While a friend was recently looking for work, we noticed a very scary trend. We both noticed that we had never gotten a job from an interenet posting and more importantly, neither of us even knew anyone who had ever gotten a job from monster, career builder, and such.
I personally have sent out about 60 applications in the last 5 years (I have a job) and the best response I ever got was “thanks, we’ll hang on to your resume: this is an automated response”. After 4 months of sending two to three resumes per day, my friend got a job HE FOUND IN THE PAPER.
Has anyone here ever gotten a job or known someone who’s gotten a job from one of those job searches?
Nope, I don’t know of anyone who has. I have noticed when looking for jobs in the DFW area that most of the jobs you find advertised on the internet are actually headhunters looking for people, not actual employers. The rates are predictably lousy as well. All of my jobs here in Dallas (I’m a computer consultant), came about because I knew someone or they knew me.
I didn’t get the jobs but I got interviews from companies that had ads in the Washington Post’s internet database. Plus I accidentally sent my resume to a legal agency on Monster and next thing I knew they had set up an interview at a law firm for me and I had the job that day. Go figure.
It works sometimes. You just have to try all methods, not just one.
i was unemployed for 9 months last year (im a graphic designer) and spent everyday on the net looking for stuff. it was simply cheaper + easier to e-mail out my CV to various graphics employment sites. monster was no use what so ever, i used mad.co.uk, which used to be a free service, but now i want to change jobs, its £20 for a years subscription.
in those 9 months, i estimate i applied for 5-600 jobs. of which i got 9 interviews (1 successful), too many e-mail rejections to count and about 50 rejection letters. 6 months in, a reliable source told me that there mainly was no job, companies just like to know whos out there for future reference. which is great when you’re living off £50 a week.
the job i got was through an agency i’d sent my CV to 6 months previously, without remembering it at all.
so it can be done, but ive found that the jobs in the papers are horribly overapplied to.
My husband just got a job from a Monster posting. I also had an offer from a Monster-posted job, but didn’t end up accepting it. I did accept a job from a listing posted on the local paper’s internet site, but not posted in the print version of the paper.
You do need to be selective. A growing number of postings are third party “job” listings put out by employment agencies trolling for job seekers. We never got any joy from those.
I got my current job by looking at their website, finding their job listing section, and applying for jobs through that. I also got interview requests for jobs at 3 other companies by doing the same thing on their websites - but by the time those calls came, I’d already accepted the offer for this job.
The only bites I got through Monster.com were one phone interview for a data entry position (never heard back, never got a straight answer when calling back to follow up), and numerous “please come to this meeting” E-mails from different recruiters for Citicorp’s newish financial planning services branch. The numerous E-mails part makes sense when you realize - after attending this meeting with other hopeful people - that new locations branch off from old locations and feed money back to their “parent” in a multi-level marketing fashion. So, I’m sure that the recruiters would get compensated in some fashion for bringing in new people, as they were mostly managers at the various locations they had running at the time.
I’ve hear repeatedly that the best way to find a job is through social networking (i.e. contacts via friends, etc).
My problem is that nearly everybody I know is I met from work, and the industry we are all has been tanking. Pretty much my only hope now is to find a job via internet listings, since most of my network is also unemployed too.
I truley believe that most of the jobs don’t really exist. I applied recently for a job that was written for me. Had the exact amount of qualifications without being over qualified…and never heard anything back.
My wife used several career search sites. I can’t say offhand which they were, but all she end up with was several offers for cattle-call interviews and spam, spam, spam.
metroshane, you might not realize how many applications they are getting in this current climate. The jobs do exist (mostly), there are just a hell of a lot of equally qualified people applying for them.
And 60 applications in 5 years isn’t really very many. The three or 4 your friend was sending per day is probably the minimum.
I do think that the job listed in the paper can provide a better shot in some ways. They are often listed by smaller businesses that really need someone right now, rather than larger ones who can afford to conduct a leisurely search over a few months.
All in all, I think the local paper (print or online) and specific company websites are a better bet. But your question was whether anyone had ever really gotten a job through Monster, etc., and the answer in our case was yes.
Not only did I get my current job through a posting in Monster, I just hired someone who applied through Monster for an open position in my staff.
