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Internet Job Boards a Bunch of Hype?
netglen brings us an article that discusses the reality behind online job sites like Monster, Hotjobs, and CareerBuilder. It appears that, while these sites may try to make you believe otherwise, they may not be the best bet in helping you find employment. netglen asks: "So, is this article accurate in its account on how poor these boards perform in finding [jobs]? This sounds pretty dismal to me. Two years ago, I tried Monster for the first time, and I managed to get a job on the first try. Since then I haven't gotten anything. Does anyone in IT even use these boards to look for a job?"
C'mon, look at the context. The name of the site is asktheheadhunter.com. Whose interests do they have in mind?
Also, more obvious, is the job market isn't what it used to be. Sure, it's harder to get a job now than it was a few years ago. But that doesn't mean that monster and the like aren't useful.
Now if netglen said "I compared Monster to my local papers' classifieds, and to the headhunters, and got a better response rate from the headhunters", that would be useful. Maybe netglen doesn't have any marketable skills. That doesn't mean monster isn't helpful.
The experience of myself and others I know is that job boards are better than headhunters, worse than going directly to a company's website. Most of us won't even talk to headhunters- they overpromise and overhype. Now that's irony, because that's what they say about the job boards.
I was a Sr. Oracle DBA, working for contract electronics manufacturing firm (CEM). We specialized (unfortunately) in Telcom, and the group I was with was in fact outsourced from a large telecommunications company. With the industry turn down, a number of the CEM sites were force to close and ours in North Carolina was one of them.
I had posted my resume on Monster, Hotjobs and Dice at the time -- actually about 2 months earlier to sort of feel out the market. Didn't want to leave early, since there were serious incentives to stay through your scheduled termination date. About 2 weeks prior to my last day I was approached by a local recruiting agency with an opportunity for a DBA with OpenVMS skills. Interviewed and was hired and started with them about a month later. Talked with the recruiter and they indicated they had found my resume on jobs.com which is Monster.
So I guess I had a positive experience with them, but this was in March of 2002.The unfortunate thing is that I now get what I consider spam from hotjobs, havent' been able to get off their email lists, and I now just let Mozilla dump them automatically in the spam bucked.
True story.
:)
My first (and only) shot at Monster was in August of 2000. I was getting sick of my $13.50/hr sysadmin job, so I posted to Monster on a whim. I had a call from the recruiting department of a global consultancy within 20 minutes. They offered me 55 up front. I didn't even really negotiate. Moved 300 miles to take it.
The punchline? We all got laid off in January. The Company disolved in June.
Use at your own peril?
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
The only responses I've ever gotten from these boards was not from replying to a job posting, but posting my own resume and letting them come to me. It's easy, and IMO the best way to find jobs via those kinds of job boards.
Mark
My employer hasn't posted to any of those boards for ages.
Unqualified people from all over the world would apply for jobs they were obviously not suitable for yet HR has to keep all resumes on file for $FOO years (I forget the number)
They went from being a good tool to something that generated more work & filing than they were worth.
(This from a casual conversation with one of our HR people)
Trolling is a art,
Those online job sites are so filled with contract positions and work at home garbage that it's frustrating to do any kind of real search. The local newspaper uses career builder which is a little better because it's stocked with real classified ads that appear in the newspaper. Better to stick to something local than some national job search scam.
Craigslist worked for me on my recent job search. In less than two weeks I got 3 interviews and an offer (which I took) from the job section.
So you managed to get a job two years ago on the first try, but haven't been able to get a job since?
Maybe you're just not having any luck finding new work because you can't keep a job for more than two years...
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
As long as they're there and employers are posting jobs on them, you'd be a fool not to.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Add a extra period or space to your monster resume if its been stale awhile. It will flip a switch somewhere and youll get more inqueries.
an internet job boards is reduced to using that antiquated of mediums known as "television" to push their product.
I think a lot of people are turned off by the ridiculous job requirements and the blatant posting of non-existant posititions. Most people I know have gone back to what works best:
Networking with people you know.
A friend of mine is leaving her job next week. We've already talked about her bringing me on board if things look good from the inside.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
And to justify the loss of your salary when your boss catches you.
"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
My first job out of college was from a recruiter who found my resume on Monster. The job after that was from a company who found my resume on Monster. My most recent job was actually due to a recruiter finding an 8-month-old resume on Dice, then placing me at my current job.
I have had virtually no success in directly contacting potential employers from their listings on online sites. On the other hand, I have had great success at companies and recruiters contacting ME from my resume being posted.
If nothing else, it doesn't hurt to leave your resume up there (while you're actively looking). You never know who might stumble upon it. YMMV.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
Its usually used as a last resort.
When a job opens up, first they look internally for someone to fill it, then they go off a referal basis (and at this time, who doesn't have a few friends that are unemployed IT workers?), then they look locally in papers and such...
THEN they go out to a place like dice to find a job.
