Where Job Applicants Go Wrong

What is the biggest mistake job applicants make as they scramble for fewer and fewer permanent positions in a dwindling labor market?

Hiring program developer Muhayu analyzed 1.23 million job applications from university graduates last year and found that half of them had simply copied the applications of others. A third of them paid so little attention that they misspelled the names of the companies they were applying to or failed to meet the explicitly stated word count.

Some 270 companies use Muhayu's program to screen their job applications, including heavyweights like Lotte, LG Uplus and IBK. 

Muhayu concluded that 47 percent of applications were probably copied. "The rate of plagiarism was so high even though we lowered the screening criteria."

Many applicants just copy and paste corporate websites, and yet a whopping 39 percent of applicants could not even spell the name of the companies they applied to right. At one bank, a staggering 70 percent of 12,256 job applications received last year were flawed.

Meanwhile, more than a third of companies surveyed also failed to meet the new requirement for non-discriminatory or "blind" screening of applications.