Clue Wagon » Applying for a Job

Why Candidate Pipelines Are Good For You

Kerry Scott — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:00:41 +0000

A reader writes:

I just had a half-hour phone interview with a recruiter. Right off the bat, she told me that she doesn’t really have a job opening. She’s just building her “pipeline.” I almost hung up. Why do they waste my time like that?

Well, it’s possible that she was wasting your time. I don’t think so, though.

Recruiters build candidate pipelines so that they have people in mind when an opening occurs. For example, when I was working for a brewery, we worked hard to build relationships with all of the people in the brewing industry who might be a fit for the types of jobs we had. Then, when a job became available, we didn’t have to run an ad. We just went to the database and pulled up the people we already knew from our months of relationship building.

This model doesn’t work when the candidate is somehow deceived. If you’re tricked into thinking there’s an opening, that’s not cool. It sounds like this recruiter was up front with you though, in which case there really isn’t a problem. Basically, you’re networking…with someone who fills jobs in your line of work. That’s good for both of you.

I think we’re going to see a lot more of this after the holidays. The economy isn’t good yet, but one of the first glimmers of hope you’ll see is recruiters starting to rebuild candidate pipelines. I’m already hearing about people who are planning to do that in January. That’s good news for all of us.

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Make the Cover Letter Your Secret Weapon

Kerry Scott — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:44 +0000

My post today is actually a guest post on the Pongo Resume blog. It’s about cover letters. You need one. Here’s why.

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7 Ways You Can Use Your Phone to Screw Yourself Out of a Job Opportunity

Kerry Scott — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:55:03 +0000

This post originally appeared on January 26, 2009.

Music instead of ringing—Apparently, there’s this new thing where instead of hearing a ringing sound when you someone, you hear music, chosen by the owner of the phone. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that-but consider whether your choice of music is really representing you well. A friend of mine just called a candidate to set up an interview for a management position, and was treated to a song that mentioned the singer’s intent to go to a club and “spread a little love and spread a couple cheeks.” She called back twice to make sure she heard it right…and then she hung up and called another candidate instead.
Answering machine or voice mail greetings—Back when I started recruiting, most people didn’t have voice mail at home-just answering machines—and hardly anyone had a cell phone. As a result, I called people at home, and listened to long, long outgoing messages featuring their children singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and doing little skits and all sorts of cutsie stuff. I love kids, and mine are adorable too, but they don’t belong on the answering machine (at least, not while you’re job hunting). More recently, as more people have cell phones and home phones with personal voice mail, the mailboxes are usually for one person rather than the family…but that doesn’t stop the stupid stuff. The whole pretend-you-really-answered-the-phone-and-can’t-hear-the-caller routine is not that funny to begin with, and it’s even less funny when you have 20 candidates to call in a day. Knock it off. Change your outgoing greeting to something reasonably professional (and short!), at least for the duration of your job search.
Kids, spouses, or roommates— I can think of two-count ‘em, TWO-people I’ve called in my entire career whose kids have done an exceptional job taking a message. I made sure to let the parents know when I spoke to them later. The rest, though…forget it. Teach them to let calls roll to voice mail or the machine unless they recognize the number on the caller ID. I’d much, much rather leave a message with a machine than try to get a 10-year-old to successfully find a pen and some paper, spell my name, my company name, and my complete phone number, and then remember to give you the message. Roommates can be even worse. I can’t count the number of roommates I’ve spoken to who have refused to take a message altogether, saying they were too busy or couldn’t find a pen or said “I’m not his secretary.” Even better are the ones who think you are the other woman or something, and ask you what the hell you want with their husband/boyfriend. Love those. Best of all are the ones who, upon hearing you’re with XYZ Company, think you’re selling something and hang up on you.
Television— It blows my mind when people leave the TV blaring when they’re on the phone with an employer. I’ve had people try to do this through entire phone interviews, and guess what? That sound travels better than you think. I can’t understand a word you’re saying, because all I can hear is the Dr. Phil theme song. Hit the MUTE button before you even pick up the phone. It is never okay to have the TV on during a business call.
Call Waiting—Honestly, unless you are waiting for a call that is truly life-or-death, don’t interrupt a call about a job. You’re telling the employer that you have better things do to than talk to them, and that’s usually not a good message to send. If you MUST take the other call, make sure you’ve really pressed the right button. I once had someone say, “Hang on, I’m talking to some bitch from XYZ company,” not realizing I was still on the line.
Taking calls while driving (or at the checkout counter, or getting your hair done)—Seriously, I’d much rather leave a message than compete for your attention with the other people you’re dealing with. You’re being rude to them AND to me. That’s just not cool. Just let it roll to voice mail until you’re someplace where you’re not in traffic and not talking to someone else.
Peeing—Wondering whether we can hear that through the phone? Yes. We can.