The market isn't "good enough" for them to work well. The market is a lot better than last year, but needs to build back up to happier times before places like monster will get you a job fast.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
More importantly;
Does anyone in HR use these boards to look for an employee?
yourjobisnowinindia.com
Most of the jobs I've found on those are either posted by headhunters/recruiters or are jobs that you wouldn't want anyway.
A local job site has some crappy listings too, but they kick Monster.com's ass. They're recent, relevant and have more information.
On the other hand, the best jobs I've found/interviewed for were not posted on those sites. If you want the job, you're looking for them - not the other way around.
Many positions aren't posted to HR until they have someone ready to hire anyway. A few companies I recently dealt with were in the interview stages. Their HR depts were unaware that there was a job opening. That's because the manager didn't want to post an opening and then spend six months trying to fill it. It makes him look picky/incompetent or that people don't want to work for him. He found his guy and sent the resume, position description/job req. and employment contract to HR in one paperclip.
It was a great job, too.
Not just the Bay Area but even upstate NY. My friend's brother, who had just graduated was looking for a job. Needless to say that he was submitting his resume' all over the place. Finally, somebody tipped him off about Craiglist.org and bam. First interview, he got right in.
Moral: Craiglist is not just for the Bay Area but works elsewhere too.
Free XBox, PS2
Clearly, as another posted pointed out "headhunter" writing the article has an axe to grind. After all, if we find jobs on these boards, he's not getting the outrageous fees he once got for placement (about 1/3 of your annual salary!)
Also, there is one key facet missing. Many of us, myself included, see jobs listed on Monster.com and the like. We THEN go to our friends and say "do you have a contact at company X, they have a job posted, and I'm interested." So, with a little luck, your social network works, and you end up finding out a bit more about the company. You also end up putting your resume in through that person, instead of through Monster et al. So, what does this mean? It means that Monster.com did its job in alerting you to the availability of a position. But the "statistics" cited by Mr. Headhunter would show that you got your job through a personal referral.
Bad statistics lead to bad results.
Thalia
Apparently, it's the best out there. =D
I had used it briefly in the past and never had any success. I left it active during employment periods with no hits. After the department where I was a network security analyst for was dissolved in 2002, I re-wrote my resume, and reposted on Monster, and within two weeks I had a few bites, best of which was by a contractor for a large financial institution, in which I was hired on full time as an IT manager for their training department. The moral of the story is it can be a useful tool if used correctly and if your resume is done correctly. Id recommend using a professional resume writer and basing your online postings off that.
Slashdot, of course!
24 year old sysadmin looking for employment in the OKC area. 4 years experience + Microsoft certification. Reply to thread with offer if interested.
(yes, i'm being a smartass)
I found my current engineering job using Monster, so I'm biased. Be agressive though; I'm probably an exception. I got about 1 interview per 20 jobs I applied for.
One thing I noticed...when you upload your resume, the employers view them sorted by date. I noticed right after I would update it, I would get lots of hits. So I started adding/deleting a period or space every couple days and then saving it, so my resume would always be "current" and near the top of the list. It really increases your clicks.
Laid off one year ago.
Took about 2.5 mo.s to "find myself"
Started looking, registered with Monster.
Received 2 really good leads and I'm still working at the one I preferred. Both leads came the week I registered.
Continue to receive leads from Monster.
now the catch...
The lead I accepted was from a HeadHunter who found me on Monster. I would have likely never found the job (even though it's only a 55 minute commute away) otherwise.
With that said, I'd recommend Monster but understand that HHs are a reality even with Monster. and yes, HHs do leave you with that "used" feeling. I recommend showering twice after talking to them on the phone and NEVER meet with them in person....
I was in a position a couple years ago to hire somebody. I decided to do it the 'tech' way since it was a tech job and post the job on Monster and Dice. I would never, ever do that again. My job for three weeks was to sort through the over 100 resumes I got a day. Most of which were laughably unsuited. I kept a few of the emails I thought were really funny around for years.
Like the ones that were in all caps. If you're applying for a computer job, I think some mastery of the caps lock key might be a demosntrable asset. But those were the entertaining ones. Most of it was just depressing.
Since then whenever anybody I work with has to hire somebody, I recommend checking the posted resumes, talking to agencies, asking friends, posting on craigslist, but not posting on the commercial boards. It just hurts.
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
I've found Craigslist borderline useless in SoCal. Dice has always gotten the best response for me, though their job search engine sucks. Yahoo's (HotJobs) job search engine is the best (allows such things as saving interesting jobs during search for later review and applications), but has almost as low a response rate as Monster for me.
Maybe it's the impacted market, or maybe it's the ease with which people can apply online with generic form letters and overstated resumes, but I suspect that a lot of employers aren't nearly as interested in the online sites as they once were.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I placed my resume on Monster.com a long time ago and got a relatively large number of companies e-mailing and calling me for interviews and such. My wife also did the same, and got nearly the same results.
