“We'll keep your application on file.”

Why?

Why keep a job application on file when you know you'll never search your own database of previous applicants? I've always suspected this was the truth, but I've had it confirmed by one company.

I friend of mine recently was hired by a company for a new position. However, she had applied to this same company a couple of months back for a different position, so they did have her résumé on file. But they never called her. She got the job by resubmitting her résumé again for the new job posting.

In other words, they didn't find the candidate they hired by looking at previous applications, only at new ones.

So why lie to all those prospective job seekers? Why let them think that the reason you're not calling about that new job posting, that they're a perfect match for, has nothing to do with you having searched your database, found their résumé and thinking they're not qualified? It's because you haven't bothered to search the database at all?

These companies are the same ones that post job openings that are months old, with a start date of ASAP so presumably they need to fill the job, yet the job is never filled. It simply can't be that they can't find a suitable person for all those old jobs.

Think about it. Would you want to work at a company that cares so little about prospective employees that they would let countless people waste their time creating cover letters and submitting résumés only to have them ignored?

And employers wonder why people jump ship at a moment's notice when something better comes along. It's the employers who started the whole sour experience.