Internet Job Boards a Bunch of Hype? 538
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?"
Re:Craigslist (Score:5, Informative)
Moral: Craiglist is not just for the Bay Area but works elsewhere too.
Flooding (Score:1, Informative)
I quit using hotjobs and monster when emails that matched narrow and even broad criteria solely contained Navy endorsements.
How about simply getting off the butt and putting copius amounts of elbow grease into the search? That's the only way I've ever known it to work.
Local job sites (Score:2, Informative)
CareerBuilder (Score:3, Informative)
Re:hrm, I disagree. (Score:5, Informative)
You can't compare most newspaper job listings to online job boards because most newspaper job listings are run by the same job board.
The article is very fair, provides information that I did not have access to otherwise, and does not promote headhunters in any way. The only thing it promotes is (shocker) finding jobs via personal networking.
Craigs List (Score:2, Informative)
Eric
geektek.com [geektek.com] - hosting, dedicated servers and co-lo
Re:hrm, I disagree. (Score:3, Informative)
I think the best resource for jobs is friends and 'networking associates'. They tend to know about jobs in their workplace before it becomes public, so you can be an early applicant, at the very least.
Stay away from Jobwarehouse.com & their afflia (Score:2, Informative)
Americanjobs.com = spammer too. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:hrm, I disagree. (Score:5, Informative)
Ask the Headhunter sells a book and offers a free website and newsletter. All three are simply spectacular sources of advice, whether you are unemployed or not. I hype it every chance I get (and made a recent post about it here on slashdot; I wonder if the article submitter discovered ATH through my post).
Nick Corcodilos is not trying to hype his services as a headhunter. He no longer even works as a headhunter. A common misconception about headhunters is that job seekers should look for them or hire them. That is not true, and rarely happens. Headhunters are hired by employers looking to fill a position. You're not likely to be able to hire a headhunter to get you a job; instead you'll be contacted by a headhunter if he's aware of you through his contacts and thinks you're suitable for a position he is looking to fill.
Corcodilos is looking to sell his book, but he gives out tons of free advice through his website and weekly newsletter. He's even interacted with interested geeks on slashcode based forums like use Perl; [perl.org]. ATH floated around as a meme in the Perl community due mainly to Andy Lester [slashdot.org] starting around 2002. That was very convenient for me because I was "surplussed" in late 2002. I bought the ATH book immediately and have found its advice invaluable ever since (yes, I do have a job, and I still find the advice invaluable). Andy Lester used the ATH information to help in making hiring decisions.
The comparisons you suggest between job boards and headhunters don't make any sense, since headhunters don't offer a service to job seekers. If you read the site, you will see this for yourself.
Scam Alert (Score:2, Informative)
job boards (Score:2, Informative)
These sites didn't work for me (Score:4, Informative)
my experience (Score:2, Informative)
i started looking for work through the la times online, monster, dice, hot jobs, smaller area based head hunter sites and what not around the end of 02 beginning of 03. my girlfriend at the time would search the posting on the jobtrak site at ucla (or let me use her id too) as well. i dont know the exact number of responses i got from "internet job boards" (ie. monster and the like), but i can tell you i definitely got less than 5 responses. the la times and local newspaper sites seemed to have the best return. i got a probably 16 interviews through newspaper ads. i got such a better response from then i started checking monster once weekly and only taking the most promising listings instead of everything i was qualified for. i found a lot local papers i didnt know existed, and i generally got some response from the ads i found in them.
i also realized that networking, while great, didnt help at all. i have friends in every level of seemingly every industry and not one could help me find any employment. then i happened upon craigslist.org. for the la area, it works great for so many things. i found the most sincere listings, the most interesting jobs, the best responses. i probably got 8 or 9 interviews from craigslist.
i realized that most everything posted on monster and some of the newspaper ads were coming from an employment agency, so i started applying to them. even to the same company is different cities that i would be willing to commute to. in the end, i got one response from the 11 employment agencies i joined. irony is, after i found employment, they suddenly had some meaningless one day receptionist position theyd want me to fill. pretty retarded.
basically, i feel that monster and the like are just ways for employment agencies to post listing to get responses and resumes. they get paid for signing people up as well as fidning them jobs and it shows. i find monster and them all to be useless. newspapers, while cumbersome seem to work the best. oh, another funny thing, the first job i landed, from a newspaper response, they wouldnt hire me until i passed a probationary period, so they said i had to get paid through a temp agency. haha, i went into the local one that i applied with first, and they got to keep 1/3 of my hourly pay. is that great or what. i joined them, they didnt do shit, i found a job, they got 1/3 of my money. gotta love their scam. i got fired a few days before my probationw as over and the next job i got was trhough craigslist i believe. im not certain, but it was either craigslist or a newspaper.
i think newspapers and craigslist are the best options, the other online boards are just temp agencies farming resumes.
