Everybody here knows that you have to send out something like 100 resumes to get 20 phone calls. (Made up/estimated numbers that vary by person/situation.) I have an inkling why:

I think it's because employers aren't even putting the requirements into the job ads. Sure, they list a bunch of stuff. Sometimes they'll indicate which ones are "required" and which are "preferred" qualifications. But I think those are wildly inaccurate and still missing show-stopping requirements. When we apply directly to employers, we just never hear back, and don't know what the problem was. But I recently encountered this when applying through an external recruiter, which gave me insight into this. Here's what happened.

I saw a job ad for a technical business analyst, which I am, so I tailored my resume and applied. External recruiter 1 called me back promptly and we chatted a bit. He felt that I was a good fit, so told me he would pass my resume along to his partner (recruiter 2), also with the same external recruiting agency, who would call me. Recruiter 2 supposedly was the client company's rep and knew their needs inside and out. Recruiter 2 called and I had a brief discussion and as he closed the call I felt that something went wrong. I wasn't sure what, but just shrugged and started to go about my day.

Recruiter 1 called me back and asked how it went. I said I felt like I didn't impress but wasn't sure why. He told me that recruiter 2 emailed him back to say that I didn't have a technical background. I was like "huh?" one of earlier positions on my resume is Software Engineer. Recruiter 1 said he thought his buddy was off base and he'd have his boss (recruiter 3) give me a call sort of as a tie breaker. Recruiter 3 called and was quite open with me. He said the job requires knowledge of Java and Cobol because it's a system modernization project. I told him that I used to be a Cobol programmer, used Java a little bit but now work with developers who use Java. I mentioned that I don't call those programming languages out on my resume because it has intimidated potential employers at times, making me sound overly technical. I agreed to add them back in and send him a new copy of my resume.

Nowhere in the job ad did it mention Cobol or Java, or any other programming languages for that matter. But according to recruiter 3, those were critical skills they wanted. So anyway, I fixed that and sent him the update. (If the job ad mentioned them, I would have included that detail in my tailored resume to begin with!)

A week later (today) I emailed to see if they'd heard back from the client company. Recruiter 1 replied to say that they tossed me because I didn't have health care experience. Oh well. But... nowhere in the job ad does it mention requiring health care business domain experience.

I bet this drives external recruiters bonkers, too. Why can't hiring managers simply write out what their critical requirements are for the jobs? It would make it so much easier on everybody, and they'd not be snowed under with unqualified applicants!