Applying for Multiple Positions at the Same Company: It Will Hurt You!

I've been a bad blogger the last 2 weeks. Instead of paying attention to my interweb hobby I have been off in the mountains of sunny Colorado and not-so-sunny Alberta Canada on the SKI slopes! If you have never skied, I must say it is quite the wonderful sport, IF you get a lesson first. Yeeesh. Here are two pics where I am not rolling face-first down a mountain.....

Top, with our pals in Steamboat Springs. Bottom, me in Nakiska just outside Calgary, Alberta

Moving on. I'm back in the groove now, which means back to the world of reviewing applications of the many job hunters out and about these days. My favorite thing to see though (insert sarcasm here) are applications where one individual has submitted a resume (the same one) for 6 positions, all of which have skill sets from opposite ends of the spectrum. Yes, I am CERTAIN you are qualified for ALL of them. NO.

Here are the reasons why this is pure agony for us hiring folk, and why you will get 6 subsequent rejection letters in your inbox if you do this. As a reminder, these are just my humble opinions. Maybe there is some psycho recruiter/HR person out there that doesn't see this as a negative, but I am not one of them. Let's go.

1. Companies want to hire experts of their (ONE) field. A good example of this is a position as a trainer. Lots of job seekers think they can be masterful trainers because in each of their 4 last jobs they spent 3 hours letting a new hire or intern shadow them. NO! True trainers are people who develop training material, spend days/weeks with company new hires, re-certify people for any job-related skills they need, and spend a lot of their time in front of a classroom full of people who only care about when the class breaks for lunch. So if your resume is a mixture of retail management, customer service, and banking, don't get hissy when you're not the first call-back for a job as a full-time trainer. Make sense? Just because you have spent a fraction of your time on any certain job duty in your past doesn't mean you're ready to make a full-time career out of it.

2. You look like an arrogant arse. Applying for 4 different positions (even internally with your own company!) makes you look like you think you can do everything and makes you look like you don't have respect for the skills it really takes to do certain jobs. This automatically turns employers off to you, whether you're legitimately qualified or not, because they think your attitude sucks (and it probably does). Don't become the running joke of your future or current employer's HR department - every time they post a position they'll start a pool to see how long it takes before you submit your resume for literally ANY position they post. Stick to what you're qualified for. If you're seriously interested in changing fields completely (think of someone who works in accounting deciding they want to work in sales), know two things: one, you WILL have to start from ground zero in your newly chosen field, and two, your previous experience means ZILCH from now on. A good use of your time would be to take courses in the field you think you want to pursue, or look for a mentor that can help you get your foot in the door. This will help your resume show to employers that you are serious about your career path and that you've done some homework to back it up.

3. You may or may not be a total flake. I see this one a lot where people apply for the same position but in multiple locations. While I appreciate a person's willingness to be mobile, it also sends up a big red risk flag to me. What if we hire you, send you to Minnesota, and you like the job but you totally hate it there?? Huge waste of our time. You're better off picking one or two places you're REALLY interested in living and wait it out for the right jobs to come along there. What you may not see is - when you apply to the same position in different locations, I still see ALL OF THEM. There may be recruiters at said company in all 50 states, but they're all using the same system to track applicants, and guess what, any recruiter can see any application (in most places). Same goes for applying for multiple positions at the same office. What if we go out on a limb, hire you as an event coordinator, and 3 weeks later you decide that's "not for you" and that you want to work in the payroll office.....? KILL ME. Applying for that many positions automatically puts that thought in my recruiter head, and if there's another applicant out there who's not so (apparently) flaky, you're out of the game.

Remember people, this is all about perception, and you DO NOT want to be the one who looks like they don't know what they're doing, thinks they know everything, or hasn't found their niche in the career world. It's OK if those things do apply to you, you just can't let it show in such an obvious way. 

Happy Job Hunting!