How many resumes to submit to get an interview?

[GSR]

Dear all,

Could someone please share the experience? I have submit more than 1000, and I only get one face to face interview. On the other hand, If you are a boss, how would you think of a person study for long time and without industrial experience? Moreover, how would you think about a person only have a temporary status to work even if he claims that he does not need sponsorship and will get green card ?

Thanks

[TobyD]

QUOTE (zmarcoz @ Mar 25 2009, 11:23 AM)

Dear all,

Could someone please share the experience? I have submit more than 1000, and I only get one face to face interview. On the other hand, If you are a boss, how would you think of a person study for long time and without industrial experience? Moreover, how would you think about a person only have a temporary status to work even if he claims that he does not need sponsorship and will get green card ?

Thanks

If I had submitted 1000 resumes and only had one interview, I would start asking myself what I'm doing wrong (I would have started asking after about 25 submissions to be honest). Is your resume professional and concise? Are you applying to jobs that you are actually qualified for (All your degrees are nice, but they don't automatically qualify you for senior level positions)? Do you apply with a personalized resume and cover letter or are you blanketing monster.com with 100 applications at a time? If someone Googles your name are they going to find information that could turn them off towards you, like a myspace account with a picture of you taking a bong hit (this actually happened with a guy that we were ready to bring in for an interview).

Personally, I would not interview someone who only had temporary work status unless they were the only qualified candidate or unless I was prepared to sponsor them. It is costly for a company to hire and train a new employee only to find out that for some reason their green card was denied and they have to return to their country of origin.

[Neville D]

QUOTE (zmarcoz @ Mar 25 2009, 11:23 AM)

Dear all,

Could someone please share the experience? I have submit more than 1000, and I only get one face to face interview.

I don't think its the NUMBER of resumes that really matters. I could apply for a million C programming jobs, but with absolutely no experience in C programming, I wouldn't get a single interview call.

The key is to tailor your resume CAREFULLY to every single job that you apply for.

Be realistic. Don't apply for positions that ask for 10 yrs of experience or Secret Clearance if you don't have it.

Try to match job requirements to your resume (i.e. tailor). Adjust bullet points to put the important ones first and things like hobbies last (or remove entirely). Modify your mission statement to match job requirements.

QUOTE (zmarcoz @ Mar 25 2009, 11:23 AM)

On the other hand, If you are a boss, how would you think of a person study for long time and without industrial experience?

Well it depends. If I was looking for an entry-level person, then it wouldn't matter if you didn't have experience, just that your resume had stuff on it that I was interested in.

QUOTE (zmarcoz @ Mar 25 2009, 11:23 AM)

Moreover, how would you think about a person only have a temporary status to work even if he claims that he does not need sponsorship and will get green card ?

I would be very careful about making things up about work status. It can get you into a lot of hot water. Be truthful ALWAYS. If you don't need sponsorship to work currently, Say so. When asked about it, you can elaborate about the fact that you might be using your practical experience time and after a year you would NEED to be sponsored.

How exactly are you going to "get a green card" by yourself? It is a process that definitely needs employer assistance and buy-in.

Neville.

[shoneill]

QUOTE (zmarcoz @ Mar 25 2009, 07:23 PM)

Dear all,

Could someone please share the experience? I have submit more than 1000, and I only get one face to face interview. On the other hand, If you are a boss, how would you think of a person study for long time and without industrial experience? Moreover, how would you think about a person only have a temporary status to work even if he claims that he does not need sponsorship and will get green card ?

Thanks

With 1000 resumes sent you can't have spent much time personalising each one before sending....

I always take time to highlight the parts of my capabilities which fit any given job I wish to apply for. This can take up to half a day until the wording is right. Having said that I never had to send more than, say, 10 resumes before getting a new job. If you're not even getting called for interviews, then there must be something clearly wrong with your resumes.

Maybe you should post an example with personal details deleted (name and age and so on). Do you include a personal cover-letter? That can be really important.

Shane.

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

QUOTE (shoneill @ Mar 25 2009, 02:43 PM)

With 1000 resumes sent you can't have spent much time personalising each one before sending....

I always take time to highlight the parts of my capabilities which fit any given job I wish to apply for. This can take up to half a day until the wording is right. Having said that I never had to send more than, say, 10 resumes before getting a new job. If you're not even getting called for interviews, then there must be something clearly wrong with your resumes.

Maybe you should post an example with personal details deleted (name and age and so on). Do you include a personal cover-letter? That can be really important.

Shane.

Its been a while for myself but my wife re-writes her resume for each job she is applying for. She looks at the job description and updates the resume to show that "she is the perfect person" for that job.

Ben

[shoneill]

QUOTE (neBulus @ Mar 25 2009, 08:46 PM)

Its been a while for myself but my wife re-writes her resume for each job she is applying for. She looks at the job description and updates the resume to show that "she is the perfect person" for that job.

Ben

I reckon it's the most efficient way of getting it done. I can be a bit of a grammar nazi at times, but it pays off when writing Resumes. Spelling mistakes in a Resume is like stamping "throw me away" on the front page in big red letters.

That and having a proper idea of where your strengths and weaknesses are and applying for jobs accordingly. Simply applying for "any old job" usually doesn't work too well.

Lying about your work permit status is just looking for trouble.

Shane.

[Sergey Kolbunov]

Your status may be a part of problem as well. From my experience, employers avoid to hire someone with no permanent status. You statement what you will get green card doesn't mean too much for them untill you could say "I have a green card". I had a similar situation few years ago. Definitely, you must say truth about you status but unfortunately that is not improve your position.

I have nothing to add but say with others: improve and tailor your resume and keep trying.

[atpalmer]

When I was graduating in 2001 I sent quite a few resumes and only got one interview. Since then I've sent out three resumes which resulted in three job offers. The key for me was networking and targeting my resume & cover to the specific job, Go beyond the job description and research everything available about the company. Get familiar with their product line, their competitors, their recent PR announcments etc... Just go nuts and find out everything you can.