure to update your skills at constructing resumes, cover letters and thank you letters, that's if you haven't done so already. You can get plenty of useful tips on creating these documents right from here. To obtain help at creating resumes, just click on a resume link located in the left-hand column of this page. To get help creating cover letters or other types of job procurement documents, just click on a link of interest under the heading of Job Letters.
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This article is © 2003-2005 by Tracy Miller and may not be reposted without written permission from the author and may not be reprinted for profit.