Are online job applications more of a hindrance than a help? Was your dream job easier to land before Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Google got involved? And is job software filtering good people out for the most minor reasons?
Some people think so.
Indeed, Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book Why Good People Can't Get Jobs, was recently on PBS to discuss just that.
In his interview, Cappelli said online job postings were drawing thousands of candidates for every position, significantly reducing any given individual's fair chance. “Somebody told me that they had 29,000 people apply for a reasonably standard engineering position, and nobody made it through the screening process. The software told them nobody was qualified,” said Cappelli.
With the economy still rocky and the unemployment rate high, many Internet job postings are flooded with applications. This typically overwhelms regular HR systems, forcing many firms to start using software to sift through CVs.
Unfortunately, since software lacks human judgment, applications can be rejected on the flimsiest of reasons, creating a lose-lose situation for both job seeker and employer.
After all, there is no such thing as the “perfect” candidate for any job, but HR managers in the past, through face-to-face interviews and good old-fashioned probing, have been able to discern between applicants and decide who is the best fit in terms of skills, ability to adapt to company culture, and potential.
No wonder so many tech firms are complaining about talent shortages. Keywords pulled coldly from résumés by machine are not going to find the diamond in the rough. So many firms claim to want new hires who display “out-of-the-box” creativity, but if you failed to tick the right box, your résumé may not even end up being read by a human.
It’s time things changed. The Internet is a blessing in many ways, but when it comes to landing that dream job, pick up the phone, be persistent, and schedule a face-to-face interview.
Readers, what do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.
Several years ago the company I worked for sold to a competitor. I was asked to relocate across country to another state. Our kids were in high school and moving would have been extremely difficult. I thought finding an engineering job would be "duck soup". All I needed was to go online, post my resume and wait for the phone calls, at which time I would pick and choose between the most desirable companies. Never happened. Not one call after three weeks. During that period of time I did start the networking process and in this fashion found a much better job than the one I had. Everything I did was relative to inter-personal relationships--word of mouth. By the way, I'm still waiting on those phone calls.
Every engineering job I've ever had, I found on an Internet job board (Monster or CareerBuilder). Yes, it helps to read the job posting carefully and make sure your resume contains some of the same words or phrases, but that's true whether you're dealing with automated filters or just technically illiterate HR personnel. Once, during a pre-screening over the phone, I had an HR person ask me, "So, do you have any experience with metals?" right after I got done detailing my experience in a foundry; I realized that I had only used the terms "casting" and "foundry," never "metal." (Now, I am careful to say "metalcasting"!)
I too think or believe that many HR people only consider softcopy resumes and probably don't give hardcopies a first look. I have gotten good outcomes from online resume postings but have also gotten calls about opportunities that had nothing to do with my skills.
JimT I like your Hard Lessons. So true about recruiters as fair weather friends.
One of the things I find to be a problem is not only do software just match resume word so do HR people. It would be nice if the first line of screening actually understand the job requirement because they often overlook good engineers just because the keywords didn't match.
JimT, Best summary I've seen in a while. I too found myself on the outside looking in around the same time you did. Another issue is that once the software algorithm gets done throwing out the resumes, the next step is that the 50 or so that survived get weeded out by an HR intern, who might have some familiarity with the business, but certainly not with any of the technical aspect.
I've also noticed that posted job descriptioins are not necessarily the whole picture, or even a reasonable facsimile. There was one job that sounded like a great fit and I spent a good amount of time crafting the resume, cover letter, etc., making sure all of the buzz words were there. Even found out the hiring manager's name and contacted him directly. While you never know where you rank, I thought for sure that this was a least worthy of a phone screen. Nothing. Finally got on the other side of the door and looked into that one a bit for my own background. Given the actual position, rank, expertise required, I wouldn't have hired me either, but you certainly couldn't tell it from the external documentation.
Jack - Good point from the sliding perspective – you got to see it from both sides of the firewall; that underscores the importance (and difficulty) of writing the accurately descriptive job-posting (usually done by a staffing person, instead of the guys who actually do the job). BTW, how did you slide across the perspective to the inside view-?
@JimT - Actually, I'm straddling that firewall at the moment, doing contract work. I knew a guy in another department and when I found an opening that interested me, he volunteered to get my resume into the hands of the hiring manager. My background wasn't quite what the manager was looking for, but told my contact that he might be looking for some contract help in a couple months and to see if I was interested. Since I was still an unsigned free agent when the contract opportunity opened up, I jumped on it. Being a known quantity inside can't hurt the goal of changing the status to something a bit more pemanent. (Yes, I know there is no such thing).
The thing about that story is that I don't know what to tell people who don't have the contact. Contracting is a good short-term solution while trying to get inside, but I have no idea how I would have even found out about this particular position if the hiring manager didn't bring it up.
Jim, after the initial short listing by HR, second level of short listing is usually done by either by project manager or any technical person nominated by him. Now a day’s in most of the companies first level of filtration is done by some automated software based on certain keywords. If the job seeker didn’t use that particular keyword in their resume, there are possibilities for filter out his resume at initial stage itself.
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