My purple squirrel (white whale?) has been to find the evidence supporting claims that you have a 4% to 9% chance of getting a job offer from applying to a job posting. I’ve heard it forever but anytime I try to track it down, I hit a brick wall.
I found the answer at the 2019 SocialTalent Global Recruitment Survey! This fascinating organization surveys in-house recruiters and third party agencies (external recruiters or headhunters) to understand current recruitment techniques. The results support what I have been hearing for years!
The in-house recruiters surveyed reported they found an average of 98.5 applicants per opening. They screened 25.61 on average, or about 26% of applications received. About 5 applicants made the short list to be ultimately considered for the job. One person gets the job.
That means this survey supports the view that you have about a 5% chance of getting an interview from a job posting – close to (and perhaps lower than) the working idea of a 4% to 9% chance of getting a job from a job posting.
On the other end of the job search spectrum, a survey conducted by Lou Adler in 2016, revealed that 85% of jobs are filled through networking.
I must say, I was not surprised about these results but it was nice to see actual statistics to support what I thought was happening.
With this knowledge, how are you using your job search time? Are you spending hours every day pouring over job ads and postings, then carefully crafting a well worded message to the hiring manager before submitting your online application?
Knowing that this effort could have a 5% chance of success, how do you justify this time?
Wouldn’t it be better to allocate your time according to the chances for success? What if you inverted your time allocation pyramid to allocate more time to networking? It might be time better spent.
Here is how I propose you spend an 8 hour job search day:
