We have no idea who you are and you will never get a job with us

A message from the first honest employer applicant tracking system

Do we suck? Hard to say. I mean, we could talk about that. Except for the fact that we have no idea who you are. Why don’t we know who you are? You used our applicant tracking system to apply for a job at our company. You could not possibly be less known to us.

You applied for a job using our applicant tracking system portal? You’re adorable. Really, you’re just too much. We love you. Or people like you, since we have no idea who you are. But we do like the general idea of you.

Did you enjoy giving your little fingers a workout? Feeling good — like you’re moving forward in your career? You’re welcome! Tell us a little bit more about yourself. Or not. Won’t make a difference. But you can go ahead and do it!

Are you qualified? We don’t know. How could we? You used our applicant tracking system. But hey, we got a lotta fields for you to fill in. Knock yerself out. Totally go for it. We hate to spoil the ending but … we won’t tell you until you’re done whether (snicker) or not (ominous snicker) your efforts will result in you being considered. GUFFAW!

Nope, couldn’t keep a straight face there. That’s a relief to get that out. You go right ahead and tippity tap away on your keyboard in our ATS. Keep that hope alive, friend (or ghost, or whatever — we don’t know). Wanna know what happens next?

I’ll bet you do!

We just might get back to you. How thoughtful of us! We might send you an automated pro forma letter thanking you for giving us a chance to hire you and stating that we’ll consider your qualifications. Then again, we might not.* But if we do send you that email … do you know who wrote it? Nobody! That’s right. We still don’t know you. But we did buy some software and had somebody install it. And that completes the circle for us. Bingo, bango, dunno. No need for us to write something to somebody we don’t know, right? I mean sure, you did, but that’s you. You do you, [INSERT FIRST NAME HERE FOR REASSURING FAMILIARITY] and know that at this company we support your right to be you. I mean, not yet. But if you actually worked here you’d be part of our family — our work family, which is totally a thing (or not). Some of us are even real. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Speaking of which … if you didn’t get that automated letter, congratulations on getting an early start to forgetting about us! It’s reciprocal. And that’s just how business is done. It’s not personal, of course. We just have no idea who you are.

Even though you just used our system to tell us all about you in an effort to help us fulfill a stated business need.

Doing it right is easy

But what if your (let’s call it an) application got in front of someone at our company that’s interested in fulfilling their business need? Here’s where it really gets fun. You’ll never get this far, but here’s what happens when some other people do. You’ll want to pay attention so you can see how other people are living.

You’re out! That’s what happens. Why? Pick a reason. You’re out because:

1. No reason.
2. No reason at all.
3. Your resume is too short.
4. Your resume is too long.
5. Your resume is nicer than mine.
6. Your resume is the 12th one a person saw this morning and her limit is three.
7. Your experience comes from other industries.
8. Your skills & experience hint you’ll want an above-market wage.
9. Your skills & experience hint you’ll want a fair market wage.
10. Just kidding about 8 & 9. We won’t look at your skills and experience. We’ll just scan your titles and dates. And they didn’t match my imaginary perfect candidate that had the exact career path as me.
11. Your skills and background threaten me.
12. Your resume is written in a human voice.
13. Your resume isn’t written in a human voice.
14. You’re a man and we’re hoping for a woman.
15. You’re a woman and we’re hoping for a man.
16. We think you might be too … something: Old, young, dark, white, fat, principled, unprincipled, complacent, a job-hopper, attractive, unattractive, gay, straight, educated, uneducated, experienced, inexperienced, unexpected, different, from the wrong school, from the wrong city, used to work for the government, never previously worked for the government, foreign, religious, conservative, liberal, my spouse used to date someone with your name, I cannot pronounce your name, I used to know someone with your name and I don’t like that person, or any other whimsical criteria that pops into our heads.
17. Our guy was asked to collect eight viable candidates to present to his boss and your resume came in eleventh.
18. We don’t know what we want.
19. We changed our mind about hiring anyone.
20. We lost funding to hire anyone.
21. We cannot make up our minds.
22. People that hold the purse strings in our company cannot make up their minds.
23. The hiring manager doesn’t understand skills different from his own.
24. The hiring manager opted for a boilerplate job description irrespective of current needs for the role, gave it to the recruiter and the recruiter has little idea what will really work.
25. You haven’t been at your last job long enough.
26. You have been in your current job for too long.
27. Your past employers aren’t sexy.
28. I’ve decided I know what people are like where you used to work and our culture is different.
29. You weren’t repped by an outside recruiter.
30. You’re tainted because an outside recruiter pushed you in front of us and we have a bad history with her.
31. You work remotely. And we can’t figure out how to make Skype or Zoom meetings work.
32. You’ve never worked with a remote workforce.
33. I would never live where you live and commute to where we work.
34. You’ve been a freelancer or contractor.
35. You don’t know what it’s like to be a freelancer or contractor.
36. I don’t understand this gap in your employment.
37. You’ve got a record.
38. This was all a charade. We had an internal candidate in mind the whole time.