Skipping to recently--I don't have a resume available anymore because I was getting too many screwy/shady/questionable "companies" calling and nearly harassing me. My wife was laid-off and she posted her resume, only to get these same people hounding her. Most of them were pyramid-scheme type compaines, or they wanted her to call everyone in the area to see if they could lower their interest rate on their mortgage if they refinanced. Urgh--what a mess. They still call.
I'm really not sure that good companies wouldn't use the online resume sites as a hiring tool. A lot of the problem could just be the economy and how many companies just aren't hiring yet. Once everything starts picking up (hopefully in a few months), I wouldn't be surprised to see my favorite companies even posting jobs to those sites. It's just hard to know where a good place to offer yourself up for employment is when many companies still have hiring freezes in effect. I guess that's where personal contacts become the most valuable asset.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Most of these boards are nothing more than a haven for recruiters who want to get you for a little as possible.
Instead of removing the middleman as Monster is supposed to do, Recruiters are allowed to join for a fee and post the jobs that they are looking for people for. So instead of getting into direct contact with the hiring director, you usually end up talking to some no-nothing recruiter who doesn't know jack about IT and think he or she is your only conduit to getting a decent position.
A wonderful experience, bah!
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
While I know lots of people are already aware of craigslist. I believe you ruin the usability if too many people starting using it. Just like earlier mentions of monster.com. It was good at first until everybody found out about it. Now for the downhill spiral of craigslist.
Online job boards went steadily downhill from 2000.
For each _real_ client position, there were probably 10 recruiting firms pushing the same job listing, some with different wording, some with identical text.
Then in 2001 when the shit hit the fan in IT world, other interesting things started to happen. Client positions would be listed and relisted as if they were new, but in fact they were positions that had been vacant for a year. The client had created the position, but due to market or other reasons had just avoided filling it.
To make matters worse, the bubble burst destroyed consulting firms. Firms with 30+ people suddenly became 2-3 person operations. They started getting hundreds of resumes, and in my view they began to thrash. One headhunter couldn't handle that volume. In any event, there just weren't many jobs anyway.
Fast forward to now. The job boards are full of MLM bs. I glanced at monster a couple of days ago and was shocked to see what it had become. 3 of 5 listings supposedly related to the "java" keyword were for bogus "work from home" jobs.
So basically, it's all a crock. The one thing that has, and will always work, is human networking. Get to know people, lots of them. Then you'll have people to contact when you need a job. They may not have a job for you, but one of them may know someone who does.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
While indeed sites like monster and dice have been no help at all, having a resume online and making sure it can be found through search engines worked out well for me.
What I did was this: Put a version of my resume online. Not on one of the job-sites, but on my own website. Make it available in several formats: Word, HTML, plain text and maybe PDF. Then I submitted the url to a number of search-engines, including Google and the Open Directory Project.
What I found is that sites specializing in tech-resumes often copy the content of the ODP resume section. Many hits for my resume come from such sites.
The rest come from keyword search-engines, so it's a good idea to put the right keywords in your resume: Try to think of which terms a recruiter (NOT the tech-manager) would search for when looking for a candidate in your field. Remember, this is a non-technical person, so "buzz-words" (annoying as they are) tend to work best.
The result is that even 7 months after I found a job, my resume gets 50-60 hits a month and every once in a while I get an email from a serious recruiter.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
I would say that job boards make it even easier for headhunters to find people.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Many cites have local job boards. I found more real job offers and less "GET RICH NOW! BE YOUR OWN BOSS!" crap on the one for my city.
If you are not interested in relocating, this can help. As always though, networking thru friends/relations is best.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
yeah, here is a tip....when your wife has a chance at an awsome job, let her take it.
if she had taken the NYU job, you were wide open for columbia.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
For real results, you have only to look at Monster India.
Many jobs I am finding. Yes, good jobs, imported jobs, yes indeed.
Would you like a side of Tech Support with that software?
maybe it doesn't work becuase your resume looks like this.
It's fairly well-known that personal networking is more effective than job boards and newspaper ads. That doesn't mean that job boards are useless -- in fact, I just got an interview off Monster. It does mean, however, the time you spend job hunting on Monster et. al. versus talking to people should be proportionate to your likelihood of success.
Most people I know who are looking for a job spend 90% of their job-hunting time looking online, even though the likelihood of finding a job that way is something like 2%. (Don't have exact stats handy.)
As for headhunters, your success partly depends on what kind of headhunter you have. If they are on retainer with the company (rare), then they get paid regardless of whether or not they find a specific candidate, so chances are they will spend more time recruiting good ones -- otherwise, a bad placement could cost them their retainer.
If they are contracted by the company to find a specific role (more common), than they don't get paid unless they get someone hired, so they're more likely to blanket-bomb the employer with resumes. Worse yet are those headhunters who were not solicited by the company, but are attempting to sell their services to the company anyway. Most companies try to avoid these guys, so you're not at all likely to find something that way.
