The question was recently presented to me:
"You know, I've sent out a few dozen resumes for telecommuting work. But I haven't received any response from the employers. No phone calls, no e-mails, no mailed letters, nothing. What's going on with these people? Do they really have a job to fill?"
My answer:
Yes they do have open positions to fill, but to understand why they don't answer your applications for employment, you have to jump into the employer's shoes.
First of all, you must understand that there are thousands of people (if not millions) looking for work-at-home opportunities. Most of them are looking for clerical work. When an employer with this type of job opening announces the possibly of working-from-home, the response from job hunters can be overwhelming!
One man I know had a part-time clerical/data-entry job for $7.00 a hour. He offered the opportunity to work from home. He received 4,000 -- yes, four with three zeros -- resumes in three days!
Now to understand how many actual resumes this employer received, imagine a "ream" of paper (a ream of paper is 500 pieces of paper). If you don't know what a ream of paper is, go to any office supply store and ask for a ream of printer paper. Now imagine buying 8 reams of paper and stacking them on your desk. Those 8 reams of paper is the equivalent to height of all the resumes that employer received if they were stacked on his desk.
Now ask yourself, why would the employer advertise for an assistant in the first place? The answer would be, because the work load of his business had gotten so large that he could not run his business, make a profit and do all the paperwork needed. So how the heck is the employer going to sift through all those resumes and get work done that will enable him or her to pay the employee when the finally hires her?
Afterall, they have to keep business rolling. Despite what we may think as employees, many employer's business is not hiring people -- it's providing a product or service that makes money so paychecks don't bounce!
Okay, you're still in the employer's shoes -- let's fast forward to the time that you (the employer) has found a staff person to fill the job. Now, what do you do with the other 3,999 applicants?
Option 1: Do you ask your new clerical assistant to make 3,999 calls to tell all the applicants that they were not chosen?
This would be a waste of your new assistant's time. You hired this person to do clerical work that will bring your business more profit. Not break your budget by creating a large phone bill.
Option 2: Do you ask your assistant to send 3,999 emails?
This is a waste of your new assistant's time as well. They should be about the work of the business -- making profit and assisting the employer. Anyway, if you send out more than 4,000 emails in a 48 hour time period many ISP's will shut down service thinking you're "spamming." But even if they "could" send out that many e-mails without getting accused of spamming, it would take the assistant an entire week to copy/paste or in some cases type in all those e-mail addresses correctly. That week of work can be better used catching up on paperwork that did not get done while you were searching for an assistant!
Option 3: Do you send 3,999 letters?
This is a waste of time and money. First you must mail-merge 3,999 letters which takes data entry (one week - $140 in salary) and 8 reams of letterhead paper ($200), nearly 4,000 envelopes, and over $1500 worth of postage!
Simply put, to tell a bunch of people they didn't get the job you have to spend over $1800.
Option 4: Do you just notify everyone you interviewed (about 10 people) and let the rest figure it out when they don't receive a call?
Noting the above, if you were the employer what would you do? Pretty much what employers are doing today; not calling, e-mailing or sending any type of notice in the mail.
It's really not such a mystery when you look at it from the employer's shoes.
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