want to apply for jobs but hate applications

Post Reply New Topic

I'm currently making a fresh effort to apply for jobs again after a lengthy "hiatus", but I'm already mentally writing off most of the ones I've bookmarked because they require lengthy explanations as to why you'd be the "perfect fit" for the job.

At the moment, very frankly, I couldn't care less about jobs and am only applying out of a sense of obligation, and that I "should" at least be trying. It's one thing to upload your CV and "mass-apply" for jobs on Indeed dot com but the ones where they need you to "tell them about you", I'm just like urgh I'll go back to it later. And then I never do and I miss the deadline.

Right now I'm struggling to work up the motivation to do the things I actually do normally like and am good at, never mind a job which involves "extensive communication with clients and colleagues" for 30 hours a week...

Maybe write several versions of an explanation and then pick one for each type of job???


Like, I have x years of experience in blah blah blah. During my career as a whatever, I am best when confronted with a challenge. I have been a valuable team member and I will be an asset to your company. Your company is on the cutting edge of something or other and I admire the work of CEO whoever. I am available to talk about this opportunity next week and will contact your secretary to set up an appointment.

It sounds fake to my ears but paragraphs like that, and having several to choose from, may help.

I hate filling out applications too. I think they are impractical and I prefer a solid resume myself. The whole trend of having to prove tht we can do a job before getting hired rather than illustrating a willingness to learn and get training -- well, I hate it.

Good luck!

^ Sounds like a good idea--having a few go-to paragraphs that you can tweak to fit the individual company. There are books and online resources to help, but it's also a good idea to have a few people who know you look over what you write. They might point out skills or traits you might not be aware of, and help you phrase things in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd, if possible.

Training an employee takes time and money, so those doing the hiring are probably under pressure to get the "right" person from the start. Going to all the trouble to hire someone, get them established in the office, making sure everyone on the team is functioning with the new arrangements, and so on, only then to find out that this person isn't going to fit must absolutely suck. I've been unfortunate enough to have worked with a few people who, IMO, shouldn't have been hired in the first place, and a few that stayed long after they should've been fired. I've seen people around me burn out quickly or leave for more mundane reasons and know all too well the labor that goes into rebuilding, reaching a sort of cruising altitude (with various amounts of turbulence), and then finding out "well, s/he's out the door, and we may have to make do with one less pair of hands until, well, whenever" and on it goes. It gets old quickly.

I've never been in the position to hire anyone, exactly, although I've been on a ministerial search committee that worked for more than a year to solicit applicants, filter through their packets, interview, observe, and eventually recommend a candidate for our church to vote on. It's much more elaborate than hiring a single person for a typical job opening, but I think I can relate to the work that goes into that sort of thing.

I think what I'm trying to say is that the hiring process sucks from every angle! I do wish you well in your search. Who knows--maybe you'll land a position that will make you glad that you tried, or at least learn about a job that you'd actually enjoy doing.

I like to apply to places that use a standardized application (e.g., state jobs). Otherwise, I try to do only 3-4 applications a day. Any more than that and I "burn out" from the repetitiveness of it.

Fortunately, there aren't a lot of worthwhile jobs to apply to in a given week when I've been forced to hunt for a job.

I agree with having some "go-to" paragraphs ready to tweak and go, but that harks back to what employers often say about how they hate "generic" applications, which they say often go right in the trash, and there's only so much you can personalise a statement until you're, effectively, writing something from scratch. Which defeats the whole purpose of having the statements on stand-by...

I hate those too. I stole a paragraph from a letter of recommendation that a friend wrote me for a scholarship. Normal people seem to be better at writing something that other normal people will understand. I never know how much to say or what not to say because I don't understand normal people. Maybe you could get a person who knows you to help you write a paragraph you could keep using for applications.

It's not even the personal statement anymore, I have a couple of those written and waiting, but it's having to manually insert your *entire* education and job history. Because most online forms don't lend themselves to copy and pasting it just becomes a task which feels overwhelming due to its sheer scale.

Add to that the increasingly likelihood that even if your application is awesome it'll be competing against literally thousands of others... the phrase "rolling a boulder uphill" comes to mind now.