> ...why the candidate wants to work at our place.
Sorry to be blunt, but - to earn some money to feed their family? Just like applicants are not unicorns, neither are companies - unless you are FAANG nobody really cares about your shitty company really. (Maybe not even if you are FAANG.) If the CV matches the JD, why do you have doubts if they have an idea about the work? They obviously haven't the faintest idea, but how could they (unless your code is open source).
From the applicant's perspective, they are applying to multiple places at once. Investing emotionally at step 0 (when they don't know if their CV will even be considered) is taxing, and unfair. Once there is a connection, you can expect them to invest more, but not until then. Because they will apply to 10 places, get ghosted by 5, get an automated NO response from 4 (usually a month later), and maybe, MAYBE they get an invite to the last one. Get a conversation started first and THEN expect investment.
It's totally fine if somebody just wants the money. We are all in it for the money to some degree or another. No need to fake enthusiasm. Actually, many applicants I see want to work part time (e.g. 2/3) and just want something to pay the bills and be able to pursue their hobbies.
But I'd like to know, why did you send your application to our company and not one in another industry?
I work for a university data center. Many of my colleagues have a scientific background. If not in academia, they could do coding, R&D, devops, science communication, product management, finance or many other things. They are 'lateral entrants' in any profession.
If people can't answer "why did you apply here specifically", it means one of two things: They don't have a clue what their job would be, and they and we are likely to be dissappointed when they show up. Or: they sent their application to everybody indiscriminately. That signals that they likely aren't a good match for the skills needed, and also that they have a high rejection rate.
Sorry to be blunt, but - to earn some money to feed their family? Just like applicants are not unicorns, neither are companies - unless you are FAANG nobody really cares about your shitty company really. (Maybe not even if you are FAANG.) If the CV matches the JD, why do you have doubts if they have an idea about the work? They obviously haven't the faintest idea, but how could they (unless your code is open source).
From the applicant's perspective, they are applying to multiple places at once. Investing emotionally at step 0 (when they don't know if their CV will even be considered) is taxing, and unfair. Once there is a connection, you can expect them to invest more, but not until then. Because they will apply to 10 places, get ghosted by 5, get an automated NO response from 4 (usually a month later), and maybe, MAYBE they get an invite to the last one. Get a conversation started first and THEN expect investment.