If you are in the bottom, say, 10% in these factors, employers will pick other candidates. And obviously, they won't tell you why.
After her PhD, she was writing cover letters that were screaming "I hate the recruitment process".
One day, something clicked. Her next cover letter read like the first chapter in her bibliography. And one month later, she had too much work. :)
While I have not (thankfully) been in a hiring role for some time now, I can confirm that these three factors dq’d a ton of candidates when I was. Here is the reality…there are not a lot of roles in medium-corporate companies where a single interview with a single person gets you hired. So if you don’t tick that presentable box, even if you are technically skilled, I have to have a conversation with the next interviewer that goes like this: “I know this candidate comes off as a pompous ass with rumpled cloths and smells like feet, but…”
You better be beyond brilliant for me to sell you despite shortcomings that I have to caveat to the next interviewer.
Makes me think I should start a company focusing on recruiting in that community.
How do you know if you are in the bottom 10%?
If you can't look around the room and identify who the bottom 10% are, you're the bottom 10%.