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Jobseekers say there are ‘too many applicants’: How to make your CV stand out
One in five Aussie jobseekers say they are keen to work, but cannot secure a role because there are "too many applicants".
- One in five Aussie jobseekers say they are keen to work, but cannot secure a role because there are “too many applicants”.
- Experts say applying to jobs with copy-and-pasted resumes has become easy, so job seekers must tailor their applications.
- A high volume of applications doesn’t necessarily mean a high volume of experienced candidates.
Applied to hundreds of jobs but never heard back?
You may be competing with thousands of other copy-pasted applications as the barriers to applying fall, and the rise of AI-generated resumes soars.
Aussie jobseekers are being urged to tailor their CVs to the specifics of every role they apply to as the number of applications soars.
New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released on Wednesday showed the main difficulty in finding work in the last 12 months was “too many applicants for available jobs.”
“About one in five people – or 22 per cent – reported too many applicants as their main barrier for finding work,” Sean Crick, ABS head of labour statistics, said.
“Just over one in four men reported their main difficulty was ‘too many applicants for available jobs’, while about one in seven said lacking training, qualifications or experience was theirs.
“For women, the main difficulty was split almost equally between those two barriers.”
Emma Sestic, director of marketing and business support at recruiter Robert Half, told The Money Edition that jobseekers shouldn’t be dismayed if a suitable role has been inundated with applications.
“I do hear from job seekers who, especially job seekers who aren’t currently employed, that they feel it can be very disheartening where they can see the volume of applications,” Sestic said.
“Although having more applications for a role doesn’t necessarily mean employers have more suitable candidates to choose from.”
As Sestic explains, applying online via a jobs portal such as SEEK can often be a one-click process, and can dilute the pool of attractive candidates.
“A lot of conversations I have with job seekers are often around focussing less on the volume of applications they’re making and looking more at the application quality,” she said.
“If there are, for example, 500 applications to a job that they can see on LinkedIn, that doesn’t mean that there are 500 qualified, suitable applications that have the relevant experience.
“That’s just a number of people that have clicked, yes, I’m interested, I’ll send through my application.”
How to make your application a cut above the rest
The key, says Sestic, is to make your application as tailored and accessible as possible for a hiring manager who needs to make quick decisions.
“Considered applications that have taken the time to tailor their CV will have a higher conversion rate in getting a call from a recruiter or from an organisation and a subsequent interview,” Sestic said.
“But there are other things they can do as well.
“For example, posting the more relevant experience towards the top of their CV, so hiring managers don’t have to search through a resume to see if someone is suitable or not, can help a lot.
“They need to open a CV, and then the more relevant parts for what they’re hiring are immediately in front of them.”
She says a CV should not read “like a shopping list”, and only use buzzwords that are industry specific and have actual meaning behind them.
“Buzzwords is a tricky one because you don’t want your CV to read too much like it’s been optimised for, for example, an automatic screening system to have the right words jump out of it,” Sestic said.
“You still want it to read as a professional document tailored to the opportunity.”
Ask yourself: Is it my resume? Or my interview skills?
Sestic tells The Money Edition that securing a role in the current market isn’t just about having a perfectly tailored resume — it’s about being personable too.
“If a job seeker is applying to a lot of jobs and isn’t getting interviews, that’s when you look at, okay, is my CV laid out correctly?” Sestic says.
“Am I highlighting what I can bring to this role?
“If someone’s applying to a lot of roles but isn’t getting, but isn’t getting through an interview process, then I would review their interview style and maybe look at some coaching on how they’re interviewing.”
Topics: Business, Job seekers, Jobs