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4 Ways to Handle Gender-Ambiguous Names

Kerry Scott — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:16:09 +0000

Every so often, I hear from a reader about how to address a cover letter to someone when they can’t tell whether the person is male or female. Judging by my kindergartener’s classmates’ names, this problem is only going to grow as those Dakotas and Jordans grow up (although she has one classmate whose first name is “Sir Michael.” Not Michael. “Sir Michael.” So I guess that cover letter pretty much addresses itself.).

Since I actually have one of those ambiguous first names, I think I’ve pretty much seen every possibility. Here are some ways you can handle this:

Use the first name. I know there are a few dinosaurs left who can’t stand to be addressed by their first names. In my experience those are the sorts of people who are going to find a way to be offended no matter what you do. Using the first name is the solution I’ve seen most often, and I always figured it was either because it’s 2009 and not 1909, or because they can’t figure out what to call me (and my last name is also a challenge for people, so I feel sorry for anyone trying to send me anything).
Use the full name. I also get a fair amount of mail addressed to “Dear Kerry Sandberg Scott.” I’m not sure this is the most elegant solution, but it works (and you get to show me that you can spell all three of my names, so bonus points for that).
Use “Dear Mr./Ms. Surname” Anyone with a gender-neutral name is used to this. It’s not a big deal. You’re not going to offend them by telling them that their name is gender-neutral. They already know. (Clue: Women with two last names are not called Mrs., unless their husbands are running for office. Don’t call a two-last-name chick Mrs. If she went to the trouble to keep her own surname, it’s very likely that she’s not the sort of person who enjoys being called Mrs. It’s Ms. Trust me on this.)
Google. Sometimes you’re stumped because the name can go either way, but other times, it’s because the name is completely foreign to you. In these cases, sometimes it helps to Google. If all of the references to the name say “she,” there’s your answer. I’ve also used Facebook to search for a first name. For example, if you search the name “Hjalmer,” you’ll find that everyone with that first name on Facebook has a picture of a guy (it’s also a surname sometimes, but mostly it’s a Scandinavian male first name).

Bottom line—don’t sweat this too much. On behalf of people with names like “Kerry” everywhere, we’re used to it, and only the weeniest among us care that much if you get the gender right on the cover letter. In fact, to be honest, I don’t always notice what they call me. I’m just happy they bothered to include a cover letter at all.

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3 (Possible) Exceptions to the Do-Not-Call Rule

Kerry Scott — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:59:43 +0000

This post originally appeared on February 9, 2009.

