Posted on 12/04/2018 2:32:09 PM PST by SeekAndFind
No one likes dealing with bureaucracy, but some kinds of bureaucracy are easier to tolerate than others.
It's no picnic for a kid to get their learner's permit, take driving lessons, complete a written driving exam and then take a driving test in order to get their license.
The good news is that the driver's license system works. When your kid completes the steps, they'll get their driver's license.
If only job-hunting were such a simple process!
When you complete an online job application, you're guaranteed exactly nothing. You may get an interview and you may not.
You may hear back from the employer or they may remain silent forever.
There's a reason I call the online job application system the Black Hole.
Just like a real black hole in space into which whole galaxies collapse (and are never heard from again), recruiting Black Holes suck in resumes without so much as a thank-you note in return! As a functional job-search channel, online applications are useless. Your chances of getting a good job by filling out an online application are about as good as your chances of winning the lottery or maybe worse.
At least by law, somebody has to win the lottery!
Any company can post job ads and collect resumes they don't have to hire or even interview anyone if they don't feel like it.
Here are 10 reasons online job applications are a waste of a job-seeker's time.
1. They don't work. Ask any job-seeker about their success rate with the online job applications they've completed. They will tell you that they complete forty to sixty applications for every job interview they get. That's a terrible return on your time-and-energy investment!
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Yup! As they say in Chicago,"We don't want nobody that nobody sent."
If they’re desperate for knowledge and experience even if temporary.
That’s how I started out, followed by a phone interview followed by an HR interview.
My GD got a job from an online application.
I'm 51, with arthritic knees and a long background of mostly physical work that I can't reasonably do anymore. Every day is a kick in the teeth in this mainly factory-driven area I live in. I can't even get Walmart to look at me.
Let's talk about screwed, here.
Did that today. Walked into a branch, asked for the Manager, got the Assistant Manager, and pitched like hell. Asked how to get the job. Demonstrated the skill I have, and pointed out the ones I clearly would have to learn quickly. Asked how to enter banking in any case given the wide variety of roles.
Left a cover / resume specific to their job.
Went to the website AFTERWARDS and submitted the resume.
Sent thank you letter in email same day.
I have a LOT of assets at that bank. And I’ve made huge money for my other employers, demonstrated on the resume. Hopefully, that will strike up an interest.
H.R. Departments are LIBERALS.
You will be sniffed out.
Foot in the door...
Once you are in a bank, all they care about is sales. If you can sell, then you just grab the best paying sales job they got. And if the bank doesn’t pay well, if you got the sales volume, then you just find a bank that pays better and they’ll beg you to join them.
I was lucky and worked for the investment division of WAMU for the 10 yrs running up to the fail. The investment division was very well run compared to the bank. In hindsight, the bank failure was directly attributable to the President Steve Rotella who clearly sabotaged the firm for the sake of JPMorgan/Chase. One thing they did was get rid of all the good bankers and promote the truly awful ones... By the end, the bank branches were all run by toxic petty craps that made squat but loved to boss others around. 95 percent vimmins too.
True! The seeds of corporate destruction lay in the HR departments. When making money is second to political correctness and feel good social causes, the hand writing is on the wall! Lots of big tech firms being run just like that today.... oh how the mighty shall fall....
Unfortunately, for non-professional jobs, most employers nowdays only accept online applications.
“I highly doubt anyone even looks at online apps.”
Ten years ago I was in H.R., and was Project Manager for instituting an online application system. It is impersonal, but all were printed out. All were reviewed by the Recruiter for that job.
What I don’t like is that when they’re printed, they all look identical because the doc fields are populated by the text the applicant submits. You never see an original resume’. I hated that because my resumes looked beautiful.
It made me know that when I submitted my app online, my resume looked like the Big Dope’s resume’ who pushed the “send” after me. Fortunately, grammar and spelling remain as they’re entered, so that can be reviewed by the Recruiter and weeded out.
“A number of my co-workers are also middle-aged.”
Hubby’s career was with a major defense contractor. About five years ago they started courting retirees to come back to work because the “new kids” are horrid employees. The over-55s generally have a strong work ethic and don’t have a sense of entitlement.
Sounds like an ‘underpaid’ reporter taking out her ‘issues’.
I have a MS in Applied Physics, and 25+ years as an engineering manager, and 12+ as an engineer.
I can’t get a job. I can’t get past the EEOC screening. A white, middle-aged male, non-disabled, not gay (yes I’ve seen/been asked this).
Found myself out of work when the Exec-C suite decided that their failures were everyone else’s fault.
I go to interview(s) and you can see the unmistakable and stunned look in their eyes of “Oh...you’re older than I thought”. It’s pretty much over at that point and the conversation descends into some oddly worded question about how I would do X.
I’m 56 and in good shape and sharp as a tack.
Defense work might be a good option. Sure, they’re looking for veterans and people with existing security clearances — and you may not fit that profile. But in Defense work, the average age of the workers is higher than average. Not a lot of millennial hipsters are trying to build weapons. Therefore, the people who conduct the interviews are just expecting to see a bunch of older white guys come in the door. They can’t afford to turn away skilled people just because they have gray hair.
I can track my own career this way. At 14, I was delivering newspapers. One of my customers was so impressed with my dependability he invited me to apply to work at his supermarket (where he was a manager). Once there, I excelled and moved quickly from bagger to dairy clerk. At that point, I was asked to apply to a restaurant where one of my supermarket co-workers had gone to work...this pretty much lead to where I am today 30 years later, a regional vice-president for a major corporation.
I never "just applied" for a job. I was always recruited or recommended by people who knew what I could do. I was never just a name in a stack of resumes.
In my many years as hiring manager, almost all my hires are based on referrals and recommendations.
Bottom line: Network, network, network.
Go to job boards like dice.com. Use linkedin.com. If you are in high tech go to seminars and meetups. If head hunters are after you dont waste time with clueless ones who cant match canidates skills to job descriptions.
When I was a Boss and hiring IT people, I would get 400 resumes a day from Monster. You cannot process that. You resort to asking your team who they know.
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