71% of Your Matches Are Somewhere You're Not Looking

There's a moment in a long job search where you become convinced your CV is the problem. You've rewritten it four times. You've paid for a review. You've added a skills section. And still nothing.

Sometimes the CV is the problem. Often, it's something duller than that.

The donut

The blue slice is jobs that matched you and that you applied for. The green is jobs that matched you and that you didn't apply for. The orange — the big one — is jobs outside your search area.

In this search, orange is 71%.

So before the CV gets blamed, here's the thing worth checking: are you applying to the roles that exist, or the roles near you?

Expanding the radius isn't free

I know it isn't always a choice. Caregiving, school runs, visa conditions, a partner's job — "just move" is advice that helps almost nobody. Expanding the radius isn't free.

But the trade-off should be visible and deliberate. Most people don't consciously decide "I'll restrict my search to twenty miles." They set a radius once, at the start, and then forget it's there and blame themselves for nine months of silence.

The donut makes it a decision again. Either expand the area, or accept the constraint with your eyes open and adjust your expectations accordingly. Both are fine. Not knowing which one you chose is the problem.

The green slice

There's a second, subtler reading. That green slice — jobs that matched you, that you didn't apply for — is the cost of decision lag. Perfect fits, scrolled past, because deciding takes nine hours and there are only so many hours.

The matching wasn't wrong. The response to it was just too slow.

So this view answers a question people rarely get to ask: when I get nothing back, is it me, my CV, or the pool I'm fishing in? Usually it's the pool. And you can only find that out if something is counting.

If you've searched recently: did you ever work out why the silence was happening? Or did you just assume it was you?