Last week I talked about why you should never listen to people who tell you to call and follow up on a job application. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Here are three circumstances under which it might be okay to follow up on the resume you sent:

You were referred by a friend/colleague of the person you’re contacting. If the hiring manager or the corporate recruiter is a personal friend or colleague of someone you know, and that person says you should call, then go ahead and do it. What you’re looking for here is someone who can say with absolute certainty, “Yeah, I know Jose, and he’s not going to mind that you’re calling to follow up.”
You have serious problems with the application process that cannot be resolved any other way. Back in the days when resumes arrived via email, I occasionally had candidates who would call me because their email bounced, or they got error messages, or other stuff happened that genuinely made them wonder whether I’d receive their resumes. In those cases, obviously, I didn’t mind the follow-up (and, in fact, I appreciated knowing that they were having issues, because it helped me work with the IT folks to figure out what was wrong). More recently, most medium-sized and larger companies are using an applicant tracking system (ATS) to manage candidates. Occasionally they don’t work the way they should. If you have problems with a company’s online application process, look for an 800 number or email address to use. It’s usually at the bottom of the screen, or somewhere in the error message itself. Those are important because applicant tracking systems are usually run by an outside company that hosts the application…not the company to which you’re applying. The company to which you’re applying, ironically, can’t usually help much with the technical problems. If there really is NO online or phone support, and you really can’t get the thing to work, and you’re sure you’re following the directions…then it’s okay to call the company. Take good notes on what you did and which error messages you got, though, so they know you’re not just a dolt who can’t work a computer. Sometimes those systems really suck, but the corporate types who implemented them don’t always admit it unless you show them what went wrong.
You’re applying for a job where being obnoxious is a plus. In some company cultures, only the super-flashy people get ahead. I’d rather be hit in the head with a frozen chicken* than work for one of those companies, but if that’s your thing, knock yourself out. There are also some fields (like public relations, for example) where the definition of “obnoxious” is different than it would be for, say, accountants. That’s not to say that PR people are obnoxious…just that they are, perhaps, more likely to respect your aggressive approach, rather than resent it. If you work in one of those fields, and you are calling other people who work in those same fields, your mileage may vary. If you’re calling the HR person who is recruiting for one of those fields, though, the normal rules of obnoxious apply, because we HR people mostly hate that kind of thing. Be flashy only with your fellow flash-o-philes, please.

One caveat: Even in situations where it might be okay to call, I’d still recommend emailing instead. A telephone is an inherently rude object. When you are in the middle of doing something else, it makes a loud ringing sound, and asks you to drop whatever you are doing to talk to someone who randomly decided that this was good time to interrupt you without any real clue what you were working on. Email, on the other hand, is a little less intrusive. Additionally, unlike a phone call, an email recipient can reply at 3am if that’s what’s convenient. Email also allows you to show off the fact that you can form a coherent sentence. Not everyone can do that, so you get an edge instantly. If you MUST follow up on your application, I’d do it via email.

*NOTE: This is a colorful expression, not an actual invitation to hit me in the head with a frozen chicken. Last week I learned that there are some crazy people who are reading this blog, so I feel compelled to make this clear. I prefer not to be hit in the head, or in any other body part, with frozen dead animals of any sort. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

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Calling to Follow-Up? Hand Me a Fork.

Kerry Scott — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:37:08 +0000

This post originally appeared on February 3, 2009.

I’m new to blogging. One of the things that made me choose job hunting as my main focus is the fact that there are so many people giving unbelievably bad advice out there. Some of them are just tragically cluefree, and others are in the business of placing candidates and advising candidates rather than hiring candidates. There’s a big difference.

The one piece of advice that makes me the craziest is this:

“You should call to follow up on the resume you sent after you apply for a job.”

Honestly, every time I read that, I want to poke my eye out with a fork.

Yesterday, I read a quote from someone who thinks it is a good idea to call and follow up on your resume. Here’s what she said:

“Back when I worked in HR, I’d try to get people to follow the rules of course because that made my life easier – but the job seeker’s job isn’t to make HR’s life easier!”

And then I went to find a fork, so I could poke my eye out (unfortunately, we didn’t have a clean fork, because I forgot to run the dishwasher last night…duh).

Seriously, folks, this is SO not about “making HR’s life easier.” It’s actually really easy to skip-and-delete a couple hundred voice mail messages from people who want to make sure I have received their resume, or see if I have any questions, or whatever goofy line they’ve told you to use this week.

