Question
Why do some companies advertise the same positions continuously for months? I see this all the time and I'm not quite sure what to make of this.
Don't try to figure it out because it does not matter. If you applied and did not get a call then move on --no matter how well qualified you feel. Possible answers: High turnover, budget snafu, bloated hr that keeps signing off on invoices to renew a closed position, waiting for an internal candidate to return from parental leave, to torment overly inquisitive truth seekers : )
I'm assuming you are asking because you are not sure whether these jobs are worth applying to. My personal rule--if a job has been advertised for over 2 weeks, I do not waste my time applying. One possibility is that they have already found a few promising candidates and started the interviewing process, or at least put aside the resumes of those they plan to contact, which makes it improbable that they are interested in reviewing yet more resumes. Or they have not started yet and are just letting the resumes pile up (this could be due to being disorganized, budget problems, work overload, etc.), which means that submitting my resume at this point is fruitless because it will just get lost in the chaos. I would say that unless you send in your application within the first week the position is advertised, maybe even the first 3 business days, the chances of your resume being read are very small. Perhaps when the resumes were still sent in with snail mail, there was a benefit to being one of the last ones to apply and having your resume land at the top of the pile. Now, however, most companies require that you apply via e-mail, and most people read their e-mail in the order it is received, so you should definitely apply within the first few days the ad is posted. I am having the greatest rate of success in getting interviews when I apply the same day the ad appears or the next day. The longest period in my experience between when I submitted my resume and when I was called for an interview was a month. So, the position was open, and therefore, the ads were running for a month. However, I had submitted my resume during the first week the position was advertised. Had I submitted it in week 3, I doubt it would've been read because, even though they had not yet started calling applicants, they knew whom they were going to call by then. So, IMO, even though there are many reasons why an ad may be running for months on end, there is no good reason to apply after the first week, maaaaaaybe 2 weeks if your resume is really spectacular and the company's HR is going through a slow period. Btw, I am only talking about positions that are widely advertised. Positions advertised exclusively on company websites are a different game altogether and more often than not, at least in my experience, there is little use in responding to those ads because they are an indication that either there is an internal candidate, or the company is only testing the waters and isn't really ready to hire anyone just yet. What hedtec said but also: -Can't find exactly what they want -Person they wanted backed out and they're starting over -They have several of these kinds of opening every month (like a call center or hotel staff for example) -Someone forgot to pull the ad after they were done -The job is unique and hard to fill
Tess
I'm with LJ. If you are trying to find out if jobs posted for prolonged periods of time are worth applying to, unless they are in a field where it's reasonable to expect high turn over, such as call center jobs, then the answer is "no". It makes no difference why the ads are still up. If the company wanted people to keep applying, they would've reposted the position so that it lands at the top of the list on the employment site, not let it just sit there for months and expect aplicants to find it on page 20. Now, if you see a job you've noticed earlier reposted, then it's ok to apply because something has obviously happened that made them want more candidates. Some people say you shouldn't try to apply again if you already applied for the same position once and weren't called for an interview. I say, if the job is reposted and you are still interested, reapply. You don't know that your resume was actually read the first time around (let's be honest, employers don't read them all). If it was read and screened out, it may be a different person screening the resumes this time around, or the same screener may be having a much better day than the last time they saw your resume. Or perhaps they weren't really interested last time because they had an internal candidate, but the internal candidate has not worked out and they are only now taking a serious look at outside applicants. Unless you have filled out an electronic application, they are not going to remember that they saw your resume months before and hold the fact that you applied twice against you like some people here suggest. That's what happened with the new job I started 2 weeks ago. I applied back in November and did not hear back. I figured I was out of the running and let it go. A month ago, the position was reposted. I had nothing to lose from reapplying, so I did. This time, I got the interview and the job. If I was the perfect candidate in March, I was the perfect candidate in November as well. So much for the "If you were qualified, someone would've called you right away" approach. This advice will anger some of the posters here, but if you have reason to believe you are qualified for the job and were simply overlooked as opposed to consciously screened out, you have nothing to lose by reapplying. You shouldn't reapply every other day, or even every other week, but if you see the same position reposted months later, it's fair game. However, to bring it back to the subject of this thread, if the position was posted months ago and has just been sitting there, it's not worth your time. Move on. Thanks for responding, everyone. Yes, I was just trying to figure out whether those postings are worth responding to. The responses were pretty much in line with what I thought (i.e. unless the posting is updated, it's probably just an oversight and not really worth the time), but I just wanted to make sure I was correct. Someone else has told me that some companies just like to have a certain number of open positions advertised at any given time so that it looks like they are growing. I suppose that's another possibility. Yes, I also have never scored an interview by responding to a posting more than a week old. I always try to respond the same day or the next day. The way I see it, if I was screening resumes for an open position, I would probably stop reading once I had enough decent ones, and I'm thinking that's exactly what HR people do. It depends on the job and company. Some companies are always hiring for certain jobs. I drive by a place that has a permanent sign out front, "Drivers Wanted". I'm sure microsoft is always hiring software engineers. | |
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