But in any case, the headhunter does not work for you; your best interests are not their top priority.
I can spell. I just can't type.
None of these websites worked for me. I am a very well qualified Phd in computer science and was able to find better opportunities through contacts than through any of these websites.
I hire all of the technical talent at my company. We are a small systems integration and consulting firm doing about 6 million a year in revenue.
Here is my bottom line response to Monster. It looks great, but is priced WAY out of my range. I can't afford the thousands of dollars they want for posting my open positions. Even there economy option is to restrictive. One job post, 60 days, no changes to the verbage, under one position heading...$500. So Monster simply isn't an option for us.
Sure, if I am ebay or some other mega-sized corporation hiring tens or hundreds of people, then one of those boards may be an option, but my guess is that most small business under 100 people find that it is priced out of their range.
Where do I post now? Craiglist
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
While I've had success using the job boards (I still get calls about outdated resumes I left floating around from my job hunting days) to get a job you need to exploit your connections.
:)
I got my current job from someone bringing in my resume. I then submitted resumes for 8 of my acquaintances and 5 of them received job offers.
Keep in touch with former coworkers after you leave. An e-mail every few months just to say hi will do. You never know when you'll need a job or when your company will need an employee.
That being said, any programmers (US citizens only) needing a job near Balitmore just reply to this message with your e-mail address. See, the system works!
during my unemployed in 2001-2 I quickly discovered (and wrote about) the problems with these boards.
Here's the trick I learned. Don't bother applying to any of the jobs on monster! But be sure to put a profile on monster/yahoo with lots of keywords. HR and contractors are not interested in receiving lots of letters and resumes from people who are trying to fit their skills into a job description. More likely, they want to punch in a few keywords and then email 5 or so people who they think have that skill (and other things).
As far as the recommendation about whether to update your monster profile every day, that was true for about a year, and then afterwards the major job boards fixed that way to game the system.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Semi-topical perhaps, but if you're looking to find out about legit work-at-home jobs--not those envelope-stuffing or pyramid marketing scams--check out wahm.com, the "Work-At-Home Moms" (but the information's good for anyone with a work-at-home interest, Mom or not) website. They've got message boards, informational links, and debunkment of the most common scams. I've been looking for a resource like this for a long time.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
We tried it once. The number resume's we got was tremendous. The number of them from people with names we could pronounce was about 10. The number of those that we could understand was about 5. The number of those willing to relocate was about 3. The number of those with technical and communcation skills we considered mandatory was about 0.
My Tech Posts on Twitter
I wish I listened. I posted my resume and was innundated with MLM offers, "career counsuling" and resume writing services, and "opportunities" to become a "branch manager" with Citibank (!?), who was opening 50+ branches in my area (!?).
Beware: if you post your information on Monster or the other general job boards, you *will* get email that sounds like a request for an interview for a position but is careful constructed to *not* precisely say that it's really a high-priced Want Ad re-distribution scam. Oops. What a joke. Here's a sample:
I wrote back saying that a simple Google search on his company's name turned up numerous "Pxxxx-Txxxx is a SCAM!" web pages and, knowing the Internet is want to exaggerate grievances, could he answer back a short statement to easy my apprehension. No response. I guess my impressive credentials weren't impressive enough to warrant the effort...However, having been on the other side as an employer looking to fill a tech position I found Monster quite effective at producing skads of resumes for me to glean from. Wow. An entry level position with high bar qualifications garnered quite a number of resumes. However, this being the Internet, it is all too easy to click and send a resume/application for a job that you're not qualified for or that you're not truly interested in. I was not impressed with the candidates.
So, it's true: it's who you know. My best jobs, my best hires -- those I've had personal contact with.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
First, he calls these services ineffective because they only fill a few percent of the jobs nationwide. But that percentage jumped from 2.5% 2 years ago to 5% last year (total, for all job boards.) Given that rate, it'll be at 40% in a few years.
Second, he doesn't discuss what fraction of jobs are even posted on these boards. If only 20% of the jobs are posted on these boards, and 5% of them are filled from resumes on them, that's a pretty good percentage.
Last, recruiters use these boards as well, and they probably aren't included in the 5%. The hiring company wouldn't know where the recruiter found your resume.
Overall, I got quite a few hits from the job boards. Some of them were direct and some through recruiters. Not a bad route, especially for high-tech jobs, in my experience.
For what it's worth, I got one contract through the job boards, and then a full-time job through a referral last time I was looking.
The job before that I got through searching the web (altavista at the time) for my keywords. I found several possible companies that had ads on their site but not on the national job boards via google last time I was hunting as well...
SKG
The job sites kept sending me nothing but "work at home" jobs (probably stuffing envelopes or telemarketing or something else distasteful.) The headhunters (when I could get one to return my calls, that is) sent me nothing but low-paying entry-level jobs that didn't interest me at all.