It’s really about understanding that the key variable in getting a job is being the right person for the job. It’s not about being the most attention-seeking candidate. It’s about being the most qualified candidate. If it’s not, you’re applying to the wrong company.

I know a guy who argues with me on this. He insists that you have to call to follow up, because you have to “stand out,” and “show them your enthusiasm” and all of that crap. He’s gotten various jobs using this pay-attention-to-me strategy, and invariably, he later whines about the politics and company culture. “It’s not fair!” he says. “They give all the plumb assignments to Joe, because he plays golf with the boss! Jane got a bigger bonus than everyone because she goes shopping with the owner!” And I’m like, dude, what did you expect? You specifically target companies who respond to the flashy one, not the talented one. If you try to side-step meritocracies, you can’t complain when you end up working someplace with no meritocracy.

Here’s the thing: in most instances, companies receive hundreds of candidates for a particular position. Let’s say there’s only 100 for the job you want (which is a really, really low number in this economy). If every one of those people called and left a two-minute voice mail, that’s nearly 3.5 hours just to listen to the voice mail messages. If they actually called you back to tell you that they’d receive your resume and would call you if they were interested in setting up an interview, that’s another 3.5 hours (assuming you only talk for two minutes, which, again, is a really low number). That’s why no one is calling you back (or calling you back with a terse message in a mildly hostile tone). Think you’re endearing yourself to the person who would rather have spent that seven hours actually interviewing qualified candidates? Nope.

Of course, all the advice says that you’re not really one of 100 candidates. It’s all about you. You’re the special one, so although those other people weren’t worth seven hours of somebody’s time, you are, because you are perfect for the job (or you really want the job, or whatever the logic is for this sort of thing). You have to stand out. You have to get ahead of those other people. You’re telling the recruiter that they need to see you…but that you don’t really trust them to figure out that you’re The One (because it’s not like they assess people’s fit for a particular job for a living, right?) . You’re saying that you need to take up some of their time giving them that guidance. Think that’s endearing? Nope. Even if you’re right, and the person on the other end is an idiot who wouldn’t know talent if it bit her in the ass, she’s unlikely to appreciate the fact that you’re essentially pointing that fact out to her.

Now, I have known handful of corporate recruiters who say that they pay more attention to the ones who call. In every case I can recall, it was because the recruiter was so disorganized that he/she wasn’t keeping up with the work, wasn’t really reading the submissions, or was otherwise…well, incompetent. I know far, far more recruiters who say they consider it a huge negative when people call. In fact, when companies say “No Calls Please” in their ad, it usually means they’re going to disqualify you if you call. That’s actually a little harsh for me, but “can’t follow directions” or “thinks the rules only apply to other people” isn’t a good way to impress a company.

Now, there are a few (very few) circumstances under which a follow-up call after an application might be a good idea. I’ll cover those in a future post (probably on Monday, because Monday is list day around here). Also, if you really just can’t resist the urge to follow-up, you can do it by email, and it’s far less annoying than a phone call. Because people read faster than they speak, email is MUCH faster than voice mail. It’s less intrusive than a ringing phone, and unlike returning phone calls, responding to email can be done 24/7. You’re at least showing a little bit more respect for the recruiter’s time.

Generally speaking, though, if someone tells you that you should call to follow up on each of your applications…well, somewhere an HR professional is reaching for a fork. Let’s hope it’s not the one who is deciding whether you’re going to get an interview or not.

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The Myth of Resume Buzzwords

Kerry Scott — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:54:50 +0000

Yesterday’s post on why you shouldn’t customize your resume generated a fair number of comments. One of the things that came up a lot was the idea that you have to have certain buzzwords from an ad in your resume in order to have a recruiter actually see it.

Let me tell you a secret:

That’s pretty much bullshit.

