The interview had gone well, and everyone in the room knew it. Strong answers, good energy, forty minutes gone in a blink. Then the hiring manager asked the closing question every interview ends with, whether the candidate had any questions for us. “No, I think you’ve covered everything.” I watched the temperature in the room […]
For 12+ years, the first thing I did every working morning was log into an applicant tracking system. I searched it, filtered it, tagged candidates in it, moved people through interview stages in it, and wrote notes in it that other recruiters would read months later. It was my main tool, the way a spreadsheet […]
The two applications on my screen were nearly identical. Same years of experience, same kind of employers, same core skills. One interview slot left on the calendar, and I had to choose. One application came with a letter. Three short paragraphs that named the role, picked out the exact challenge in the job ad, and […]
A candidate I remember told me he had applied to more jobs than he could count and heard back from almost none of them. He was tired, discouraged, and starting to believe something was wrong with him. I asked to see his list of applications. He didn’t have one. I asked which roles he was […]
Two applications arrived for the same marketing manager role, ten minutes apart. Similar experience, similar companies, comparable achievements. On paper, an even match. The first opened with a summary about “a dynamic professional with a passion for driving growth”. The second opened with a line about lifecycle email campaigns and marketing automation, the exact two […]
There was a candidate whose name I learned without ever meeting him. He applied to every role my agency posted for the better part of a season. Warehouse supervisor, marketing assistant, payroll clerk, sales trainee. Same document every time, same generic opening line, and after a while I could recognize the file before I opened […]
The resume that landed on my desk one Tuesday morning ran to five pages. The candidate was genuinely impressive, and somewhere around page three sat the achievement that should have opened the whole document, a supply contract renegotiation that saved his employer a fortune. I only found it because his referee mentioned it on the […]
The strongest candidate on my shortlist that week froze on the easiest question. Tell me about yourself. She had the experience, she had the qualifications, she had glowing references. She simply had no idea where to start, so she started everywhere. Her degree choice, a job she took to pay the rent, a career change […]
Picture me on a Tuesday afternoon, working through a page of LinkedIn search results for a finance hire. Each result gave me a name, a photo, a location, and one line of text. That one line decided everything, click or scroll. “Senior Financial Analyst | FP&A and Commercial Finance | Retail and E-commerce” got the […]
I once read a summary out loud to the recruiter at the next desk, because I could not quite believe it. “Dynamic, results-driven professional with a proven track record of success in fast-paced environments.” Forty words, and at the end of them I knew nothing. Job, industry, level, strengths, all still a mystery. The frustrating […]
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