21/05/2026
The Ultimate Guide to responding to a job:
When you are in the market looking for a new role, its important to be as attentive to what you want as it is to us recruiters to find the right person, so here are a few points to bear in mind when responding to an advert:
1. Ensure you have the right skills for the job itself, if the advert states that you must have specific experience / skills in a specific industry and you don’t have it, realistically you won't be considered.
2. Don’t apply for a role in a completely different location unless you are definitely intending to relocate there soon!
3. Ensure your CV showcases your skills and experience and that they match the requirements of the role as closely as possible
4. Here’s a big one! Ensure all your contact details and location are on the CV, you’d be surprised how often we are keen to speak to a potential Candidate and can’t find a telephone number!
5. Ensure your CV is ideally no longer than 2 pages, 3 at most
6. Ideally put a link on your CV to your LinkedIn profile, recruiters and clients will ideally want to look at this, if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile its worth getting one, it presents a more professional profile.
7. If you are keen on the role, and definitely feel you are a strong fit for the position and have applied for a role, follow it up with a phone call
If you are being rejected for a role that you feel you are right for, hopefully this guide may help you to figure out if there’s a specific a reason, recruiters are here to help but we also have limited time and resource, personally I try and respond to each and every ad response but at times thats no always possible for a variety of reasons, roles are temporarily put on hold, job specifications change, we may be asking further questions from the client regarding certain criteria, we are here to help, and I’m always happy to talk to Candidates if and when I have time, I hope this proves useful