This is more or less an urban legend. It’s something that some talking head said on some 24-hour news channel once, and then other people started saying it, and now there’s this whole legion of people who earnestly believe that recruiters have secret codewords, and you only get to have your resume viewed by a human if you know these secret codeword. Being codewords, they’re very, very hard to figure out, and you probably need to spend a lot of time pondering it (or better yet, hire somebody way smarter than you to “coach” you).

Doesn’t that just SOUND like a load of crap? Because it is. I really can’t say enough what a load of crap this is. It’s right up there with “Microsoft will send you $1,000 if you forward this email” and “If you go to New York, people are going to kidnap and drug you and steal your kidneys.”

Here’s the truth:

Not every company has an applicant tracking system (that’s the fancy resume database—it’s called an ATS for short). Most big companies do, and some mid-sized companies do (but not as many as the media and the blogs and the people who sell them would lead you to believe). The company I last worked at had 3,400 employees and a TON of turnover/recruiting, and they only just implemented an ATS in 2007. It cost $600,000. A lot of companies don’t have that kind of money…so they don’t have an applicant tracking system. Very generally speaking, if a company has you apply by filling out a long form online, they have an ATS. If they have you copy-and-paste your cover letter and resume into a very brief form, they may or may not have an ATS (but mostly they don’t, or the form would take you an hour to fill out). If they’re having you email a resume, they probably don’t have an ATS (there are some ancient systems from the 1990s into which you’d email a resume, but they’re the exception, not the rule).
When you enter your cover letter and resume into the ATS, they’re both searchable. That means that, to use the example Charles gave in the comments on yesterday’s thread, if your resume says that you have experience as a trainer of beginners, and you’re concerned that the ad says they want someone with experience with novice users, you can call that experience out in your cover letter using phrase novice users. That way you’re covered no matter what phrase they’re using (although I would bet you a lot of money, if I had it, that even the dumbest recruiter is using the phrase trainer).
I’ve been recruiting for 14 years, and I’ve hired more corporate recruiters than I can count. Most of my friends are in recruiting and/or HR (jealous?). I know a lot of people who fill jobs for a living. I don’t know a single one (even the ones who suck) who is using secret codewords to filter resumes. They’re using words so obvious that if they’re not on your resume, you’re probably seriously un qualified. For example, when I’ve run an ad for a recruiter position, the words I use to search the ATS are: Recruit*. Hire/Hiring/Hired. Interview*. If I’d run an ad saying I wanted someone who was AIRS-trained, I might search on AIRS…but never in a million years would I ONLY look at the ones that had that word, even if I knew I was ONLY going to hire people who had that training. Even the recruiters I know who suck wouldn’t do that, because then they wouldn’t have a sense of their candidate pool. Recruiters want to know what sort of population their ad drew in. They want to know whether their ad drew in 10 good people out of 250, or 200 out of 250. It makes a difference, because the hiring manager is going to ask, and because that’s part of how they determine how much to pay the person who gets the job, and because they need to know whether that was a good ad to run or if it needs work. So nobody, and I mean NOBODY is going to be dumb enough to ONLY use the secret codewords. Seriously. In fact, I don’t know very many recruiters who don’t at least glance at every submission, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else. I’ve never run an ad and not looked at every submission.
Some people are putting out this information because they want to make money. One of the reasons I’m so fired up about this today is because a couple of days ago, a friend of mine got an email. This friend works for a company that is widely known to be laying off a ton of people, and the email was an offer from a “resume coach.” The email talked about how employers only search for certain words on resumes, and these words are very hard to figure out for lay people, and since my friend didn’t know these secret words, he’d never get a job and his children would starve and they’d be buried in unmarked graves under a freeway overpass. For the low price of A THOUSAND FREAKIN’ DOLLARS, though, this guy would help my friend by writing him a resume that would get past the pearly gates of every employer in the U.S., and ensure that he took his rightful place among the incredibly lucky few who knew the secret and were therefore gainfully employed. My friend, who is facing a job loss after 15 years with the same company, is feeling pretty vulnerable, and she sent me this email asking if she should hire this clown, because she certainly didn’t know the secret codewords, and she didn’t want to starve her children. Now, how the hell would this “resume coach” know the buzzwords of my friend’s particular line of work better than my friend, who is actually IN that line of work? And how many people has this “resume coach” actually HIRED? And how many people actually fell for this line of crap?

