[Untitled Post on Narrowing the Applicant Field]

In comments, anon 12:08 asks:

I have an off-topic question for people who have served on search/hiring committees. We hear a lot about how many applications hiring departments get--the numbers are in the hundreds. Of these, how many make it past the initial screening process, and on what basis? What percentage of applications are immediately binned, and why? No doubt the answers to these questions will vary greatly from one search to the next, but I'm just curious about whether the huge numbers we hear about are all (or mostly) coming from applicants who are qualified, or if many of them are on fishing expeditions, applying for every and any job, irrespective of fit.

Anon 5:25 responds:

On the first cut, I remove applications that don't have the relevant AOS/AOC, or no teaching experience or an incomplete file (for example writing sample or letters of recommendation missing or in one case last year, we received just letters of recommendation for one person but nothing else at all). Last year, one-third of the applications were tossed out in the first round for one or more of those reasons. Oh yes and if you have the wrong school in your cover letter or talk lovingly about our grad program when we don't have one, it is unlikely you will survive the first cut.

I'm pretty interested in hearing from more people. What say you, Smoking Search Committee Members?

--Mr. Zero

[Update: I guess I forgot to title this post. Whoops-a-daisy.]