How to Beat Application Fatigue

I’m hearing a lot about ‘application overwhelm’ for both hirers and applicants at the moment.

And it’s not really great for either side.

Job goes up >> 1000+ applicants apply = internal recruiters brain explodes + applicant feels deflated.

I have a theory that seems to work for us…

Get really really reaaaaaally, almost eerily, specific.

Yes. Freak your applicants out. Make someone read your job post and think ‘Holy bejesus, is this an episode of punk’d?

This is literally me in a job description.’

Most places writing job specs write job specs how they’re ‘supposed to be’ written. And that’s the problem. They end up being for everyone. Which means everyone applies. And suddenly you have more applicants than you do LinkedIn connections.

Some questions you can ask before posting an ad…

Can you write for a very specific person?

Can you call out what they’re thinking / feeling?

Can you been transparent about the problem you’re facing?

And can you try writing a dilemma statement to define the problem you’re solving so it’s simple to understand?

(Simple dilemma framework: We want to X but Y.)

If you’re brave and honest about the challenge you are faced with…

You’ll get more appropriate people who know how to solve that problem and less of the people that can’t. It’ll help the applicant get weirdly specific too. And that’s much more fun to read.

Image credit: Dimitri Karastelev via Unsplash