Bottom line—corporate recruiters search for resumes using keywords. They do it the same way you search, say, Google for something you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a job hunting blog, you probably search for job hunting blog. You don’t search for clue boob ice cream Sandberg (well, actually, one person DID use that to find me…so maybe that’s not the best example). People try to make this (and lots of other things about job hunting) into this big scary thing that you can’t possibly figure out because you’re an idiot and they’re not. It’s just not true. It’s hard, but it’s not THAT hard.

Disclaimers: I’m not knocking all resume coaches. In fact, I’ve met some great ones through this blog and through Twitter. I’m just knocking the ones that prey on your insecurities and treat you like a moron and make stuff up. Also, there’s no picture on the RSS version of this post and it’s probably full of typos because I’m trying to get it done before the bus drops off my daughter, who is on her third day of kindergarten. I want to get this pissed-off post done quickly so I can play Candyland. Also, it’s fine with me if you want to put buzzwords on your resume. I just don’t want to you to feel you have to spend two hours on each opening. That’s going to beat the crap out of you, and then it won’t matter if your resume had the right buzzword, because you’ll suck in the interview. That’s a bad investment.

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An Application is Not a Marriage Proposal

Kerry Scott — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:02:03 +0000

I just have to get this off my chest:

When you are applying for a job, you are…well, applying for a job. You are not making a lifetime commitment. You are not signing a blood pact. You are not tattooing some guy’s name across your chest. You are not signing over your firstborn. All your application says is, “I’m interested in hearing more about this.” That’s all it is.

This means that you don’t have to decide up front whether you want the job before you even apply. You just need to decide that (a) you need a job, and (b) this might not suck. That’s it.

You can fritter away weeks, even months, waiting for the perfect job to be posted on some job board…just so you can apply. Here’s what’s going to happen then: a thousand other people will apply too. Then you’ll spend the next couple of months make yourself crazy by checking your email every four minutes. Odds are you won’t get the job, because a thousand people is a lot. Then you’ll be crushed, and you’ll feel like a loser, and that feeling will make it even harder for you to beat the odds the next time a perfect job comes along. In the meantime, you’ll starve to death, because perfect jobs are pretty hard to come by (and they’re rarely posted on job boards). That’s why they invented the lottery.

You don’t find a spouse by dating only people you are 100% sure you would want to marry. You find a spouse by meeting lots of people. Otherwise, you end up either alone or married to the wrong person (usually, and I’m sure there are exceptions, but they mostly happen on compounds in the western United States, before the government agents arrive). The same is true for finding a job. You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince (or princess, or whatever you’re into).

Oh, and here’s another clue: The one you think you really, really want might actually suck. Once I got a job at a place that is a major “employer of choice” in my town. Everyone was envious. Getting that job was like getting into Harvard. Then I started the job, and I hated it. Taking a new job is always a gamble, even after a bunch of interviews. If you think you can tell the good from the sucky just by reading the ad, you’re either crazy or psychic. My money’s on crazy.

There’s no perfect job. There are only jobs that suck and jobs that don’t. Most jobs don’t suck harder than unemployment.

Apply. Get out there. The worst that can happen is that you get some interview experience, and find out where you DON’T want to work. That’s useful information that helps you find the job that suits you. Don’t apply for jobs that are a crazy stretch, but if there’s a reasonable chance that you’re qualified, go for it.

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5 Reasons the Employer Re-Posted the Ad

Kerry Scott — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:00:10 +0000

You know what sucks?