Heheh... I got one off Monster or Hotjobs - can't remember which. They called me up and we arranged an interview in a rented hotel boardroom. They wouldn't tell me the name of the company citing secrecy (note that I've worked for defense contractors, so I've seen this before); just told me that it suited me based on my profile.
Well, I donned my best suit and tie and went to the interview.
Turned out they wanted me to be a cold-calling life insurance salesman, paid commission only. I started yelling right there in the meeting room about how they'd wasted my time. Made sure to tell the rest of the people who were waiting there with me that it was a scam. 4 other job-seekers left.
Man, was I furious.
Then, there's the horror story of the spam that comes from these places. Got one offer, just the other day, of a waiter position at Swiss Chalet (Canadian chicken joint). Apparently, they pulled my e-mail address from one of the sites and started hitting me with it. I've since dealt with the problem (sending a warning to Cara Operations which runs Swiss Chalet that their headhunters are spamming).
Another site to *avoid* is 2jobsearch.net. When I put my resume there in 2001, they looked like a real recruiter. Now, I get the daily "AIONetwork Newsletter" which is just spam for debt consolidation scams with domain names like biz-dot.net and places like that. Fortunately, their spam is easy to filter, even though their upstream provider (startdedicated.com) has received loads of spam complaints from me and apparently refuses to do anything.
Forget the job hunting websites, they're just crap. Pound the pavement yourself.
I'm a creative problem-solver. With each resume that I hand-delivered with properly-researched names on the cover letter, I attached a small can of WD-40. In the cover letter, I referred to it as a problem-solver, just like me. Indeed, it got my resume noticed, and I got a bunch of interviews and offers from it.
Just keep working at it.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
However it isn't a matter of just registering and waiting for the offers given the current market. I used the sites to find agencies, and actively applied to every single position that looked remotely interesting, sent mails to every employment agency that listed positions along the lines I was looking for, and updated my CV or "renewed it" (on Monster you can, or at least could, just click on a link to get to the top of the pile again) on the sites EVERY day to make sure my CV was looked at.
It got me several calls from recruiters, and a new job starting last summer at the same salary I had at my previous job, despite the general tenedency being that people in my type of positions took steep pay cuts to move into more secure positions last year. But the number of responses (including people telling me the position had been filled) I got was perhaps 1 in 50 - the rest just didn't bother answering at all.
Another thing to keep in mind, though, is that you MUST make sure you follow up the recruiters. They will NOT follow up you if you don't show interest. I got calls about a couple of positions that I wasn't too interested in, but that I told the recruiters to put me forward for anyway, to find out more, the ones where I wasn't on the phone to the recruiters daily never got back to me at all.
These people are still drowning in CV's and you can assume that when they call you they have probably already called 10 other people. Of anyone qualified they will hire one of the few that are actively spending time trying to understand what their clients want and helps them provide it.
The last thing to keep in mind is: Your CV MUST be keyword friendly to be successful on these sites. In my case, I'd originally not mentioned much about Microsoft products and kept to my core competencies, even though I have in the past used Office and even (I am ashamed to say) programmed Word macros. Many job specs will mention things like Office etc. even if they are completely peripheral to the job - the recruiters will put it into their searches anyway if they get to many results with more relevant keywords.
The other deficiency my CV originally had was that recruiters tend to search for the degree level the employer asks for, while many (most?) tech employers are relatively flexible (the main exception being banks that tend to be really anal about it) about your formal qualifications if you have relevant experience - in my case I quit uni to start my first company at 19. When I added (truthfully) that I am currently taking a MSc. as a correspondence course in my spare time (mostly to "get the paper" for future job hunts...) the level of interest suddenly increased a lot, including for positions where the employer had stated an MSc. as an "absolute requirement".
Do anything except lie to get the interviews - the recruiters often don't know the position well enough to judge whether you'd be suitable... :)
Even in remote areas I've found that most IT jobs are not even advertised unless the requirements are unbeleivable.
An example of the FEW IT jobs listed via online job-sites and print media:
1) C++ Programmer, 5+ years experience, BS degree in related field (all required - very clearly states do not apply if you don't have atleast the experience stated).
Payscale: $10 an hour! WTF! You can make TWICE that driving a FORKLIFT!
2) System admin, must have 10+ years experience in a 'large scale san architecture,' BS required
Languages required: C, VB, Java, Perl
Payscale: $45k/year + benefits
(Not _horrible_ - but for those skills and the level of responsibility - that's pathetic.)
3) Wireless Administrator, BS in related field required, 5+ years wireless administration experience, C/C++, VB
Payscale: 55k + benefits (Again, not horrible but for the experience required that is pathetic pay. As well, this company is the _ONLY_ wireless access provider within almost 400 miles. This job has been open and being ADVERTISED for OVER 7 months now. LoL. I'll bet they've spent 55k advertising it - it's in EVERY Sunday paper through FOUR publications - as well as on careerbuilder.com, hotjobs.com, dice.com, monster.com and probably others.)
