Monster.com is probably the worst place for a job seeker to look for a job. And that goes for CareerBuilder as well. What turns out to be a great opportunity for employers, is by the same token a crap shoot for job seekers. This is true when the economy is good and especially true when the economy is bad.
When I was a hiring manager at Microsoft, Microsoft’s HR department would pay for job postings on Monster. And hiring managers were assigned a HR specialist to help you out. It all sounded good at the onset, but you quickly found out this arrangement was the mother of all time-suck black holes ever.
The problem is that it didn’t work. As much as it is an honor to be in a position to hiring new people at Microsoft, the process is arduous. When you get 500 resumes back from a Monster job posting, you barely have 10 seconds to look at each one. Ten seconds times 500 resumes is about a half a day’s worth of work. If you think that is productive, it ain’t.
And your HR specialist is working with 20 other managers. While they are supposed to screen the resumes for you, they did a crappy job of it. They probably did this on purpose because they were as overworked as anyone else.
It is great for employers. Microsoft can say to its hiring mangers here are the resources you can tap, if you can’t find a great employee who will impress your 8 person interview squad and get a thumbs up from all of them, you can bet it’ll reflect poorly on your annual review.
Meanwhile your manager has been told by their manager that unless you hire someone soon, you will loose the headcount to another department or to another division.
At Monster, there is nothing wonderful or efficient for job seekers to be able to push a few button and submit their resume to an open job. It lulls job seekers into a false sense of accomplishment. A job seeker can say to themselves, I applied for 50 jobs today. You and 1,000 other people did the same thing. Your 50 jobs got 50,000 resumes sent out. Hiring managers across the country were inundated with candidates, half of them applied for anything that seemed remotely close to being a fit. At the same time, the hiring manager is looking at resume after resume and thinking half of these candidates aren’t even a fit. “There has to be a better way.”
It just goes into a black hole. Job seekers might think they are accomplishing something, but they are just decreasing their chances to be noticed. You are one of 500 or 1,000. These are not good numbers. Not when your hiring manger is already overworked and needs to find a great employee and has pressure from above, from member of his team and from himself. Because the only reason you are getting more head count is because you already have more work then you can handle, you have new projects that need to get manned and there are a hundred different dependencies that go into the project and your new employee is just one of them. If you don’t find a candidate, you’ll have to give the job to someone else on your team, or take it on yourself.
Believe it or not, Monster hosts about, and I’m guessing now, about 5% of all the advertised job openings on the Internet. With so many job seekers going to Monster which hosts so few jobs, it is like a school of piranha’s after a 8 ounce porterhouse. A job seeker’s odds are against them and for the employer. Five percent is probably high. The point is Monster is not the Google for job search as so many job seekers think it is. Monster is a tool for employers and deception for job seekers.
The first thing a job seeker needs to do is never, never express your interest for an open job through an automated system like the one Monster offers. You resume will be lucky to even printed and put into a stack of candidates on a hiring manager’s desk. HR is not going to know what to look for, more so in a large company.
If you want to make it as a hiring manger at Microsoft, you have to get creative. And the first thing you do is never, never look at the stack of resumes from any job board.
Conducting a job search is always a stressful and labor intensive process. Between job search engines, networking, resume and resume cover letter writing, not to mention the interview process, it is no wonder that no one is anxious to dive into the job market.
Learn how to conduct more efficient and less stressful job searches with our job search tips! Learn about job search engines, how to conduct effective company research, networking, recruiters and more!
Posted by (0) Comment
1. Unless you are invited to do so, avoid sending attachments.
2. Spam filters and corporate security measures will often strip attachments from email, or block the email from going through.
3. You can paste your resume into the body of your email. And, you can post a copy of your reusme on the Internet with a link to it.
4. Of course, it is always best to get your resume hand delivered to the hiring manager.
Posted by (0) Comment
How you format your resume is as important as the career information and experience within it. You wouldn’t come dressed to an interview without carefully choosing your clothes. The same goes for your reusme. Your resume has about 5 seconds to make its first impression.
1. Use a font size that is easy on the eyes. No smaller than 10 points.
2. Avoid large fonts. They waste space and may seem comical.
3. Use a professional, business font such as Arial or Verdana
4. Use the same font throughout your resume.
5. Use white space. Crowded text is difficult to read.
6. Use short bulleted text to increase ease of reading.
7. Keep your resume to one page.
Remember, the goal of your resume is to get an interview. Accounting for every aspect of your professional life smacks of unprofessionalism.
Overall, the most effective way of conducting a job search is networking. The best part about networking is that the more friends you make, the wider your network! Because really, that’s all that networking is – meeting people, making friends, and talking about your business (your business is YOU!).
By networking, you’ll find people who know about unadvertised jobs. Talk to people you know and find out about their companies – ask them to do internal job searches. They can tell you the right person to send your resume to; and you’ll have one of the most sought after types of references: somebody who knows the employer.
This kind of networking is great for everyone. You get a good reference from a trusted source and your friend may get a bonus for bringing in a referral that is hired.
You shouldn’t conduct your job search solely by networking, but you definitely shouldn’t conduct a job search without it.
WEBWIRE – Wednesday, October 08, 2008
REDMOND, WA – October 8, 2008. The cure for America’s serious nursing shortage may be at hand. There’s a new website specifically designed to help nurses find jobs easily. My-Nursing-Career.com provides nursing job leads, listings of nursing schools with no adminssion waiting lists, expert career advice from fellow professionals, and other resouces to help nursing in their careers.
My-Nursing-Career.com offers free access to ALL advertised nursing jobs available on the Web. The big three career sites (Monster, HotJobs, and CareerBuilder) provide access to jobs that are posted by paying employers. “That amounts to less than 10% of all advertised nursing jobs that you can find on My-Nursing-Career.com” says Jeff Morrow, marketer for the site. Now, for the month of October, $50 will buy employers and recruiters job postings with exposure to 5,000+ careers sites across the Internet.
Providing listings of nursing schools with no waiting lists is another area of specialization for My-Nursing-Career.com. Nursing can find LPN to RN, LPN to BSN, and RN to BSN online programs with no current admission waiting list. “It might seem odd to earn your nursing degree online” says Jeff Morrow. “But, earning your AA in nursing is where most of your labs and on site training occurs. Online students complete their academic requirements online and their clinical requirements locally” There are many highly regarded nursing school that are now offering the equilivant of their campus program online.
Visit My-Nursing-Career.com www.my-nursing-career.com to find all the advertised jobs listed on the Internet and listings of schools that offer their nursing programs online.
Posted by (0) Comment
Career Marketing Online is undergoing a site-wide update. Not all information is available at this time. I know it is kind of lame, but its the best motivator to get the site completed and updated in the shortest period of time. Besides, not many people visit, and those that do, will understand.
In any case, thanks for the visit and thank you for your patience while we rework the site.