Career Doctor Articles

With the kind permission of the Career Doctor, jfo is able to bring you a series of articles to help you in your work situation and longer term career management

Surfing the internet for a job

Everyone I meet in my consultancy seems to think that the internet is the answer to finding a job. Just surf the net and you will find your dream job. The universal golden key for job-hunting. What absolute rubbish.

In my humble opinion the majority of job-related websites are mainly smoke and mirrors, posting non-existant jobs, copying jobs from other websites, and recycling old “jobs” every few weeks. The result is that the web-surfer sees thousands of jobs, and doesn’t appreciate that many are simply not real.

In this article I will look at how you could be misled by the apparent plethora of vacancies, and then give some advice as to how to use the internet properly, whilst keeping your feet on the ground, well rooted in a degree of scepticism.

OUR EXPERIENCE

How can I claim that many vacancies on the internet are not real? Well, firstly commonsense tells you that in today’s economic climate there is not the recruitment demand there was at the end of the 90’s - so how come there are so many apparent vacancies on the net? That doesn’t accord with reality, or the reduced Sits Vac pages in the local newspapers.

My company is aware of over 480 websites with job vacancies, and adding all these vacancies up, one could come to the conclusion that there must be vacancies galore, all competing for your attention. I wish that this was true, for we all know that there is a real shortage of employment opportunities, insofar as jobs paying a reasonable salary are concerned.

It is common knowledge that many companies are downsizing, making redundancies or having recruitment freezes. In Berkshire (the UK’s “silicon valley”) there have been many IT companies gone out of business - and this reduction in local employment opportunities is not confined to the IT industry, as people in other industries will readily testify.

Numerous IT professionals have sought our services and after regularly surfing the web, probably more thoroughly than most, they are almost unanimous in their collective opinion that the apparent surfeit of vacancies on the internet is a mirage. All the comments I have made are just echos of these professionals’ opinions.

I can honestly say that the number of our clients, of all levels, skills and backgrounds, who have gained employment directly from using the job-related websites, is absolutely minimal. Many of our clients are highly skilled and qualified people, yet for the vast majority, their new job is eventually found by methods other than surfing the net.

A HEADHUNTER’S TALE

One of my clients was a headhunter who was so disillusioned with the ethics of the recruitment business, that she sought my professional help to find herself a new career path. When we got round to discussing using the internet for job-hunting, she had a fascinating tale to tell, which corroborated the experiences of all my other clients, but from insider knowledge.

She said that from 2000 there has been a steady reduction in demand from companies seeking the help of headhunters in finding candidates to fill genuine vacancies. So nothing we didn’t know there! As a result, her employer, a major international executive search and selection consultancy, resorted to placing bogus job vacancies on the internet so that it could receive CVs from unsuspecting people who thought they were applying for a genuine vacancy, and then took these CVs to companies, trawling for business.

Most companies were downsizing, and so these trawling exercises were, in the main, a waste of time. Whilst she was employed by this highly regarded consultancy, she witnessed a reduction in the number of headhunters it employed, mirroring a trend in the general recruitment industry. No real revenue-generating vacancies meant a reduced income for the consultancies, resulting in fewer jobs for recruiters.

HOW TO DO IT PROPERLY

There are numerous websites on the internet that advertise job vacancies. Some are related to specific industries but others cater for many industries and are used by numerous individual agencies in the UK. All will have search mechanisms, of which some are more superior than others. Be sure to specify the criteria as closely as possible to the role required otherwise the lists produced can be long and tedious to scan through.

All will give you the option on the area of the country required, if not you can supply this as a keyword search with the criteria. There is normally a detailed description of the role and who is advertising it on the website and many of the websites allow you to apply via the website without having to write an email.

If this option is available you will have to register with the site, normally your logon is your email address, and then you will be offered other services like email alerts (see below). When you apply for role via the website you will be sent a confirmatory email to say what has been applied for.

The general websites that are very good and seem to be used by a good range of agencies are:
gojobsite.co.uk - planetrecruit.com - totaljobs.com - reed.co.uk - jobserve.com - workthing.com

However, because of the danger of the CV?s format being corrupted by being sent over the internet, it is advisable to follow up each application with a hard copy.

EMAIL ALERTS

When you register with a job vacancy website there will be other services they offer, one of which is to set up email alerts. This saves an enormous amount of time as it avoids you having to search the databases yourself everyday.

You will be offered the same search criteria as in a normal search through the database and in some cases you will be asked how often you want the alert sent. If you are actively looking for a new job, set these up to be received daily. In today?s climate it appears that if you don?t send in your CV within 24 hours of the job being posted on the site your CV possibly won?t even be looked at for the role. With a lot of people seeking work the agencies are looking for as close a match as possible to the Job Description and Person Specification

CVs

With so few genuine jobs around it is best to discuss vacancies with agencies before you apply, and then to tailor your CV to highlight your skills and experience relevant to the key requirements for that particular vacancy. This is time consuming in itself but you will stand a better chance of being selected to be put forward to the client.

Once you have registered you will be given the option of loading your CV onto the website. They claim that agencies do scan these to fill vacancies, and this is true, as clients have been contacted via this route for other vacancies. In this case put your CV on-line.

There are also some websites solely for this use and once you have posted your CV it will be sent out under your email address to all agencies you have signed up with. Try: cvposter.com, and iprofile.com

AGENCIES / COMPANIES

Even though you have sent in your CV for a previous role and may be registered with the agency, if you see other roles with the same agency you must submit your CV again for every role. Agencies are saying that they can receive hundreds of CVs for every job advertised, so tailored CVs, or an extra page added to highlight your skills for a specific role, is essential.

If your CV is pulled out from the others, agencies will contact you within a few days or the next week, to say they want to forward it to the client. Not all companies are moving quickly on interviews and it can be up to four weeks before you may hear if you have been offered an interview or not.

Good luck, but don’t hold your breath!

The Career Doctor is Eric Hearn, Chartered MCIPD and Managing Director of Milverton Career Solutions Ltd, Ascot, Berkshire, UK.

Contact details:
Tel: 01344 624383
Email: milvertoncareers@btconnect.com
Website: www.careerdevelopment.co.uk