The Job Application Deadline

Email has made it so easy for people to submit resumes quickly, hiring managers often use various techniques to quickly reduce resume submissions they receive down to a short list.

I've actually heard of hiring managers who will pick up a stack of recently submitted resumes and simply making their short list from that pile.

If you happen to send your resume in several days later, you won't be considered!

True, not all hiring managers do this...hopefully not the ones you are applying to anyways.

But I've seen it done.

In some cases, recruiters will do the same thing especially if the hiring manager they are working with has only allowed them to send a certain number of resumes to them for consideration. If for example the hiring manager says the recruiter can send 3 resumes over - this is not uncommon - and the recruiter has already sent over the 3 resumes of candidates that he/she deemed strongest, you just might be out of luck.

Just don't expect many recruiters to actually admit that this is the predicament they are facing for fear that you'll then go around their back and submit your resume directly to the company, something that some job searchers have been known to do.

When a job posting has a deadline, believe it. By the time the deadline passes, the hiring manager probably has more than enough resumes to read through and they might have already starting putting a short list together.

Unless there is a specific reason why you'd wait until the last minute to submit your resume, ensure it arrives as early as possible.

Sure, take your time to get your cover letter and resume in perfect shape and then get your application sent in ASAP.