Any Human Resource professionals?

I am currently employed but actively seeking employment locally. It seems as soon as I apply for a job in less then a business day I receive a rejection. The jobs that I am applying for I either have experience in or in lieu of educational experience with my masters. I do not have a criminal record or anything that I think would raise a red flag. I have had several people check my resume and cover letter, and I am looking for a professional to evaluate. If anybody is able to help I would greatly appreciate it and can send you a cover letter and resume.

Are you sure they're not just rejecting you because they don't want to be poaching from a local competitor and are concerned about potential non-competes?

"less than a business day"?
If this is literally accurate, then you are being turned down by an automated system. No recruiter I have ever met/worked with was that efficient. Turn down letters are actually pretty rare, typically you get the "we will keep this on file for (insert legal required time frame to avoid lawsuits) days."
The other chance is that you are applying to jobs that are closed out, but statistically it would be difficult unless you were only applying to jobs with 1 day left. Don't do that, by the time a posting is old; its been dead for a while.
Also if its your references, criminal background, etc once again a single day is not long enough to process that information. And quite frankly, lots of companies do those checks post interview.
Now if the time frame is more like 20-30 calendar days and its all rejections, no phone interviews, etc then you can assume there is some human element involved.
FYI most non-competes are so poorly written that they are completely unenforceable. That last bit of information came as quite a shock to me when I did my tour at corporate HR.

Your name might be a reason. I read a while back on this forum about a guy that was having similar problems until he changed his first name to his middle name, etc..

What field are you looking in to?

Timeormoney wrote: Also if its your references, criminal background, etc .

This. They usually won't even bother with reference/background checks unless you're going to be offered the job or you're one of the last 2-3 in the running.

I would echo Timeormoney's comments about the rejections probably happening due to an automated system. From what I've read, those automated systems are looking for keywords in your resume, mostly having to do with specific skills the hiring manager is looking for. Are you sending the exact same resume/cover letter for every opening? One of the things I would do is to try tailoring your resume for each role. You will want to use their description of the skillset they are looking for, as often the recruiter or hiring manager writing the posting isn't technical enough to know that skill X and skill X1 really mean the same thing. By extension, the computer system won't know either because the keywords they put in will be very specific to their definition of what they're looking for. This is especially true in highly technical/specialized fields.

M3Loco wrote: Your name might be a reason. I read a while back on this forum about a guy that was having similar problems until he changed his first name to his middle name, etc.. What field are you looking in to?

I have experience in Higher education, grade school education, retail, customer service, and insurance. The jobs that I have been applying to are leadership roles in insurance and industry as I have a masters degree in leadership. I have also applied for entry level jobs at local bigger corporations as I am not afraid to work my way up to leadership.

I would echo that you are being pre-screened by a computer that is looking for keywords. As was previously stated, use the specific words in the job description.

trigun7469 wrote:

M3Loco wrote: Your name might be a reason. I read a while back on this forum about a guy that was having similar problems until he changed his first name to his middle name, etc.. What field are you looking in to?

I have experience in Higher education, grade school education, retail, customer service, and insurance. The jobs that I have been applying to are leadership roles in insurance and industry as I have a masters degree in leadership. I have also applied for entry level jobs at local bigger corporations as I am not afraid to work my way up to leadership.

You aren't getting past the computer. You're missing something that they require, whether it is a Bachelor of Science in Metalurgical Engineering Insurance with a minor in Underwater Basket Weaving, or you answered an application question wrong (do you have 4 years of experience in a very specific field that only 4 people in the world do), or you don't have enough of the keywords in your resume--look for words like agility, acumen, portfolio, whatever.

You need someone on the inside to help you out. At my first job with this company, I had an immediate rejection; I also had a friend who worked there sending an email to the hiring manager saying "give this guy a look". 3 days later, HR was calling me asking to set up an interview. Same thing happened with another company. Didn't get that job, but I did get 3 interviews for it after I had a form rejection letter.

Oh, both of these companies were gigantic insurance companies.

I just had to Google up "Leadership Roles in Insurance" because it was such an odd job description.

http://www.rsagroup.ca/about-us/leadership-team

http://www.insurancenetworking.com/INNAwards/WIL.html

Lots of hits. The job seems specific to the insurance companies. At a glance, it strikes me a a military ascension program: ie you rise to the position of General from within the ranks, you don't get hired to it from outside the military. That could be you main obstacle.

What I would be doing is reading as much as possible from the Google hits, steal the vocabulary to load bait the resume reading computer ( insurance company is for sure using such technology) and hope that your insurance experience and Leadership aura shines at any interview you get.

As an aside, it has been my experience that most people who aspire to "Leadership" positions should not have these positions. What they are really after is "Power" that they can abuse. Look to our political, police and religious groups for examples of how this works.

I saw an interesting trick before.

Basically fill what appears to be a blank page with everything the job requires, even if you don't have it.

Then, make the text white, so you can't see it unless you highlight all of the material. Even when printed, the page will be blank. The computer will still read the invisible text.

Now, the HR personell may be wise to this, and when they see your resume will "hey wait a second, this person doesn't have the requirements we put into the filter, how did he get through?" But they'll need to actually READ your resume to determine that.

PHeller wrote: I saw an interesting trick before. Basically fill what appears to be a blank page with everything the job requires, even if you don't have it. Then, make the text white, so you can't see it unless you highlight all of the material. Even when printed, the page will be blank. The computer will still read the invisible text. Now, the HR personell may be wise to this, and when they see your resume will "hey wait a second, this person doesn't have the requirements we put into the filter, how did he get through?" But they'll need to actually READ your resume to determine that.

Most of the pre-screening software will now reject resumes like this - but yeah this trick would have worked like magic for a while.

on the military thing, lots of major companies have specific programs to hire former officers. These are major, major programs (pun unintended). Some are $40M+ a year programs, so they tend to be driving for a certain candidate. If you see anything in the job description like "military leadership preferred" that means "don't apply unless you had a commission". Additional terms like CGO (company grade officer) and other military terms are meant to attract people with that very specific experience. If you have been applying for those jobs, then yes you are going to get booted ASAP.
FYI Don't take the sucker bet on these, even if it says military experience OR XYZ education requirement, yer not getting the interview or the job. Now very rarely a non-military candidate will be picked up, but they are going to be a member of a protected group whom the company is willing to recruit from any vector possible.

So how do you beat the system? Connections as always. Who do you know that can "get" you the interview? Its time for the social network of the under/unemployed Linkedin. Update your profile, find your facebook friends on linkedin. No matter how remote the connection, make contact. Cousin of the brother of the person you dated in high school? Yup they count. Also if its retail based insurance involving sales, walk in the office and sell yourself.
The final piece, hiring is about risk management. Very few folks want to hire you into a substantial increase in responsibility. They typically want to hire someone who can already do the job, so be careful about aiming for too high a position. The real wall here is manager then director then officers. Manager recruiting is tough if you haven't had the title. Director recruiting is virtually impossible without the title and officer recruiting....well I never played in that arena but seeing the results I can only assume satan and souls were heavily involved.

Timeormoney wrote: blah blah words blah blah I can only assume satan and souls were heavily involved.

i'm pretty sure that Satan is always involved with anything related to HR.. sometimes even Canadian Satan..