Small Business Point Of View (Score:5, Informative)
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 [craigslist.org]
Re:From the other end... (Score:4, Informative)
Ask the Headhunter (the website with the original article) has some good advice about hiring.
Re:hrm, I disagree. (Score:4, Informative)
The job boards do serve one purpose. They're good at filling out the unemployment forms online on where I've applied to positions. I had over 150 to choose from...at least 20 a week. It's a good thing they will accept three a week or I'd be filling out the forms forever.
Craigslist is the best (Score:3, Informative)
I think most of those make their money because companies have to publicise postings to fulfill their EOE status.
Work-at-Home Jobs (Score:5, Informative)
Networking (Score:1, Informative)
I have a steady, fairly well paying, job in government I.S. Our newest hardware tech., unknown to any of us for many weeks after the tech was hired, happens to be good friends with a wealthy businessman. This wealthy businessman needed someone to do "a little weekend project" for him. All the other programmers in the I.S. department were either too busy or not qualified to write GUI apps. Management at my job doesn't care as long as it doesn't negatively impact my work.
I agreed, under the assumption that it would be a couple weekends (at the most), and then it would be over. That's not how it worked out, but it worked out for the better. I told the guy that I charge $50/hour (which is very high for my neck of the woods), would only be able to work on it on weekends, and that it was not possible to accurately predict a completion date.
After some debating, he agreed. I'm pulling in my normal full time salary at work, and an extra $1000/weekend. I'm projecting (using the WAG method) completion at about $20,000. And he's absolutely thrilled at the prospect.
Human networking. It turns up good things at the most unexpected times. I wasn't even looking for anything. I just happened to know someone who knew someone.
These sites are brutal (Score:2, Informative)
i) Since there are so many applicant's out there, most resume's are likely OCR'ed before a pair of real human eyes ever gazes upon them, they're looking for acronyms, so styff it with everything you know (PHP, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Apache, etc.).
ii) Brute force is the way to go, you really need to fire tons of them out to increase your chances, so apply to anything that even looks remotely interesting, everyone else does, you will drown in numbers if you don't.
iii) Don't let online job boards be your only method of searching, networking is still way better, by that I mean contacts you've made in past positions and meeting with recruiters. Recruiters may seem like a waste of time, but I do think the one that set me up here was definately worth my time, they spent time getting to know me, and are valuable contacts now should I or someone I know be looking for a new position.
Re:Craigslist is the best (Score:3, Informative)
Also the job sites of potential employers is a good idea as well. I got my current job from the company's career section of their web site.
Specialized organization web sites are good as well. When my wife was looking for an architecture job, she found it on the American Institute of Architects career web site.
Here is a bigger question - has anyone gotten a job through Friendster/Tribe/Linked-In?
IT Directors hate them too.... (Score:4, Informative)
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...
We try to filter out work at home (Score:5, Informative)
I run workzoo.com [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.
The problem we're seeing is a simple lack of jobs (Score:1, Informative)
Mark
workzoo.com [workzoo.com] - Job meta search.
free software resume portal (Score:3, Informative)
Re:hrm, I disagree. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hrm, I disagree. (Score:1, Informative)
Head hunters get anywhere from 15-30% of the yearly salary of an employee they place as commision from the employer. So if you are offered 100K from company A, the head hunter would charge 15K to 30K from company A for placing you at company A. That is money that could have gone into your pocket... if you didnt go thru a head hunter and the company was really interested in you, you could have negotiated a better terms.
As part of the contract between a head hunter and an employer, if the employer received your resume from thhe head hunter and company hires your withen 3 months, the company is obligated to pay the head hunter. This still applies if the head hunter sent it and the company didnt show much interest and then you resend it to the company in less than 3 months for a different position. So, during the down economy, employers dont want to pay that extra money to a head hunter... so if you go thru a head hunter, your resume might get tossed aside. another down side to head hunters is that they might go spamming your resume to a whole lot of companies. In this case, even if you applied to a company yourself, the company may be reluctant to interview you because of they dont want to pay a headhunter. Always make sure that you tell your head hunter not to send it to any company without consulting you first.
Another thing I found out is that head hunters call periodically and get pretty nosy and try to ask you where you are now working etc so that they can contact your present company and try to set up a contract to place people there. Be very careful about telling them your bosse's name, etc.
A hiring manager speaks... (Score:1, Informative)
As a hiring manager, I have an in-house recruiter. Her job is to wade through the many resumes offered by Monster, HotJobs and such sites, and the resume's we get from recruiters, using guidelines I have given her. I see maybe 10% or so. Of those 10%, I give a straight-up No to 50%, usually due to lack of relevent experience (even if the keywords match).
