HACKER Q&A
📣 ornornor

When you apply again at a company, is your profile cross referenced?


It’s happened to me that I apply for a position at a company, get rejected and then apply again a few months/years later for a similar job at the same company.

In the interval, I update and tweak my CV or profile and I get better at interviewing.

Do companies/hiring managers/HR drones see your previous attempts and past interview notes when you apply again because hiring software cross references your previous applications with your name/email, or is every candidate starting with a clean slate unless they say they applied before and the person puts extra effort into finding the previous application?

And if it’s cross referenced, do the previous interview notes have any weight in the new application round?

I understand every company does this differently but I’d like to get a general sense whether this is common or not.

  👤 sssc Accepted Answer ✓
In my experience as a recruiter, yes: we know if a candidate applied before. Previous applications have some weight. If a candidate applies very often without changing anything in the application and ignoring previous rejections, it's a red flag because it suggests poor judgement. But if someone reapplies months/years later with an updated CV and improved skills, or skills better matched to whatever is being asked, there is nothing wrong with that.
👤 Someone
Large parts of the world have laws on data retention that should make “Years ago” not happen (https://help.smartrecruiters.com/Configuration/Global_Compli... has a small list. I don’t know its quality). There are countries where “A few months” already is longer than companies are allowed to keep such data around.

Where it applies, the GDPR may have tightened such rules. Even if they may keep the CV used to apply for job J around, they can’t use it when you apply for job K unless you explicitly tell them they may have it and can use it.

I think large companies will (try to) adhere to local law. Recruiters may be more lenient, as they’ll ascertain/infer/sometimes assume you left your resume with them to find _a_ job, not a specific job.