Interesting Poll Results Regarding Resumes
Over the last few months I have conducted a couple of very non-scientific polls on LinkedIn. I wanted to better understand what candidates do with their resumes. Granted, these two polls don’t give all of the answers, but they did show some interesting answers. Like many polls, they might have created more questions than answers.
I had been curious as to how many resumes candidates were sending out. I had no idea if it was hundreds or just a few. So the first poll question was: On average, how many resumes do you send out per week? 848 people responded.
79% indicated 1 -10
16% indicated 11-20
4% over 20
I actually thought the highest group would be the 11 – 20 group. Comments back did indicate that the numbers move the longer one is looking for a job. For example, a number of people indicated that at first they were sending more resumes than they are currently given they have been looking for some time. That would make sense since I’m confident that when one first starts looking they have a lot of places initially to send resumes. Once those are done the number drops.
87% of the women send out 1 -10 per week, while that drops to 76% for men.
10% of the women send out 11- 20 per week, while that increases for men to 19%.
The only age group that was higher was the 18-24 group with 85% indicating they send out 1- 10 per week. All the other groups up to 55+ were in the mid 70% range. However, the 25 – 34 and the 55+ age groups lead in sending out 11-20 resumes per week.
The other question I asked was to find out where most of these resumes were going. Candidates are sending out a lot of resumes so they must be going someplace. 320 people responded to this poll. Not a big number, but interestingly the percentage didn’t change much as more people responded. After about 275 people responded, the percentage stayed within one or two points.
52% indicated that they send most of their resumes directly to companies with job postings.
30% indicated that they send most of their resumes to job board ads.
11% sent them to recruiters.
5% sent unsolicited resumes to targeted companies.
Two things surprised me with this, 1) most people aren’t using the job boards as their primary source for sending resumes and therefore finding a job and 2) far fewer are sending to recruiters than I expected.
I did find it interesting that 100% of the people in marketing that replied indicated they only send resumes directly to a company job posting. Academics and Sales were also much higher than the other functional areas with 60% and 50% sending directly to the company job posting. Academics doesn’t surprise me as that would seem to make sense.
Age was another interesting number. I expected most of the younger generation to use the job boards as this is via the Internet, but I was wrong. 72%, by far the largest number, of 18 -24 year old candidates reply directly to company job postings. This group was also the least likely to send their resume to a job board with only 17% using this as a primary source. The 34-54 age group used the job boards for sending resumes the most.
The biggest and far away the most common comment was how frustrated candidates are about not hearing anything back once they submit a resume. Many referred to it as the “black hole.” I was going to ask the question what percentage of the resumes that you send out do you hear back on, but judging from the comments I came to the conclusion that the 0 – 5% category would be the winner by such a wide margin it didn’t make sense to ask it.
That is how the numbers and things came out. Like it or not, believe it or not, do with it as you please. It is just information.
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Brad Remillard
Job Search Mistakes, Resume | bradremillard June 14, 2010
About the Author
Brad Remillard is a founding Partner of IMPACT Hiring Solutions, co-author of "You're NOT the Person I Hired", and "This is NOT the Position I Accepted". Brad is an award-winning international speaker, retained executive recruiter, and expert on hiring and retaining top talent, and executive job search.
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By Jorgen Sundberg, June 15, 2010 @ 7:58 am
Very interesting that marketers are savvy enough to circumvent recruiters and headhunters. If they are trend setters, I foresee an industry in trouble!