She then calls them and asks a few choice questions: in this instance,
1) depth of your Windows and Unix knowledge (user versus administrator versus coded with Platform SDK;
2) types of development done (toolsmithing, line coder, project lead; senior tech lead);
3) some specialized knowledge for the position (you put PKI experience near the beginning of your resume - can you explain how certificates are validated and what a CRL does? She doesn't know the answer, but she knows an answer other than 'Well, I just installed the certificate on my <X> and they work' is probably adequate for this barrier).
Then, they get to me. I ask them similar questions to the above, but more depth and breadth, and I evaluate the answer to be something _reasonable_: an answer to the above might be, 'Certificates have a chain of trust starting at a root that you have recieved out-of-band, where the root signs with RSA or DH or whatever the child's public key. If you receive a child and intermediate certificates, you can check that it is valid by checking the parent's signature down the tree, and thus you can trust something because you trust one of their parents. There's also Key Usage and EKU attached to the cert, which tells you what the certificate was intended to be used as, which you should check too. A Certificate Revocation List is the way a cert authority can invalidate a set of certificates and their children for future use.' . Etc. Something along those lines.
That's what _I_ mean when I say I'm knowledgable with PKI (actually, I go far farther than this into the bowels, but whatever), so this is what I presume someone else should say. If they don't, then I give them a no - the moral here is 'don't inflate your resume' - at least in a way I can tell.
Finally, I meet them face-to-face, and take deeply into account my intuition the first 30-60 seconds I have when talking to them. I try to make sure they are 'smart' - quick thinking, clear on what they know and not, out-of-the-box methodologies.
After I decide they are smart, whatever 'smart' actually is (I don't know, it's just a tag I use for certain qualities, which includes the above, as well as quick comprehension, the appearance of sanity, and good presentation, both of which are important, and yes I know I might lose a brilliant but antisocial introvert - but that's okay, since they won't do as well here for this position anyway), I am on the watch for questions which lead myself or other people to think 'no' - they meet other people, we look up their background, check their references, etc.
On average, I phone screen about a 1-2 dozen people, I interview about 2-3, I hire one.
Having done the above 10 times now, I've actually got one of the best Quality groups I've ever worked with - highly paid, self-starting and extremely effective.
Oh, did I forget to mention I was hiring QA (QE, really) people, and I expect them to talk about their years of development background? Another moral of the story - if you do something well, you probably can do many things well, and sometimes developers move to the quality side instead of large projects side because they _LIKE_ it (or, in some cases, because there are plenty of things about development not to like, and at least being in QE, they can automate to make the things that suck, suck less).
Anyway, my
-J
An Employer's Prespective (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Re:We try to filter out work at home (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Submit your resume the old-fashioned way... (Score:1, Informative)
Back two or so years ago she stopped using the job boards because the amount of email they were getting was overwhelming.
They also had a system where it would look at the incoming resumes for certain keywords that matched the criteria of what kind of person they were looking for. This helped narrow down the qualified applicants a little.
Now the company places classified ads in local papers and only accepts resumes by mail. The responses are less then she received when placing them on the job boards but the people have been better qualified for the job.
If You're In The UK... (Score:2, Informative)
Bob
Re:Headhunters use job boards (Score:3, Informative)
4 years ago i was getting 3 calls a day due to dice and monster; last summer i was laid off and posted a resume again. Sure, things slowed down a bit, and it took a month or two and a professionally written resume, but i got a job offer with a 12% raise at a good company a block from my house. And even now, i'm being courted by a much larger company and will likely be offered a much larger raise, solely after they found my resume on monster.
Job boards are like advertising, for people that have something marketable they work well.
Re:hrm, I disagree. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a headhunter (still active, but I'm selective about searches I do). I also run a publishing business called Ask The Headhunter, which has become a lot more fun and a much bigger part of my time. The web site is free. The book isn't. But my agent fleeced my publisher a long time ago for a big advance (that was her job - to get the royalties up front), so while I love to know the book is selling well, nothing I do is designed to sell books. I haven't done another book because it's much more profitable to license my ATH features to web sites, newspapers, periodicals, corporate clients, and the like - so you can read them for free. Those "subsidies" let me keep my own site and newsletter free. Hope that answers some questions about motivations and who I am.
What's more important is the subject of the thread. Some people sometimes find jobs via Monster, et al. But the only credible studies that have been done suggest that the boards are a lousy way to find or fill a job. Do you really think their success rates are decent? I don't. The strongest indication that I'm right: they don't publish their success rates. Never have. never will. Go ahead - ask them. They will never publish their results because they suck. So they talk about "30 million resumes online!". Yah. Ever hear the George Carlin line, "Suppose you could have everything in the world. Where would you put it?"
