Sending CVs and NO reply anyone??

[ASHTAM]

Is it just me, or does this happen to everyone?

You send out your CV and a cover letter to a company that are looking for pilots and they ask for it sent by email or post and once you have done that you never get a reply? You don’t even get recognition that they have received it. I can understand that they will have lots of CV to get through and don’t really want to email each individual person to say thanks.
But it would be nice to know that they have received your CV. I rather be told a No then not told at all. At least I know that they have received it and maybe there is something wrong with my CV.
I don’t mean to moan about this but it frustrates me.

Does anyone else have this problem??

Moan over

[DrJones]

No its not just you and would not worry too much about it.

A bit of advice that was given to me was make sure you tailor the covering letter to the company. If they see a generic letter they are less likley to respond.

[ASHTAM]

phew..........

Yeah i do that a little, as in I change a few words, but I have to admit not too much sometimes just the airline name and a add a few other bits.

[hollingworthp]

Get your email client to request a delivery and read receipt - at least you will know they received it.

[ASHTAM]

good idea but i dont believe hotmail can do that. i do know outlook can.

[G-GOLF]

Nope you're not alone on that one. I, like many others, have been sending CV & cover letters to a variety of different operators. I've been doing this for about 8 months now. The majority do not acknowledge receipt, however, it's definately a good idea to follow up with a call about a week or two later.

[helldog]

I met a very nice lady on a plane the other day. She is in a profession that most dumb@ss pilots like myself could never hope to be involved in. The competition for jobs is fierce, headhunting goes on all the time. We got to talking and I asked her what she looks for in cover letters. I told her I send loads with no reply. She said she found that incredibly rude. She gets many applicants emailing her and responds to them all with a personal email. She said it is the least she can do as a courtisy to someone that could perhaps be a future colleague.

[goaround737]

I read a about a business jet job a few months ago that received 900+ applications. Think of the man power required to respond to every single one!! Its not nice, granted, but Its simple maths. Dont take it to heart.

[shaun ryder]

No joke!

Instead of it just getting tossed in the bin. At least all that paper could be put to good use!

WC/CV Toilet Paper : Burak Kaynak (http://www.burakkaynak.com/works/wccv-toilet-paper/)

[QUOTE]WC/CV's special roll looks just like regular toilet paper and the paper is good for writing. Each Cv has 3 sheets with titles; Contact Information, Education, Employment History.

Fill in the blanks, and put that roll in the company's toilet that you want to work for! or find better places!/QUOTE]

[darkroomsource]

It happens all the time.
Companies to not respond to most, if not all, of the applications / letters they receive for any job, let alone pilot jobs.
Today, companies receive anywhere from hundreds to thousands of applications for every opening, even outside the aviation industry, they can't be bothered with being polite any more.

[OneIn60rule]

You are one fish of thousands.

I've probably sent 30 CV's via e-mail and out of those there will be 4 replies.
The four replies were usually:

Please understand that it was a very hard decision blah...

Best of luck on your future endevours.



To be honest, if a company is receiving 100 plus applications a day. How do you expect them to get a reply out? Especially if they have no current need for pilots.

If I were you I'd just go in person with CV in hand. At worst what they can do is tell you to :mad: Yes also give 'em a ring to see who you could send it to or if they received it.
Sometimes you'll get someone on the phone who doesn't care at all, other times the person seems interested.

Hang in there!

[FamousGrouse21]

I feel that as a poster above has stated, recieving CVs numbering in the hundreds / thousands is becoming increasingly common place in many jobs now; probably even jobs that most people wouldn't usually want to do at all, let alone something as glamorous as flying a jet around the skies.

I started a job just the other week in Business and Marketing with much excitement that I had actually got a job again after a few months off over the summer to build my hours. I arrive there and it turns out the job isn't what they advertised, they haven't sorted me out a desk, so one day I end up working off the top of a filing cabinet for an hour, and they simply can't be bothered to communicate even the most basic information to me. (Oh and I was also sat working in the boardroom for my first three days there and noone actually spoke to me). Sufficed to say 1 week after starting I walked out as I was not going to be treated like that. The pay was rubbish, the people i was working with were rubbish and the prospects for development were non existant. However they were not in the slightest bit concerned that I was walking as they said they had had 300 applications for the post so could easily readvertise it and get someone else in.

