I place the world's top software engineers and interviewed over 10,000 job seekers. The difference on paper and in person is wider than ever | Fortune

But while hiring is an undoubtedly dysfunctional process (one we are trying to fix, by the way) the main reasons that people don’t get hired existed long before AI. 

Before I built an AI recruitment startup for software engineers, I worked in actual recruitment, finding the best tech talent for companies like Microsoft, Accenture, Deloitte. 

I’ve interviewed thousands of applicants, and it is fair to say I’ve seen a few interview train-wrecks. But my main takeaway is that the reasons people don’t get hired are relatively simple – and avoidable – and that, as an applicant, you really have to do very little to stand out. 

The CV is not dead

You can’t win on the strength of your CV, but you can lose.  

If you send out a document that looks terrible, is full of spelling mistakes or doesn’t make sense, then you are sending a pretty negative signal of what you think good work looks like. 

The main reason CVs fail is because they talk guff: “I conceptualised the Q3 planning process” or some such nonsense. 

You need to be concrete: ‘I helped build X. I helped the company sell more Y’ or ‘This is what I did, and this is how it happened.’ 

Follow the instructions on the job application to the letter

You would not believe how many people fail at this point. 

I’ve put out job specs for entry level roles and – at the bottom – given my email and asked candidates to reach out and tell me why they want the job. 90% of people don’t. 

I remember putting out an advert for a very junior role with a box that said: ‘Tell me why you’d be great fit for this job’ and most people didn’t fill it in. It is baffling. 

I always respond to people who write something interesting in that box. You need to act like you really want the job. 

And if you are asked to do an exercise as part of the application process, then do it. 

I’ve heard people say that they won’t work for free or are worried that the company will not hire them and steal their work, but honestly, it is a delusion. 

If the company is interviewing people, then they really want to hire someone and they’re trying to work out if you could be that person. 

If you really think you can produce better work in a couple of hours than the team working on it full time, then you’re either the best in the world or they are rubbish, in either case you probably shouldn’t be interviewing there.

Don’t spray and pray 

You often see people claiming that they have applied for 1,000 jobs and got no responses: Well, nobody is qualified for 1,000 jobs. You are wasting your time. 

Take that time and spend it researching five jobs and really putting the effort in.

I get that people are playing the volume game but most jobs that people are applying for they are either not qualified for – or aren’t right for them. But if they’d actually gone through the job spec, they’d realise that. 

Put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes 

Hiring is a high-stakes game: 50% of new highs fail or quit in 18 months and only one in five new hires is considered a success after 12 months. 

Consider the impact that has on a business: not only all the work – and cost – involved with finding the right candidate and hiring them, but the impact that an unsuccessful hire has on the rest of the team. This is all the more acute in startups, which tend to have very small teams. 

So, when you walk into that job interview feeling nervous, remember that the person interviewing you may be just as nervous. They may have been through this a few dozen times already. They may have one or two bad hires behind them. 

And remember it is a two-way street. The interviewer wants to get to know you, but you need to get a handle on this company too. Do you want to spend 80% of your waking hours here? 

When you’re asked about your biggest mistake, have an answer. 

Honestly, one of the main reasons people fail an interview is because they are unable to answer this question. 

I get that they are worried it will make them look bad, but it will make you look much worse if you can’t answer it. 

It is inconceivable that your interviewer would never have made a mistake, so be honest, open up, and don’t turn this into an opportunity to blow your own trumpet. 

And finally, personal recommendations are everything

There is nothing more valuable in hiring than a personal recommendation or a referral. 

It should be a reminder that growing and maintaining your professional network is a key part of your career. You need to be a person others would vouch for. 

And people don’t vouch for people just because they like them, they vouch for people who do a good job. They want to know that when they say: ‘You should hire this person’ and they do, you turn out really well. 

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