Those are just about the only jobs posted within 100 miles of where I live... There have, however, been two oddball positions advertised just recently, both by FedEx;
1) Computer Operator - basically just requires some past experience in IT and a HSD.
Payscale: $45k / year + benefits
Very competative salary for the position in this area.
2) IT Director - BS +2 years management experience required, a few other little 'prefered' notes - etc...
Payscale - "up to" $135k/year + benefits "DOE"
An extremely competative wage for this area. Most executive officers in this area would envy that salary. The downfall, however, to this position -- is that it's located 60 miles in the middle of FREAKING NOWHERE! Literally 'in the mountains.' You would either drive 2 and 1/2 hours to get to work each day, from the 'closest [town],' or live deep in the mountains.
IMO, a great plus. But a major turnoff to many geeks.
All in all, as many here have already stated - it generally seems IT jobs are a behind the scenes deal. They are all being taken up by insiders, whether it be within the company or a friend of someone who works there.
Networking seems to be the way to discover these positions. Being that I just relocated to the area I am at, this is impossible for me -- as I simply do not know anyone here.
What I ended up doing was making a rolodex of HR managers to contact on a weekly basis - and scheduled out contact times to continue contact with a list of local companies until a position comes open. I have found this to be an extremely successfull method.
Relying strictly on traditional publications, staffing firms, and online job-sites -- in my experience -- will not produce results. The jobs that make it that far through the vicious IT cycle are trash jobs that no one wanted.
This, of course, is merely my opinion -- and is obviously reflective only of the area I live in.
Two years ago, when I had been laid off for four months, an in-house recruiter at a company I was not interviewing with told me the following.
She said all recruiters post to the Internet job boards simply becuase they're supposed to as part of their job. They do not expect to find candidates from these boards. Furthermore, these boards are a hassle, since they make it so easy to apply for a job. They get volumes of resumes for each posting they send to the boards, and most of the candidates have no experience relevant to the job being posted.
So, they trash the resumes they receive, without even bothering to sort through them!
She advised me to use the old-fashioned way - networking. Hiring managers give more weight to resumes they receive from direct referrals. Also, most direct referrals bypass the in-house recruiters and go directly to the hiring manager, which guarantees your resume will get seen by someone with hiring authority.
I followed her advise, and received three offers within two months.
I am an IT director for a smaller consulting group. I can tell you that I've NEVER had a 'good batch' of resumes from Monster or CareerBuilder. Both were far too expensive for the resumes that we received.
The best resumes ALWAYS come from a Newspaper ad that has people respond to an email address, referencing a specific job in the 'Subject' field. I immediately weed out the people that can't use email, or follow directions. I know they are all local, and can start weeding from there.
I spent $500 for an ad on CareerBuilder, and got 400 resumes, about 6 were usefull and none were hired. I spent $75 on a newspaper ad, got 90 resumes, and ended up with about 10 that I could have hired. MUCH better results...
My
Hi,
I run workzoo.com, a job meta-search. We try to filter out work at home and (hope none of them are reading this) by simply looking for job titles in all caps.
Mark.
Headhunters are a weird lot. First of all, they don't care a lick about the job seeker. They are after employers. Quite often a headhunter will get a lead on a job from an employer. When this happens they will then run around and try to find a list of candidates that will fit the job.
In this regard, posting your resume on a job board is not a bad thing. If you have a good clean resume with the right keywords, there is a chance that a headhunter with a legitimate job will find you. Anyway, having realised that headhunters work for employers and not for me, I've learned that they can provide a legitimate service.
In December we posted a sales position to monster.com. It was the first job we ever advertised using them, and from what I heard, it was a good way to generate lots of prospective employees. In it, we listed the responsibilities and minimum experience required for the position. We also said -- clearly -- that we wanted applicants to call us instead of send resumes. (We get lots of resumes, all they do is take up space in the "Keep this or the lawyers will make money" file cabinet.) What we wanted was a sales person to call us and demonstrate their skills on the phone.
The responses: Zip.
Oh, there were resumes sent to us. They were sent in exactly the way we told people not to. There were even two phone calls. No body had skills that were even close to what we were looking for. I quickly came to the conclusion that most job seekers on monster are so jaded by looking for work that they don't even bother to read the posting and just click "send" on their resume.
Score Monster 1 - Us 0
Monster made their money, we got Zip. I might as well have written the job posting on toilet paper and stocked the bathroom in our building with it... Never mind... That would have gotten a better response..
In the end, we filled the position the old way. Via the network of customers and vendors we have build over the years, and by asking "Hey, do you know anyone who can do the job..."
Any other employer have a similar experience?
I agree that the better choice of the two would be a headhunter that found you. However, I would add one more thing: it's worth 10 minutes of your time to research who you're dealing with.
