Why senior candidates have stopped applying to job adverts
By Farrell Associates — B Corp-certified sustainability & ESG recruitment specialists
In a good number of the conversations I have had this year with senior people in sustainability and responsible investment, the same remark comes up. They tell me there is no point applying to job adverts any more.
Eighteen months ago I would have heard a milder version of this. People would say that adverts were a bit of a lottery, that they rarely heard back, that it was worth a go but you should not rely on it. What has changed is that many of them have now stopped altogether. These are experienced heads of sustainability, stewardship leads and directors of responsible investment, people who are plainly qualified for the roles they are looking at, and they have concluded that the open application route is not worth their time.
I think that is worth taking seriously, both for the people looking and for the organisations trying to hire them.
What people are describing
The experience they describe is remarkably consistent. They see a role that fits their background closely. They write a thoughtful application. Then they hear nothing at all, or they receive a rejection so quickly that it is hard to believe anyone read what they sent.
Do that a handful of times and the conclusion draws itself. The effort is real, the response is not, and there are better uses of a morning.
Why I think AI has made it worse
I want to be careful here, because this is my reading of what I am seeing rather than a piece of research. But I think two things have happened at once, and both are connected to AI.
The first is on the candidate side. Tools that can produce a tailored CV and covering letter in a few minutes have made it far easier to apply for a large number of roles. That is understandable from the point of view of anyone who is out of work. The effect, though, is that a role which might once have attracted a few dozen applications can now attract several hundred, many of them looking polished and superficially relevant.
The second is on the employer side. Faced with that volume, hiring teams have understandably put a filter in front of the pile, and increasingly that filter is automated as well. Screening tools are good at matching keywords, job titles and the shape of a CV. They are much less good at recognising judgement, the ability to bring a sceptical investment committee along, or the experience of having built a function from nothing.
Put those two together and you get a process in which a large number of applications are assessed mainly on the qualities that are easiest to generate. The things that make a senior person valuable are the hardest for either side's software to see.
Why it hits senior people in sustainability particularly hard
Sustainability careers are rarely linear. Many of the best people I place have moved between consultancy, policy, asset management and corporate roles, and their titles have changed as the field has changed around them. Someone who ran climate strategy at an insurer, spent three years at a regulator and now leads stewardship at an asset manager may not match the exact phrasing of a job description, even though they are exactly the person the hiring manager would want to meet.
A keyword filter tends to penalise that kind of history. A human reader who understands the field tends to reward it. So the shift towards automated screening falls hardest on precisely the candidates who have the broadest experience.
The obvious objection
I run an executive search firm, so it would be convenient for me to argue that job adverts do not work. I accept that, and I would not want this read as a pitch.
Adverts still have a real place. They are good for reaching people outside the usual networks, which matters if an organisation is serious about widening who it hires, and they work well for many roles below senior level. My concern is narrower. If experienced people have quietly stopped applying, an advert for a senior role is no longer reaching the whole market. It is reaching the people who are still willing to apply, and they are not necessarily the strongest candidates. Often they are simply the most persistent.
What hiring teams can do about it
None of this needs a complicated fix. For senior roles I would suggest a few things.
Make sure a person reads the applications for a senior role, at least up to the point of a shortlist. If the volume makes that impossible, that is a sign the advert is doing too much of the work on its own.
Write the advert so that people can recognise themselves in it. Describe what the person will actually do and the problems they will be trusted with, rather than a long list of requirements that no single candidate meets. People who do not tick every box are less likely to apply, and that effect is stronger among some groups than others.
Let people know the outcome, even briefly. A short, human reply costs very little and is remembered for a long time, particularly in a field as small and well connected as this one.
And accept that for senior hires, the advert is only one route in. The strongest people are often not looking at all, and they will only hear about the role if someone approaches them directly and explains why it might be worth a conversation.
What I would say to candidates
I understand why people have given up, and I would not tell anyone to go back to sending dozens of applications into the void. But I would not abandon the route entirely either.
If a role genuinely excites you, try to find a person connected to it before or alongside applying. That might be the hiring manager, someone in the team, or someone who knows them. A short, specific note to a human being does far more than a perfect application to a system.
Beyond that, the things that have always worked still work. Keep your network warm, and make sure your LinkedIn profile describes what you actually do in the words someone would search for, because that is where most senior shortlists are now built. I have written more about that in an earlier piece on how to approach a senior job search in sustainable finance.
An open question
What I have not yet worked out is whether this is a phase or something more permanent. It may be that employers notice the gap, improve their screening and bring a human back into the loop, and that senior people start applying again. Or it may be that for senior roles the open advert has become a formality, with the real hiring happening through networks and direct approaches.
I suspect the answer will differ from one organisation to the next, and that the ones who get it right will have a noticeable advantage in who they are able to hire. If you are hiring for a senior role and want to talk through how to reach the people who are no longer applying, I am always happy to have that conversation. You can also see the roles we are currently working on.
FAQ
Why are senior candidates no longer applying to job adverts? Many experienced people report applying for roles they are clearly qualified for and hearing nothing back, or being rejected almost immediately. Having done that several times, they conclude the effort is not worthwhile and rely on their network and direct approaches instead.
Has AI made job applications harder to get through? It appears to have increased volume on both sides. Candidates can now tailor applications quickly and apply for more roles, and employers have responded with automated screening that tends to match keywords and job titles rather than judgement or breadth of experience.
Why does automated screening disadvantage sustainability professionals? Sustainability careers often cross consultancy, policy, investment and corporate roles, with job titles that have changed as the field has evolved. Keyword filters can overlook that kind of background even when the experience is exactly what the hiring manager needs.
How should organisations hire for senior sustainability roles? Have a person read senior applications, write adverts that describe the work rather than an exhaustive list of requirements, reply to every applicant, and treat the advert as one route among several. The strongest senior candidates are often not actively looking and need to be approached directly.