Bottom line seems to suggest some serious out of the box / contingency planning type thinking is needed in situations like this. Keep applying for jobs but make sure your doing something else to advance your interests on the side as I think the airplane insutry is still largely a no goer for most people at the moment, even if you do send out 500 CVs! If there ain't no jobs in the current market conditions, there ain't no jobs and I would call 900 applications for 1 bizjet job... no jobs!

Grouse

[Bealzebub]

Look at it another way.

Most days when you stoop down to pick up the collection of envelopes and sheets of card lying at the foot of your front door, you will find an assortment of mail from companies you have never heard of, or solicited in any way. They send out this correspondance in the hope that a small percentage of recepients will pick it up and be attracted by the contents. How many times do you simply flick through it, and then deposit it in the rubbish bin? More relevantly how many times do you think, "thats lucky, just what I wanted!" I doubt anyone thinks, "no, but I will write back and acknowledge receipt of the speculative mailshot even though I am not remotely interested."

In truth this is little different to the mail Chief pilots receive on a daily basis. Some companies may employ a "sorry but we will keep your application on file" standard response, and others may simply refuse to acknowledge anything that they consider unsolicited. By unsolicited, that may also include applications received in response to an advertisement that clearly fail to meet the requirements stipulated in said advertisement.

By all means send out speculative CV's and covering letters, because you may well get lucky (just like the mailshots) if your application happens to coincide with something the recepient just so happens to be looking for, however there is no point in being offended, frustrated or disappointed if you don't receive a reply.

[turbine100]

I have been sending out C.V & Covering letters for almost 2 years and finished training at the beginning of the downturn :)

On average anything between 8 - 15 letters a week and have wall planner for revisiting and updating existing online applications and used to recheck any operators every 6 months or so.

Still working in previous career full time earning the money and managed to get some GA flying work to keep current.

Although being real, I suspect another year or so at least until a proper paying job comes along and am not going to consider PTF scheme's etc.

[MIKECR]

Our chief pilot says he personally receives about 60 unsolicited email CV's per day, as well as hard copy cv's through the post. He's a busy busy chap so goodness only knows if he even has the time to read them all let alone contemplate replying to them! We're only a small TP regional airline too, can you imagine the volume of cv's the bigger operators must have to contend with!

[Kerling-Approsh KG]

It goes much deeper than lots of replies getting in the way of the recruiter...

We are very specific in our advertisements, yet we are inundated by correspondence from people who don't meet the criteria. They often even point this out in their covering letters or emails. Sometimes they deliberately contradict our stated requirements, explaining why they think our requirements are wrong! I do my best to reply to the suitable candidates, but given the effort that has to go into keeping the operation ticking over and moving on, it is a struggle.

There are many things you can do to improve your chances of employment, but getting wound up about a shortage of replies is not one of them.

[de facto]

Ashtam,

Dont lose faith, it is not because they havent replied that they will never do so.

When I was looking for a job on turboProps (on which i had experience),i sent a CV to small outfit in spain but no answer.
A year and a half later, they replied asking me if i were still available for an interview..i enjoyed politely answering them that i had just passed a few months ago my PIC check on 737.

All the best!:ok:

[GGR]

Always send to more than one addressee in an organisation. You may find you become the topic of conversation.......in a good way! Also send hard copy via snail mail, always make sure that good quality materials are used when doing this.

Good luck

GGR

[Kerling-Approsh KG]

GGR, I completely disagree with your suggestion. Much better to find out who is the decision-maker, and send to him. Multiple CVs show that you don't follow the right process, or haven't bothered to find out who that person is. Rarely, they might have the effect you mention, but in our organisation, you're more likely to wind us up with the additional workload.

[Chinchilla.612]

From my own experience, when I started out in aviation as a career I followed all the advice that I could get and sent my CV off to "all the right places" as it seemed, but the response rate was only around 5% so don't get disheartened by the lack of response.
As it turned out, my first job offer came from a company I hadn't even applied to! I sent my CV to a company that operated near them at the same airfield and they passed it on for me.
Since then I have worked for 4 other employers and only had to "apply" for the most recent of these. The other 3 were invitations to join by contacts from networking in the industry. I have also had other offers which I have politely turned down as they did not suit me at that time.
In GA at least I personally think that networking and getting yourself known (in a good way!) is very beneficial. Whether that is also true of airlines I am not so sure.......not a line of the industry that interests me so much.
All the best, and good luck!

[GGR]

Kerling
I did not make myself clear. I was suggesting sending to the right person and maybe his/her second in command, not the whole company! When applicants to my company show initiative and invention they usually manage to stand out from the crowd so to speak.