Don't let someone get you excited about a great position, and a great company, only to discover (perhaps in hindsight) that the 'headhunter' was neither experienced at their craft, nor interested in finding a good fit for the company or you. In those instances, the headhunter becomes more like a matchmaking aunt who just wants to marry off as many of her nephews as quickly as possible, make a few bucks, then move on to new town.
Fortuneately, until the job market improves back to where it was during the dot com era, this breed of 'budget headhunters' has died off or found work doing something else. But when the economy cycles back to where it's a job-hunter's market again, they will probably return with a great deal for you.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
A friend of mine came out to LA, and started job hunting, including through the job sites.
Her skills are in network and windows administration, with plenty of training and experience in high end phone systems (like enterprise sized Nortel stuff).
The first call she got was from Belkin, being an independant sales rep, only making commissions.
The second was from a major national insurance company, who asked her to come out for an interview. She verified that it was a computer job before she went. The interview itself was an hour outside of LA. We drove out, and they asked if I was interested in sitting in on the meeting too. Why? I'm not looking for a job. So, I go to the car, and start playing with my laptop. 10 minutes later, she comes out bitching. It's a multi-level marketing thing, where they had a room full of unemployed non-english speaking people to sell insurance (or ideally recruit new sales people) to people that can't afford it, and take the commissions.
WTF? computer job? Nowhere in that job required a computer. It required being able to con people into spending money they couldn't afford on life insurance they'd never see. You didn't even use a computer to file the applications, they were by paper.
{sigh}
Aparently they went throught Monster.com, took down all the names and titles, and contacted everyone they could, offering jobs in their field, only to find that it was this sales crap.
Computer Job != Insurance Salesman
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
When I look at hotjobs, I see Raytheon has posted another 100 jobs again today. Funny thing is, Raytheon isn't hiring. Another funny thing is, Raytheon is still looking for a "NT Systems Admin" that job has posted several times every week for years - and I can assure you that here in Denver there are - at least - a few hundred unemployed people who are easily qualified for that job.
Qwest does the same thing. There are also hundreds of jobs from the U.S. Navy.
Qwest, Raytheon, and the U.S. Navy account for about 80% of the jobs posted. The rest are from those recruiting companies.
Point is: I strongly suspect that 9 out 10 jobs posted are not for real. These people are just collecting resumes "just in case."
I don't know how this cr@p works, but it's obvious that it's a joke.
I do most of the hiring for a small internet entertainment company in Montreal. In the past few years we've advertised job vacancies (mainly programers and graphic designers) about a dozen times in our local newspaper and online (mainly Monster). We usually get around 20-30 resumes from a newspaper ad and around 200-300 from job boards.
For most of the positions we've ended up hiring people who saw our ad online. In our experience the most qualified responses come from the job boards. However, we've also noticed that the least qualified responses also come from the job boards. Of the 200-300 responses we'll get from an ad, may 30 of them are worth considering. The rest are pure garbage.
When I have a stack of 200-300 resumes to go through initially I'm looking for any excuse I can come up with to thin the pile. Speaking as someone who's read a lot of resumes here are the things that irk me the most...
1. Language - Even though we're located in Montreal which is in a predominantly French city our ads are always posted in English. Atleast a third of resumes will come in French. A few always come in other languages such as Spanish or Polish. To me that displays either laziness arrogance or cluelessness. None of which score any points for the applicant. If they can't be bothered to send me a response in the language of the advert, I can't be bothered to read it. These resumes are generally relegated to the circular file.
2. Distance - Even if our ad is for an entry level position in Montreal, we still get a large number of responses from people who either want to telecommute or relocate to take the job. We get people apply from as far away as Africa or Asia (and rarely Europe). Some of these people will even want us to sponsor their immigration to Canada. We might go to the trouble to do that for someone with unique talents but not for an entry level programmer. These resumes also get sent to the circluar file.
3. Vastly Overqualified - Whenever we post an opening for an entry level programmer we'll get 5-10 responses from people who are so vastly over qualified that there's little chance they'd be happy here (and stay with us long term). People who were professors or who have PHDs are not good matches for entry level positions.
4. Totally Wrong Careers - We get a fair number of resumes from people who seem like good candidates except for the totally wrong career. For example we had one guy apply who had been a chef for 15+/- years. He'd attended several prestigeous culinary schools and had worked at some rather well regarded restaurants. But now he wanted to give programming a shot.
5. Egregious Resumes / Cover Letters - When you apply for a job you should make some effort to "put your best foot forward". A surprising number of people don't. These run the gamut from simply bad spelling and grammar to people who send us resumes and cover letters for different companies and positions. Then there are the resumes with obviously bullshit "objectives". I mean things like "To synergize new ideas outside the box and take my employer to the next level of ebusiness". There also was the guy who had a resume to be a mechanical engineer (or something similiar I forget exactly) who had replaced the words "mechanical engineer" with "database admin" most places in his resume. Not everywhere mind you, just most.