Having gone through the process from both ends I will give you the following pointers:
[list=1]
[li]Always include a cover letter that highlights the strengths of your resume as related to the job posting[/li][li]Make sure your resume is readable. Think of it as a posting here, don’t pack everything all together.[/li][li]This is the most important: Make sure your resume and cover letter show that you are qualified for the position. Just because you reset passwords 10 years ago does not mean you’re a security expert.[/li][li]And if you do manage to get a call back from one of these postings please, please, act like you actually want the job. Enthusiasm really does count.[/li][/list=1]
I think that most job postings, anywhere, are fake. They’re either seeing what’s out there or cynically going through the motions in order to pay lip service to hiring regulations.
Having said that, though, I have had people call me based on looking at my resume at Monster, for jobs not posted there. One trick is to update your resume every few days, so it pops up as “new” to potential employers…
Yes, I got my job through Monster. I’ll have to say that networking did not work for me–I did get an interview with my husband’s company, but didn’t get hired (they decided, after all that, to fill the position internally instead.) So, I guess when your connections fall through, the internet is as good as anyplace to look.
You do have to sift through the listings, though. I had a search set up where Monster was supposed to email me the new listings that fit my search criteria for each day. I had to turn that off–most of the listings it sent me were those stupid employment agency things. Often there were many listings that were essentially identical.
I think job boards can be somewhat useful. Although you do get a lot of crap calls - headhunters - you can at least find out who is hiring (a lot of those jobs are legitimate - and it’s usually easy to tell which aren’t) and go directly to their site. Also, I would recommend, in addition to looking in the paper, your local area chamber of commerce web site. They usually have a list or links to a list of area companies, and frequently have those companies’ web sites posted. There are a LOT of companies who do not advertise on job boards. However, I think that many companies, particularly the larger ones, have policies in place that require them to advertise their jobs for at least 5 days.
Anyway, don’t rule anything out. Also, it looks much nicer when you send in your own resume, via e-mail or hard copy, instead of hitting the “apply” button on monster. I’m not sure about other companies’ hiring practices, but our HR staff is generally more likely to interview someone when they receive a word copy of their resume rather than a resume stored on monster. Same goes for cover letters. And while you’re unemployed, keep your skills fresh. If you can, learn new things to add to your resume.
Well, here’s an interesting follow-up. A local opening perfectly fitting Mr. Pug’s background opened up, and was listed on two different job boards by two different contract companies. I applied through the job boards (monster, net-temps), and then called each contractor today to ensure that they received the e-mails.
Neither place had.
So in each case, I got the company’s fax number and a contact name and faxed the damned letter and resume directly to a human being. Later today, I’ll call each person and ensure that he actually received the damned fax. Jeez, I wonder how many jobs we’ve missed because online applications sent through a job board just went to cyberspace.
I think this is one major problem: it seems that many companies will post job openings even if they plan to promote from within, to satisfy various HR and perhaps even legal requirements. I know a manager who frequently posted job opportunities because he had to, but only hired his friends. Quite the scoundrel. So really the job opportunity is legitimately there, but outsiders never actually have a shot at it. Unfortunately such situations completely waste an applicant’s valuable time and emotional well-being.
Also, search around to see if you can find a specialty job board for your interests. For example, I’m a librarian in Colorado and nearly all public, private and academic libraries post to the Colorado State Library jobline, so I frequently check it. Professional associations (in my case the American Library Association) often have national job lists as well on their websites and the openings are likely going to be legitimate.
For an overall jobs list, I’d suggest using America’s Job Bank over Monster.com or Hotjobs.com and so on. There’s far less spam on it.
I posted on Monster.com and, mainly because nothing ever came of it, forgot that I did so. Then one day, I got e-mail saying my account had expired. Irritated, I sent this reply:
“Oh, darn. My Monster.com resume has expired. I feel terrible. Having gotten JACK SQUAT from my tenure on Monster.com so far, I will be sure to renew so I can keep enjoying all of that JACK SQUAT. I wonder if I can pay my rent with some of the JACK SQUAT that I have earned.”
A few days later, I got a job I had found while surfing Craig’s List.