Introduction 

My friend Andrew – a young software engineer, has found himself on the receiving end of his employer’s “workforce reduction” act recently, along with thousands of other industry professionals. Had Andrew found himself in an analogous situation just a few years ago, he would have been instantly stalked by hordes of recruiters, all pitching the virtues of their companies to him. 

This time it’s different: not only does Andrew not see recruiters lining up to secure an interview with him as they previously used to, but he’s also been ghosted and rejected a few too many times recently. And even though not passing an interview isn’t something unheard of (quite the contrary), failing to secure an interview for a position to which he believes he would be a great fit, has come as a surprise, to say the least. What’s worse, those rejections oftentimes come before he’s got a chance to speak with a human being.

It happens so often that I can’t just discount it as a fluke anymore: I spend 30 minutes filling out a web form, attach my resume and shortly thereafter (sometimes minutes) I receive an automated response telling me that “after careful consideration” the company has decided “to move forward with other candidates”. WTH?!

Right. It’s frustrating.

So, what’s going on? 

There could be several reasons for the observed phenomenon. Today we shall briefly discuss just a few, listed below and ordered from the most obvious one, down to the most obscure. Sadly, I have seen them all play out in real life at one point or another. Let’s begin.

Your resume is weak 

Getting the most obvious thing out the way first: your resume matters. And while conventional wisdom emphasizes experience and education as key factors making the first impression, oftentimes it is the subtleties which end up making your resume red-flagged. A comprehensive discussion of resume writing and its importance in the software industry would be the topic of a separate discussion. Here I should only mention a few lapses I’ve seen most often when reviewing candidates’ resumes. Those are the tone of your resume (formal, professional or casual), clarity of content (cogent and concise or wordy and long-winded), as well as grammar and spelling (no, you can’t have spelling mistakes in your resume for any reason). If your resume has several red flags, you should expect more rejections – most commonly, from the hiring managers.

Automated engine found no match 

The job board on which you applied could be running a “qualification engine” on their back end, which, in theory, should be able to help employers match qualified applicants to the jobs they post. Depending on how sophisticated they are, those engines may end up filtering out perfectly qualified applicants, due to a mismatch between “hard requirements” set by the employers, and the answers provided by the applicant. For example, unbeknownst to you, the employer could’ve made working from the office at least three times a week a hard requirement. Now, if, when filling out the application, you indicated that you’d prefer working remotely, it could’ve triggered an automatic rejection. Note that in cases like this you’d receive a rejection response almost at once.

Recruiter found no match 

Recruiters in big companies oftentimes work with multiple engineering managers at a time, all of whom outline their requirements for the qualifications they look for in potential candidates. That doesn’t make recruiters’ lives any easier, given the abundance of technical lingo in the field of software engineering. As with any profession, recruiting has its own share of unscrupulous individuals, who would not invest the time it takes to establish the necessary baseline of understanding in the field, but rather would run a pure lexical word-by-word match of your resume with the terms they learned from the hiring managers. 

For example, if the position is looking for a software engineer, who has experience in Virtual Networks, and you happen to have spent your entire career doing just that in Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), don’t be surprised if some recruiters will reject you expeditiously, despite your background being a perfect fit. That is, of course, unless your resume has the keyword they are looking for (that is, Virtual Networks), or you’ve had a chance to talk to the recruiter in person.

Hiring manager found no match 

Once your resume has been vetted by the recruiter, your resume may be automatically shared with the respective hiring manager for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ determination. There your resume could be dismissed as “not meeting the bar” because it has multiple red flags (see the section about resumes) or because of a variety of other factors, like the abundance of other candidates, and the hiring manager’s own busy schedule. If your resume is the only one in the pipeline, it will most certainly be given the benefit of the doubt. If it is one of a few dozens of others – not so much.

Hiring manager had no intent to hire 

Typically, hiring managers are incentivized to hire: when their team grows, more work is done, and when more work is done it helps their own promotion case. However, things become complicated if the hiring manager is having a tough time, overwhelmed, has decided to switch teams or is otherwise on their way out. In any of those situations, chances are that your resume will not get the attention it deserves. In most extreme cases, the hiring manager may neglect their hiring pipeline altogether.

Position has been filled 

While applying on 3^rd party boards would make this more likely, even companies’ own job boards occasionally list positions which have already been filled (“zombie positions”). There could be multiple reasons why that could happen – the most common one of which is the lag between the time when the candidate accepts the offer and when they start working for the company. While the former would coincide with the effective hiring pause, the latter would cause the position to be taken down from the job boards. It could take weeks (sometimes, months) for the hired candidate to join the company, during which time recruiters would sometimes automatically reject anyone who applies.

Position has been canceled  

The company with whom you are applying could be undergoing a reorg, causing a massive turmoil in the headcount. Those reorgs could result (among other things) in closure of the existing positions (aka requisitions, or simply “reqs“), or their replacement with new ones. You could’ve been among the unlucky ones who applied to the old req, which got canceled.

Position must stay open due to company policies 

Big companies’ hiring practices (especially, those of the big corporations) are routinely scrutinized for their fairness. To pass the scrutiny and ensure fairness of the hiring process, companies implement various internal policies. A common requirement at some companies is that more than one candidate should be interviewed for a given position. Depending on the metric the company is trying to optimize they may be looking for a candidate who belongs to a particular underrepresented group. If that is the case, the position will remain open for however long it takes them to find such a candidate, and your resume will be deprioritized if you did not identify with the underrepresented group.

Position must stay open due to government regulations 

Sometimes companies open positions because they must do so to meet government regulations. For example, a temporary visa holder, currently employed by the company, could be seeking permanent status in the US (aka Green Card). If the company decides to sponsor permanent residentship  for the said employee (which is quite common), they will have to meet a litany of requirements, outlined by the USCIS. One such requirement is to show that the company could not find a qualified US citizen for the position, for which they are currently employing a foreigner, and for whom they are sponsoring permanent residentship.

In this case the immigration department will ask that a job opening is created, outlining requirements matching those of the position currently occupied by the employee seeking permanent status. The position will remain open for as long as required by the government regulations (typically, 60 days), during which time the company must consider all the US citizens who apply for it.

The net effect if it is two-fold. First, if you are not a US citizen, and you somehow made it clear in your application, your resume will be thrown in the trash bin right away. Second, if you are a US citizen, then the immigration attorney will make every effort possible to disqualify you based solely on your resume. A simple keyword from the job description, missing from your resume, could be reason enough to disqualify you.

In rare cases, if the immigration department believes that disqualifying you solely based on your resume will not pass the scrutiny of a potential audit, they will schedule a quick interview with you. Remember, the company has no intent to hire you (or anyone) for this position. Thus, the interview has only one goal: to find a reason, not readily apparent from your resume, to disqualify you.

Conclusion 

This is by no means a comprehensive list but should give an idea of the many reasons, which could explain some of the rejections in the hiring process. Whatever your situation is, first make sure you are not making things worse with your resume being flagged for poorly written content. Once you’ve done that, chances are that you will experience your share of rejection, which should come as no surprise, given the massive lay-offs we’ve seen recently. Don’t despair: most of those rejections aren’t about you, and eventually your time to brag about your new gig will come.