Job seeking advice

[Tiger King]

I think most of us have been there at some point in our lives.
You've spent ages typing up the perfect resume, created a portfolio of your work from many years of working in your field, sent the resume and cover letter off to what you feel would be the perfect job and even to jobs you think 'ah hell that will do for now', aaaannnd no reply.

I have been job hunting for about two weeks now and have started to wonder if I am going to hear anything back
This has been the first time in my life I have been unemployed and I heard it was tough out there finding a job, but it's only really starting to sink in. Has anyone got any advice on getting noticed by a company?

A quick question I also had was How long should I expect to wait to hear back from a company?
a couple of the jobs I applied for are for big international companies and I have been told it can take a while for them to get back.

Thanks for all and any help

 

[Supernova1138]

A couple of weeks isn't that long, it will often take at least that long before I might get a call for an interview for a job I have applied to, and sometimes I get called for interviews for jobs that I applied to a month before. It depends on the organization, but a lot of them will put up a job posting for a couple of weeks, wait for some applicants to build up over that time and then start looking for interview candidates. If you're applying for government work, it could take even longer than that before you even get to the interview stage.

A lot of HR departments have automated the process of sifting through resumes, and just have the computer look for keywords. As such, you may have to tailor your resume to have certain keywords based on what the job posting says it wants for qualifications or experience in order to even get a look from an actual person.

It is pretty tough out there right now, too many people looking for work, and not enough open positions in most industries, not to mention older people who have decades of experience taking any job they can get makes it difficult to get anywhere if you don't have a lot of experience and no inside connections to the company you are applying to. I've been at the job hunt for about 4 months now, I've managed to get a number of interviews, but none have gone anywhere thus far. All you can do is keep trying, and hopefully you'll get something eventually.

 

[Tiger King]

A couple of weeks isn't that long, it will often take at least that long before I might get a call for an interview for a job I have applied to, and sometimes I get called for interviews for jobs that I applied to a month before. It depends on the organization, but a lot of them will put up a job posting for a couple of weeks, wait for some applicants to build up over that time and then start looking for interview candidates. If you're applying for government work, it could take even longer than that before you even get to the interview stage.

A lot of HR departments have automated the process of sifting through resumes, and just have the computer look for keywords. As such, you may have to tailor your resume to have certain keywords based on what the job posting says it wants for qualifications or experience in order to even get a look from an actual person.

It is pretty tough out there right now, too many people looking for work, and not enough open positions in most industries, not to mention older people who have decades of experience taking any job they can get makes it difficult to get anywhere if you don't have a lot of experience and no inside connections to the company you are applying to. I've been at the job hunt for about 4 months now, I've managed to get a number of interviews, but none have gone anywhere thus far. All you can do is keep trying, and hopefully you'll get something eventually.

Thanks supernova.
I have been tailoring my resume and cover letter for each job applied for, but with the whole keywords thing, I can?t help but picture the process as some kind of code you have to crack so they will even look at your resume.
When it comes to experience I have about eight years. However because I am in a new country and I just need to get back in the race, I have been applying for a wide range of jobs including entry level.
Some of the jobs I have applied for are with some big companies and I was told it would take time (possibly a month or so) to even hear anything back.
I dunno I?m just so frustrated right now but hopefully something comes up for us both soon.
sorry for the late reply btw