With a recovering market there must be a lot of “great candidates” on the market – right? I believe that due to some unfortunate circumstances there are some “great” people out there looking. So when you post your jobs on Hcareers or any other job board why aren’t they applying?

I am fond of saying that the great thing about the internet is that it makes it easy to apply for any job you like and the bad thing about the internet is that it makes it easy for you to apply for any job you like.

What I mean is that the ease of the internet enables people to apply for jobs that they may not have considered before or even known about. People apply for jobs they feel qualified for, dream jobs they know that they are not qualified for but would love and really any job that catches their eye. They apply for jobs that are close to home, across the country or even in different countries. It all sounds incredibly exotic and exiting, but the reality is it produces little to no outcome 99% of the time.

Here’s why. Companies advertise job hoping to get a local candidate most of the time. The might look to a nearby region, locations within their own province or perhaps a neighboring province. Their last resort is someone on the other side of the country and the next option after last resort is an international candidate. The reality is that their comfort level is lower with a “long distance” candidate as they can’t see where you have worked or who you are, not to mention the cost to fly in “long distance” candidates for interviews and then relocate them can be thousands of dollars.

So when a job is advertised and 90% of the respondents are what would be considered unsuitable or “long distance”, hiring managers get frustrated. When a hiring manager posts several jobs and more that 90% of the dozens of resume they receive are not what they are looking for they get very frustrated. This frustration can lead to them not getting back to the people who may not be suitable regardless of where they live.

This failure to respond in return frustrates applicants. “Why apply online, they never get back to you” you might think. Many very qualified people have applied to several jobs online and not received any feedback at all which leads to their frustration in the online application system. I have heard from many very strong candidates that they choose not to apply online anymore as they do not get any results. So the breakdown of this system is in fact the reason some of the best people on the market may not be applying to your job ads.

So you have frustrated hiring managers and frustrated applicants with no effective way to connect! What to do.

I would love to hear your suggestions.