6. Stalkers - If you send your resume and you don't hear back from me, its fine to send one follow up email. However don't start calling, faxing, and emailing on a daily basis to make sure I read your resume. Rest assured if you do
that I will read your resume but there's no chance you'll get hired. Same goes for post interview follow ups. Feel free to call me once. If I want to talk to you, I'll call you. If I don't call there's a reason.
7. Upon Request - Every time we post a job opening, we include what we want you to send us when you apply. References, portfolio, etc. It never fails that people send us resumes that say "Portfolio available upon request". Are they stupid? Did they not read the ad? I've got 200 resumes to go through am I going to take the extra time to request portfolio individually? Certainly not.
Monster is ineffective if your use of Monster sounds like the following:
1. Enter your resume, and then enter it again but using Monster's input boxes.
2. Search for a type of job or skill and find a list of jobs.
3. Come across an interesting-sounding job.
4. Press "Apply Now".
5. Wait for manna to fall from heaven.
However, these job boards are not without merit, but only as a means to see jobs, not as a means to apply to them.
Those who truly want a job will go the extra step of sending a personal email, with a custom cover letter, and possibly a tuned or custom resume. This method will be more effective than simply using the stock Apply Now method -- which employers now apparently routinely ignore.
Both of my jobs attained over the last two years have been gained via this method, since IT recruiting (my previous boom-time sure-fire method) fell through in early 2002.
(As a hiring manager at a small company, I'm finding it astonishing at how many people apply for positions with no cover letter, and nothing stating why they want or think they would do well in the position! I don't consider those applicants terribly seriously, because they clearly don't consider the position very seriously.)
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
One quote I found really interesting:
Hiring managers were asked what recruiting tool they found most effective. Echoing the job hunters of the previous year, managers said that "word of mouth referrals" were the best source of hires (62%). Meanwhile, the HR folks -- the people who buy online job ads -- said such personal contacts were the worst recruiting tool. So, who's right?
One of the job hints that one frequently sees is "try to bypass HR and go directly to who is in charge of the department where the position you want is" It seems that HR frequently is seen by managers and employees as a roadblock for hiring the best employees.
It seems true - and in my experience, interviews by people who are in the department where you would work are generally more comfortable, and more likely to ask you questions that seem relevant rather than "if you were an animal what type would you be" questions.
I work at a college where I used to be a student. I know that when another student was hired, his manager had to argue for his hiring, and was accused by HR of "trying to create a position for him" - despite the fact that he was filling a position for someone who had retired - and been working as a contractor in the postion for several months.
Dave Barry once parodied the old "avoid HR" job hunting quote by saying HR never wants to hire anyone because they just know they will be employees who never fill out their healthcare forms right
This all does make me wonder about the disconnect between how HR percieves itself compared to the negative light it seems to be seen in by employees, potential employees, and managers of other departments.
I have blog like everyone else
It amazes me that so many people with skills start their job search by looking for job openings.
I've used the same technique to get my last few jobs, and all were good and in my field:
Use the yellow pages.
1) Look for companies that do work in the field you're interested in, and find contact details
2) Call them all and find out who makes hiring decisions
3) Send resume with cover letter to that person, specifically comparing projects you've done with projects they've done if possible
4) Starting from best company to worst, go to the offices IN PERSON and talk to the decision maker. It's not an job interview, which means you're the only one they'll be talking to, but they're not the only one you're talking to. This means they're not in a position of authority over you, and you can command some respect from them.
5) Contact them again by phone the day after you've spoken to them to thank them and let them know that you're interested in working there, and call them back again to check up once you've covered every business in town.
You don't need to know anyone to use this technique, and the longest it's taken me to get a GOOD job this way is 2 months.
Bottom line is, ppl hate going through all the bullshit of advertising and interviewing. If you give them the opportunity to avoid doing so, they will take it.
Oh, and another good thing to do once you get a job is call every other person you spoke to and tell them thanks for speaking to you, but you're not looking any more. That will really make you stand out in their minds, and if they're still there next time you need a job, they'll remember you in a very positive way.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
When I was last unemployed a little less then a year ago, I took full advantage of Monster and Dice. The key to these sites is using them properly. As much as one would like to believe, these sites generally can't find you a job. However, and this is the important part, you can find a job on these sites. The key is using them like a glorified(sp?) classified ad. Most offers on these sites do not want you to use the "submit your resume now" feature on the site, but forward your resume to a seperate (and listed) e-mail address. It's also important to make sure you read the description, and avoid vague job descriptions, just as you would do with any other job offer from any other source. Using these rules, I pulled a 3:1 ratio of Resumes submitted vs. Interviews granted. I never won any of the job offers I submitted, mainly because I was applying for jobs that I was underqualified for, and attempted to use the 'I know I can do this job, trust me' interviewing technique. I ended up settling for a job that was easier and paid less then I desired, for the sole purpose of building the experience needed to get the jobs I missed out on before. I am currently retooling my resume, and next week will begin using Monster and Dice to look for a new job, and I have full faith that I will find what I want using these sites.