Recruiter Reveals The Simple Reason She Rejected Hundreds Of Well-Qualified Job Applicants
It all comes down to numbers and luck—not your qualifications.
Prostock-studio | Shutterstock In today's extremely messy job market, defeat seems to be everywhere — and it's our normal human nature to immediately assume the blame lies at our own feet. But a recruiter and career expert's recent insight into the job search process reveals why most of the time, that's far from the truth, and that in the end, it's just a numbers game.
A recruiter shared why she rejected more than 100 well-qualified job applicants.
Bonnie Dilber is a recruiter in the tech space who also creates content with resources for both HR professionals and workers on how to cut through the messiness of the current moment. In a recent video, she tackled what is arguably the most frustrating part of job-seeking right now: the constant rejection.
In the video, Dilber revealed that she just had to reject scores of well-qualified applicants that were shoo-ins for the position for which she was hiring. The short version of the story? As she put it in her caption, "It's not you; it's the market."
An extraordinary number of applicants means many qualified people get buried or weeded out.
Dilber shared that during the recruitment process for five positions, she was bombarded with more than 700 applications in just three days of her job posting going live. "There were easily over 100 really well-qualified people in that applicant pool," she said.
But that's entirely too many people to interview. There just simply isn't enough time and bandwidth. "So at that point, you have to start prioritizing," she said. To do so, recruiters shift to focusing on the "nice to have" attributes of a candidate — basically, look at more granular attributes, like length of experience or software skills, in order to find tiebreakers.
This means a lot of really well-qualified, terrific candidates get eliminated on technicalities, simply because of the need to whittle the pile down to a more manageable, interviewable number.
The truth is that luck plays a major role in who gets interviewed.
Dilber also said that this extraordinary number of applicants also means that there is a lot of pure, dumb luck involved in who makes the cut. "When you find someone awesome, you're gonna move them into the interview process," she explained.
But with this many people looking for work, you end up with a full slate of interviewees before you know it, and so you have to start rejecting people who are "perfectly well-qualified and probably could have also reached the offer stage," she said.
The good news is that many recruiters, Dilber included, will keep those applicants to pull from once the next position opens up rather than starting this process from the beginning. But of course, that's cold comfort for those who need a job now.
The recruiter said the key is to not blame yourself and to do everything you can to stick out.
"The main reason I'm sharing this is just to make it clear that often it's not you," Dilber said. "It's not your fault that you're getting rejected. You're not doing anything wrong." It is simply a function of the extremely competitive job market and how the luck of the draw shakes out.
It is so easy to feel defeated and discouraged and assume you just don't measure up, but Dilber urged people not to go down this road — it can very quickly end up in actual defeat. Instead, she reiterated what many experts say — standing out in any way you can, beyond just applying, is key in this kind of job market.
"I often recommend things like reaching out to a hiring manager, reaching out to recruiters, anyone at the company, to see if they can kind of move things along for you," she said. Basically, be the squeaky wheel.
Other experts have urged job seekers to lean into their networking skills and leverage any connections or nepotism they might have access to. A lot of people are uncomfortable with this part of the game, of course, but in a situation where so much is out of your control, leaning into the things you CAN control is essential.
The bottom line is to keep your chin up, recognize you're very likely not the problem, and do whatever you can to be the squeaky wheel. Eventually, it will be you who the luck of the draw does a favor.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.