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> If there was even a small cost (time or money) to applying, you can be sure that resumes and cover letters would be much more common and of higher quality. I

> If there was even a small cost (time or money) to applying, you can be sure that resumes and cover letters would be much more common and of higher quality. I agree. I'd happily put a nominal fee in escro to ensure that the target company I'm applying to actually looks at the resume. I'd also happily pay the fee for them to drop any job ads that they don't intend to fill. > Job seekers are much better served spending an hour sending 10 focused applications than spending that same hour to send 100 sanitized applications. I'm not at all convinced that this is true. The response rate seems completely uncorrelated with the amount of time spent on the application. Even at a lower relative response rate, casting a wider net grabs a larger absolute volume of responses. As an aside: the biggest thing missing from the job hunt process is respect for your applicants _time_. At this point I drop out with companies that don't seem to consider that. I don't need feedback, but I also don't have time to waste doing repeat phone screens and months of interview process.

fecak 11y ago
I think your response rate in relation to time spent on the application has a third element, and that's your audience. If you are applying to giant corporate bank, your resume is first being read by a machine (ATS) scanning for words. I have no idea if your cover letter is being read. Time spent customizing is no better than basic SEO optimization perhaps. Contrast this with applying for a startup where the CTO is reviewing the resumes, and you mention in the body of the application (they don't want a formal cover letter of course) that you've used their API and say something about how easy the experience was. You're getting an interview, unless you are largely unqualified. I understand your complaints on process, and that's why I only work represent startups and smaller companies that usually let me streamline the process for clearly qualified individuals. I, too, was once frustrated by the process of some of my clients.

fecak 11y ago

I think your response rate in relation to time spent on the application has a third element, and that's your audience. If you are applying to giant corporate bank, your resume is first being read by a machine (ATS) scanning for words. I have no idea if your cover letter is being read. Time spent customizing is no better than basic SEO optimization perhaps. Contrast this with applying for a startup where the CTO is reviewing the resumes, and you mention in the body of the application (they don't want a formal cover letter of course) that you've used their API and say something about how easy the experience was. You're getting an interview, unless you are largely unqualified. I understand your complaints on process, and that's why I only work represent startups and smaller companies that usually let me streamline the process for clearly qualified individuals. I, too, was once frustrated by the process of some of my clients.