That last one is our favorite! Totally legal, too. (And thanks for helping us make our job search look legit, BTW!) And, of course, there’s many more. But here’s the best part: We’ll never tell you which one (or more than one) it is. We don’t have to.

The insiders

What if you’re an internal candidate? We still don’t know who you are. You weren’t THE internal candidate we made this job for or previously promised to long ago. We know how to retain our people around here … we hint at promotions. Sometimes we even gotta come through with those so they’ll keep believing us.

But you can apply for that internal move, friendly ghost employee. Don’t worry about your boss getting sideways with you because you’re thinking about jumping ship to someone else’s team. Forge ahead! Apply in full confidence that we don’t know who you are, either. We’ll only (snicker) look at your qualifications (snicker, snicker) because we’re looking for the best skills and abilities possible. Not because we see you at the watering hole. You working in another building or remotely has nothing to do with the fact that we ignored your application.

* Speaking of which … remember that asterisk from above? Got a story for you. Keep in mind that we’re super proud of our handy dandy applicant tracking system for internal and external candidates. So much so that even though you already work for us, we probably still won’t acknowledge your application in writing with an email or other communication. Why would we? We have a system, folks. You can always check to see if your application made it into the system by logging back in. (But get back to work, mmmkay?) (Just kidding. Maybe.) It just might be there. You might not have wasted your time. But isn’t wondering if you wasted your time part of the fun and anticipation? We think so.

Will you be considered? Are you being considered? Did something go wrong? So much fun in wondering, no? Remember, you’re one of us. We’ll either not tell you anything or send you a form letter informing, “you have been removed from consideration for this opening based on the qualifications, skills and/or experience stated in your expression of interest or during the candidate screening process.” (This, despite being fully qualified for the role, based on listed desired qualifications.) Which is great news, considering we had not previously acknowledged your application before. You made it this far!

By the way — love your cover letter. Really sweet. We didn’t read it, but I’m sure it was totally awesome and really filled in the gaps. Nice goin’!

A tap on your shoulder

Well, hello there, lucky elite job seeker. A human recruiter wants to speak at you. This is great news. We’ll talk with you. Maybe. Maybe we’ll just ghost you after yanking your chain. Remember, recruiters aren’t required to be capable. They’re just required to be there.

Are you getting contacted by recruiters? Are they then disappearing into the ether? You lucky, lucky sonofagun. Here’s a little taste of how it will go:

Seeking [ROLE YOU ARE BORN FOR]

Dear [FIRST NAME], Your profile is GREAT! We are currently seeking a [ROLE YOU ARE BORN FOR] for a company that is changing the way the world blah, blah, blah. That’s where you come in! (if not you, maybe someone you know.)

Me: Dear [RECRUITER’S FIRST NAME], Thanks for reaching out. I’d like to learn more. What’s a good time to talk? I’m available blah, blah, blah.

Best regards, Idiot Respondent

What happens next is nothing. Except repetition with a new recruiter and the same idiot respondent. It’s like modern dating except that if you’re successful, instead of canoodling, you end up commuting.

In theory.

You didn’t get hired

So what did you do wrong? We don’t know — we don’t know you. You used our applicant tracking system. But here’s what a lot of people do wrong. It’s simple: All the things you didn’t do. That’s what you did wrong. Start there and then increase your investigation exponentially.

You didn’t write a pain letter. You didn’t follow up soon enough or with the right method. Or you followed up too often. Or with the wrong person. Or you just didn’t correctly guess, stalk and get to know the right person that holds the persuasive call on the role you want. You didn’t play hard enough to get. Or you played it too cool. If you did or didn’t do any of these things. Yes! That was it.

Glad we could help. Honesty is always … something.

Have a great career. Not with us, of course. You’re great, though.

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