Last Week's Poll: The Disconnect

More than 60 percent of jobsinthemoney.com's users apply for jobs they're either over or underqualified for, according to the poll we ran last week. Only 38.8 percent said they apply for jobs that are a good fit. To drill down, about 21 percent said they apply for positions they're overqualified for. What really got my attention was this: 40.3 percent apply for jobs they know they're not a match for - they figure they can learn the job after they've been hired.

Well. I wonder how many can't figure out why they don't get responses to their resumes. Not many employers are interested in providing lots of on-the-job training if they can find a qualified candidate for a job. And if your credentials are way out of sync with a job's requirements, odds are managers and HR folks are simply going to think you're goofy for applying.

Dona Dezube wrote about this for JITM in August:

Before you reply, digest the job description and make sure you have the required experience and education, suggests Timothy Wujcik, chairman of Chase Winters Worldwide, a Chicago recruitment firm. He estimates about 10 percent of the candidates who e-mail their replies to Internet job postings don't do that. "We were looking for an individual with compensation of $450,000 and we received a resume from a candidate who was a messenger," Wujcik recalls as an example. "There was no correlation whatsoever between this job and his job as a messenger."

Tips for Responding to Online Ads [JITM]