While I found out about this thread through GoogleAlerts, it was a spate of emails I got from slashdotters who read my article -- all the email so far is from people who think the boards suck, and who have had lousy experiences.
Some people love the boards. No skin off my nose. But if I needed a job, it's the last place I'd look.
Forget headhunters. Like jdavidb points out, headhunters don't find you jobs. We only work for employers, and we don't look for candidates on boards or solicit truckloads of resumes with want ads. The hacks who waste your time not headhunters. They're bottom-feeder recruiters who are dialing for dollars -- and they treat you accordingly if your keywords don't match their limited vocabularies.
One person on this thread said it well: all his/her jobs have come from personal contacts developed over time. Consistently, studies show that 40-70% of jobs are found and filled that way. The big boards seem to be responsible for about 1-3%. Niche boards produce better. Job listings on "professional" sites are better, too. Company sites are pretty good, too. But my casual polls (for about 10 years) of managers suggest that managers hire people they know first; people recommended by people they know second; and then it peters out dramatically. You want a job? Your best bet is to go hang out (literally or virtually) with people who do the work you want to do. That's your best bet -- others get to know you, see your value, and they recommend you to a manager. (Hey, I don't claim it's quick or easy. But it beats blasting out 10,000 resumes and waiting by your screen for an email announcing that you have qualified to be A Successful Telemarker if only you'll ring up your PayPal account for $95.
Speaking of fees: The latest racket on the Big Boards is charging you $79 for a Titanium Upgrade on your resume. That puts your resume "higher on the results list employers get when they do a search for people like you." Yep. 30 million resumes in the data base. Did you know that the "basic deal" on CareerBuilder allows an employer only 300 "results" each day? Lotsa luck getting your Titanium resume up ahead of all the others. More interesting: emloyers are doling out the same payola to get their job listings "played higher on the list". So everybody's paying the boards off for
Job Boards (Score:3, Informative)
Here are a few ways establish trust:
- Get referred by a credible third party (often a good headhunter fits this). Have the referrer make a call to get you an interview "Hi Bill, I saw you are looking for _____. Have you talked to _____? No... Well, you need to"
- Don't overhype yourself on your resume. Just look good, use some color (it is 2004) and try to keep it to two pages.
- Your cover letter should speak to what the employer is looking for. Do your knowledge so you already know what the company does.
- REFERENCES REFERENCES REFERENCES. Have them. Name names. Put them in your resume.
- Follow up and follow up, but don't be desperate.
- Be on time and accurate. Have your schedule and facts straight.
Also not the best bet for finding employees (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Fax your way to a new job :) this worked for me. (Score:2, Informative)
I was unemployed and looking for a job, and had posted on the job boards to no avail.
My sister happened to bring a copy of the chamber of commerce business directory which had listings of all the businesses thet are members along with phone and fax #'s.
I wrote a simple generic cover letter simply stating that I was new in the area and if that I was aware that most businesses only advertised as a last resort, asking that they contact me if interested in anyone with my skills or pass my info along if they knew anyone who might be.
Then I entered the fax #'s for the IT related companies, solution co's, isp's, web co's,... and also for the employment agency's. In all I faxed to about 170 #'s
Intrestingly enough not one of the employment agency's bothered to call back and I only got one call(the next day!), but that call led to good work of a varied nature for a company that truly values my skill set.
Never send references with a resume (Score:2, Informative)
There are many things you may want the candidate to send to you. But asking them to send references in advance is not one of them. No candidate for any job should ever send a list of references in advance. Instead, bring the references with you to the interview. References do not provide new information that helps the initial selection process. What references are good for is verifying that what the candidate said was (well, might be) true, and that they are (well, might be) of good character.
Also, in the existing legal climate, references generally won't be all that forthcoming, anyway. You know a candidate won't provide references they believe will be negative. The value added by references is not that much for anything besides corporate level executives, anyway. So, unless you are hiring a CEO or CFO, references won't even do you much good.
The problem with sending references is that there are some bad companies out there (and the candidates usually cannot sort this out very easily, because some of these bad companies are big corporations, and the often sleazy headhunters they do business with) end up using the references information inappropriately. I've been harrassed as a result of being listed as a reference by someone, and I've had to tell anyone who asks to use me as a reference to never give my name until after it at least it seems, during the interview, that the job is a good match. The best scenario is for the employer to ask the candidate at the end of the interview for the references as an indication that the candidate is being placed on the short list.
So if you were to ask for references to be sent with the resume, please expect that those people who value and respect the privacy of the people they are identifying as references will not do so immediately. Portfolios provided in advance are a good thing, and for people like graphical artists, that should be a standard way (short of intellectual property issues). But providing references in advance is completely inappropriate.