When you apply for a job, or even interview for a job…and then they re-run the ad a week later. Job hunting is hard on your ego to begin with, but this seems to be the thing that really makes candidate feel like crap.

The thing is, I can only think of a couple of times in my whole career when I’ve re-run an ad because I truly didn’t have a single good candidate in the whole batch. You always think that’s the reason, but I can tell you that usually it’s something else. Here are five reasons my corporate recruiting friends and I have re-posted ads:

Something went wrong. Most of the recruiters I know are looking for jobs. The people who are doing the recruiting at a lot of companies are not recruiters…they’re HR generalists or hiring managers. These folks are doing the best they can, but they aren’t always experts on the technology the recruiters use to fill jobs. Sometimes they don’t know how to use the fancy applicant database. Sometimes the email gets screwed up. I once knew a harried HR manager who accidentally deleted the entire Outlook folder with every applicant she’d had for the past two years. Stuff happens. That’s why you might need to go old school.
They waited too long. As I mentioned in last week’s post on unresponsive employers, sometimes nothing happens because…nothing happens. The manager wants an ad, so the recruiter runs the ad…and then the manager goes on vacation, or gets busy with something else, or just sits on the stack of resumes. Weeks (and even months) go by, and by the time they’re ready to actually work on filling the job, they think the candidates must surely have found jobs by now. Plus, truth be told, they’re a little embarrassed by the fact that they’ve kept these people hanging so long. They’re afraid that if they call you, you’ll say something like, “Geez, I applied for that one two months ago—I’ve already accepted another job. What took you so long?” So they don’t. They just start over instead, because it seems easier. Sounds ridiculous? Yep. But this happens all the time. Seriously.
The person they hired didn’t work out. Hiring is not an exact science. Sometimes they get it wrong. Other times, a candidates accept the offer, then takes another job instead, or doesn’t pass the drug test, or fails to show up on the first day (really!). It’s embarrassing for the employer to call the applicants they’ve already rejected (or left hanging). Plus, it’s awkward to say, “We really liked you, and it turns the guy we thought was even better actually smokes crack, so we’d like to offer you the job instead.” So they don’t. They often think it’s easier to just start over. In this market, though, you can’t be offended by being the runner up. The competition is incredibly fierce out there, and some really good people are ending up being the second choice. Obviously, they should have picked you to begin with, but nobody’s perfect.
Something’s shady on the job board. There’s a popular job board here in Milwaukee that used to have an interesting practice. Their account managers would “refresh” employers’ job listings “as a service to the employer.” They claimed it was to make sure employers had lots and lots of candidates and were satisfied customers. My take was that they were doing it to make it look like they had a lot of viable job listings when they really didn’t, and that they were pissing off my candidates by making it look like I’d blown them off and re-run the ad. I complained bitterly, and I know a lot of my HR colleagues did too. Eventually, they listened, and they no longer do this (and actually they’re a great job board now, which is why I’m not naming them, because this was quite a few years ago). Unfortunately, I know there are other job boards out there that are still using this technique. Sometimes employers accidentally refresh their own jobs (it’s easy to do when you’re cleaning up your job listings), but if you’re seeing a pattern on a particular site, it may not be the employer at all.
The place is a hellhole. There are a few employers in every town who are constantly looking to fill jobs. That’s because they suck. If you see the same position listed over and over, and it’s not a traditionally high-turnover job (like, say, call center work), there might be a reason. I know one employer, for example, who is constantly looking for HR people, because the HR department there is so bad that everyone quits within a month or two. When I saw a recruiter opening listed there every other month for a couple of years, I knew something was up (and I later found out that the boss was a whack-a-doodle). Keep an eye on your local job market even when you’re actively looking, and you’ll gain some valuable insight into which companies you should avoid.

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6 Things You Need To Know About Unresponsive Employers

Kerry Scott — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:35:56 +0000

Last week I posted about candidates who are angry with companies who don’t respond when they apply and/or interview with companies. The comments were interesting, and I started to reply…but it turned into a list.

