Being on the receiving end of your CV's, I hope the following will help!
As Expedite says, consider it from our point of view though. We would love to reply to every CV - fact - we're not a bunch of hard-nosed b*stards, it's worse when lots of effort has been put in, but the volumes of CV's that we're receiving is substantial. We receive upwards of 20 CV's a day at the moment (i.e. we're not Easyjet or Ryanair!) and most efficient airlines have reduced admin staff in order to cut costs and keep flying, as a result we can't afford half a day's work just replying. It's not the cost of envelopes and stamps that stops us replying, it's staff cost.
Contrary to popular belief we do read every CV though. So you can help yourselves by helping us, in the following way:
i) Keep your CV down to one page of A4. This applies to any application you do, aviation or not. I read page one and that's it.
ii) Bullet points on the top of the page with pertinent information. We're interested in licences, ratings, hours and previous employers. Your trek across the Andes is fascinating, but best left to the interview. We're looking for pilots, not Indiana Jones...
iii) E-mail is the best way of submitting it. This ensures it goes to the right person and isn't on paper which just fills up space on the desks and in the filing cabinets. Eventually we have to have a paperwork clearout... Most companies now have either website submission or a dedicated recruitment e-mail.
iv) Don't attach your Wets, First Aid, GSCE or Scouts/Guides Firelighting Certificates... It's superflous information for us and will, immediately, be treated in the same way as paper in iii) above. When you are applying for a position, the minimum standard is usually stated and then if you meet that we'll check your certificates later.
v) You can't beat contacts. This is mentioned time after time after time here. Get your face known, say hello to every pilot you meet - remember (and this may be a little controversial!) pilots love telling you about themselves and their flying. You all know that deep down!!
vi) We appreciate that you want to do a bit of cold-calling and ask about vacancies. For us, a smaller operator, this is fine. We can save you more time and effort if we have no vacancies planned. The majority of aviation companies know when our vacancies are likely to occur and plan our recruitment around them. Most companies will be able to tell you whether it's worth sending a CV in. One word of advice though, if you're going to phone up, know the basics about the company. I'm not going to make your task easy for you! If you phone up to check the Chief Pilot's name, at least find it out first - if you ask me I'm going to end the call quickly because you're not showing much initiative. If you're not going to make an effort, then neither are we.
I hope the above helps us all. We've all been in the same boat looking for jobs and I've still got my file of rejection letters from the start of my career. If the others had replied the file would've been about 50% larger - I know how it felt to not get a response, but having seen it from the other side of the fence I can appreciate why I didn't now.
Keep trying, you'll get there eventually. Like you say Flying Farmer when we need you management will suddenly find the staff to reply...
And, to the person who sent in a multimedia CV (it's the only one I've seen) well done, it made an impression - however I've not had chance to look at it yet...
Perhaps one side of A4 would've been better?