Regular readers know about the Job Hunting Online, Job Searching Online and Resumes arcs dealing with resumes, recruitment and getting jobs online. I found the issue and what people were telling me so fascinating that I put together a research project around what job seekers face when they're looking for jobs online and off.
The first thing that struck me was the number of companies (I've talked with about six hundred nationwide) that say they can't get enough qualified applicants. People simply aren't coming out of college with the necessary skills. Several recruiters told me that it's not even a question of "necessary" skills, people are coming out of college lacking rudimentary skills. It gets worse, too. These people are thinking they'll be entering the job market with US$50-60k jobs. A Chicago recruiter lamented that college graduates are thinking they'll enter the job market with a US$90k job!
Also, very few companies use print job listings any more. A San Diego recruiter told me, "We don't want people who spend their Sunday mornings lying on the living room floor going through print ads. They don't have the skills we need." In all fairness this needs to be metered against a northern Utah recruiter who shared that they only go through print.
What was the difference? The Utah recruiter works in a 125 employee, locally owned company that prefers to hire local. They're looking for employees with specific values and have found that readers of the local newspaper have those values, people coming in over the 'net -- and this includes the company's own web site -- don't have those values.
All in all, though, I'd say the average nationwide is that employers put at most 20% of their recruiting budget into print and most hover at about 10% and even the print ad will direct job seekers to submit their resumes online. Also, job seekers should be prepared to deal with automated systems that will route their resume, not a human.
In a lot of ways, this goes back to my Search Engine Writing - Should You Write To Get High Indexing By Search Engines - Yes or No? and Searching for Search arcs. The most successful job seekers will a) do some research on the company they're applying to rather than send a "standard" resume to every listing and b) tailor their cover letter and resume to be machine read. Once you get past that machine process a human will pick it up and that's where your intellect and personal style can shine.
The last item (I won't list this as "c") was that recruiters suggested calling them after you submit your resume online because -- far more often than they readily admitted without some coaxing -- the automated system will lose your resume. Asking a human if the resume got into the system often gets you a direct contact and an email or USPO address that you can send your resume to and be assured it gets into human hands.
Okay, I'll write it. NextStage's Resume Reader tool, as mentioned in Using Your "SEND" glands? Part 4a or "Where is he going with this?", also helps. Everyone we talked with mentioned needing better tools to evaluate resumes before they get into human hands and NextStage's Resume Evaluation Tool was always a good fit.
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Upcoming Conferences:
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
- New Communications Forum 2008 22-25 April 08 in Sonoma Valley, CA
One advantage of advertising for jobs online is that it is instantaneous.
Your advertisement is uploaded immediately and as a result you start receiving applications by the minute.
Posted by: Ottayan | November 9, 2007 6:32 PM | Permalink to Comment