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What Actually Happens After You Apply For A Job

After you click the apply button it can quite often feel like your CV has gone into a black hole, but what actually happens behind the scenes?

So recruiters use a piece of software called an Applicant Tracking System or ATS.

Now there are hundred of Applicant Tracking Systems out there, some of the most common ones are platforms like Workday, Workable, Taleo, Greenhouse and ICIMS. But they all do pretty much the same thing.

They give a recruiter a list of all of their open vacancies and the candidates who has applied to each one. It’s basically a massive digital filing cabinet. So you’ve applied for the job, your application and CV will be on the ATS attached to the record of the job you’ve applied for.

What happens next?

First, you might get auto-rejected. And this isn’t anything to do with your CV, the ATS does not auto reject your CV.

If you are auto rejected it is based on the answers to any questions you may have given in the application form, so for example if the application for asks specific questions like your salary expectations, or if you need a visa, or if you have a driving license or certain qualification.

If you give the wrong answer to that question then you get auto-rejected, because there is no point a recruiter reviewing your CV if you don’t meet the very basic role requirements.

Now a recruiter will review your CV, it might be minutes after you’ve applied, it could be days or even weeks. It really depends on how busy the recruiter is and how urgent the vacancy is. Or if there is an application deadline.

Usually at least 80% of all applications are completely irrelevant. And recruiters get hundreds of applications for each role. So recruiters will spend about five or six seconds scanning your CV to decide whether to reject or progress your application.

What they’re looking for is your most recent experience and your skills. If they can see that in the first five or six seconds then there’s a very good chance they’ll read the rest of your CV.

If your CV doesn’t hit the mark, they’ll hit the reject button and you’ll get an email telling you that you’ve been rejected.

Once the recruiter has reviewed all of the applications they’ll get in touch with the candidates they want to progress. They’ll usually email you or just call you to find out more about your experience and tell you more about the role. Remember that this is an interview.

On this call the recruiter is trying to figure out whether you are suitable to progress to the next stage. They’ll high level run through your experience and then if they’re happy that you’re a good match for the job they’ll present your CV and their notes from the call to the hiring manager along with the other candidates they have on their shortlist.

Now this is where things can drag out a bit, hiring managers 1. Usually don’t like recruiting and 2. It isn’t their day job. So it can take days, sometimes weeks and a hell of a lot of chasing from the recruiter for the hiring manager to decide who from the short list they want to interview.

If you’ve built up a good relationship with the recruiter, they’ll often go to bat for you and convince the manager that they should interview you, even when the manager is unsure.

Eventually the hiring manager agrees who they want to see and the recruiter will then reach out to you to arrange interviews.

If you get auto-rejected within minutes of applying, it’s because of the answers you gave to questions as part of the application process – not your CV. If you get no feedback after applying then either your CV hasn’t been reviewed yet, remember recruiters are really time poor, or it could be they have reviewed it but they haven’t quite decided whether to reject or progress you yet because they’re waiting to see how their calls go with other candidates first.

And remember your first call with the recruiter is an interview, so treat it like one.

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