Dear job seeker, I have some bad news for you. A conversation like the one below happened at thousands of companies today.
Betty the Hiring Manager: Hey Sally, where are my candidates?
Sally the HR person: I must have looked at 200 resumes on Monster today. I talked to 15 people who were not looking, 3 who couldn’t understand what I was saying and left messages for 20 more. Bottom-line: at this point I am where I was yesterday. Nowhere.
But you say “I applied directly. How come Sally hasn’t called me?”
Well, this is not really Sally’s area of expertise as she is an HR specialist not a recruiter. Unfortunately, recruiting typically ends up in the hands of HR where people with no vested interest and perhaps no deep understanding of the job requirement are asked to find the right person.
Imagine if Sally is tasked with finding a Senior Software Engineer with J2EE, Hibernate, and ETL experience. Do you think Sally knows what all that means? How can she screen these people?
So what happens? Sally puts recruiting on the back burner and focuses on her “real” job. Betty in the meantime gets further and further behind on her IT project and eventually loses faith in the company and leaves.
The good news is that there is now an IT Project Manager opening at the company. The bad news is that Sally is tasked with identifying the right person for the job.
Be patient. We have the silver bullet for Sally and it is coming soon.
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This is so true, our recruiter does not have a clue. As a hiring manager it is very frustrating and needing to get quick turnaround on potential candidates.
If that’s how you can help, I’ll be very interested.
I am not sure about you, but I am in IT and the vast majority of the opportunities that I have found in my career have been through my own network of colleagues and friends. If I am unhappy with my job or find out that my contract is ending, I let everyone know that I am considering a new position. Someone usually knows another that has a potential gig and it works almost every time. My own network helps me to find a job – which is why I have taken advantage of the networking sites offered on the web in recent years. The job sites don’t work well anymore, unless you want to spend a lot of time with telemarketing-like recruiters who are not reading your resume or know what your skills really are. I have gotten many of my friends sweet referral bonuses over the years… Once in a while I get to return the favor, but always feel awkward making $ off my friends. Sure would be nice if there was another intermediary.