Can you guess the average number of people who apply for any given job? Twenty? Fifty? How about 118? Ding, ding, ding! Those types of statistics can be useful to job hunters as they send their resumes into the competitive employment stratosphere. The following is a compilation of other career-focused statistics from the resource Interview Success Formula and its online employment sources, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Glassdoor.com, CNN, TheUnderCoverRecruiter.com, and The Wall Street Journal.
1. About 80 percent of available jobs are never advertised.
2. Twenty percent of the 118 people who apply for any given job get an interview.
3. Many companies use applicant tracking software to weed out up to 50 percent of
applications before a human even lays eyes on them.
4. Interviews last an average of 40 minutes. It usually takes 24 hours to two weeks to hear
a company’s decision.
5. About 36 percent of employers look for multitasking skills before making an offer, while 31 percent look for initiative, 21 percent look for creative thinking and 12 percent look for something else in the candidate.
6. In the U.S., 42 percent of professionals are uncomfortable negotiating salary.
7. More than half of all employers reported that a candidate rejected their job offer in 2013.