First, let me be clear: Every employer should respond to every resume submission, and follow up after every interview. While it’s not as automated as candidates seem to think (because most companies actually do not have these fancy applicant tracking systems you keep hearing about), it’s not that hard to set up an email auto-reply for resume submissions, even if you’re just using Outlook or something. There’s no excuse for not doing it. As for companies that don’t respond after an interview—well, that just blows my mind. It’s not physically possible to interview so many people that you can’t send them a canned rejection email, at the very least.

This list, then, isn’t meant to make excuses for these people. There’s no excuse. They should always respond. But there ARE some things you should be aware of:

Stuff gets lost. If you didn’t get a response to your resume, it’s possible that it’s because they didn’t receive it. It happens. That’s one more reason it’s up to you to avoid depending entirely on technology to get the job.
Your spam filter might have eaten it. When I was recruiting full-time, I’d get at least one angry phone call/email a month from a candidate who was mad because she’d never heard from me after applying or interviewing with us. Each time I was mortified, and each time, I checked my “Sent” folder to see if I’d sent them something. In my 14 year career, only once did I find that I’d failed to send the candidate the email (and that was because I’d spelled the email address wrong—duh). Before you fire off a letter to the errant employer, check your spam folder.
The recruiters lost their jobs months ago. When companies stop hiring, they often lay off all of the recruiters. Most of the recruiters I know are out of work right now. The HR people you’re dealing with now are often not recruiters, but HR generalists (people who handle stuff like sexual harassment complaints, terminations, people who can’t get along with their managers, etc.). I only know two HR generalists in the whole world who actually like recruiting. They’re often doing their regular job in addition to the recruiting job…and they also don’t always know how to work the applicant tracking system, if there is one (that’s the big database your resume goes into). This is pretty much a recipe for a bad candidate experience. I’m not making excuses for them, because having a sucky job is not a license to be rude. I do, however, think that’s part of the reason that so many people are being treated poorly by companies right now.
The worst part of recruiting is the managers (at least a few of them). I pretty much loved everything about recruiting. The only thing I didn’t love was working with incompetent hiring managers. Every so often, I’d get one who just couldn’t be bothered to actually fill the job. He’d insist on running an ad, and we’d get all these resumes, and then he’d sit on them. And sit. And sit. And I’d bug him daily, and weeks (even months) would go by, and this idiot keeps saying, “I’m too busy to look at the resumes.” He won’t let me just pick some and screen them—no, only he can do it. Then, when we finally get to interviews, he can’t make a decision. We’d agree up front that we’d make a decision within a week of the last interview, and this guy couldn’t do it. By then he’s not returning phone calls, so I’m stalking him in person…only he’s “too busy” to decide. People always think it’s the HR person who is responsible when they’re not getting an answer back. That’s just not always the case.
HR people don’t hire. Hiring managers hire. The hiring manager is ultimately responsible for filling the job. HR people do not hire anyone. They’re in a service role, serving the managers by helping them hire effectively. That’s why when you’re following up after the interview, you need to do so with both the HR person AND the hiring manager. If the HR person is the problem, the hiring manager needs to know that you’re not hearing back (in the same way that the store manager needs to know if a cashier treats you poorly…because that HR person serves the hiring manager). If the hiring manager is the problem, the HR person needs to know so that she can shake things loose and get the process moving. But if you’re directing your anger at the HR people, save some of the person who is actually responsible for filling the job: the hiring manager. Hold them accountable as well.
If you have a bad experience, speak up. Tell your friends. Companies who treat candidates like crap need to be held accountable. I knew one person who had an experience so bad that she wrote to the company president (and really, the circumstances in that case were so extreme that he really needed to know). The worst offender got fired as a result, and she deserved it. It’s very easy these days to share your experiences, good or bad…and companies who haven’t figured that out yet are in for a rude awakening.

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