I’m not going to put this in GQ because I don’t need an annotated bibliography amonst the responses. I’m making an observation and would love input if any people have it.
Mr. Cranky has been looking for a full-time job. Freelancing is fine, but he’d like to know what else is out there that he might be qualified for. He works in the computer animation field, in both the animation itself and the programming of the software that makes it possible. Between the two of us we regularly peruse local and regional job listings in the papers and in various online job boards and listing sites (altavista careers, monster.com, etc. We’ve got a book with a lot of URLs of job listing sites, too).
The thing that surprises us is how many listings we run across, almost accidentally, which appear (apparently) only on the website of the particular company who is hiring. Many firms have a “career opportunities” link on their site and plenty of job listings, but they never seem to post these anywhere else. This staggers me, because some of these firms aren’t well-known and there is no great way for a candidate to track them all down and find these openings.
We’re wondering why this is. Is it because (A) the firms have an arrogant attitude of “if they really want the job, they’ll find US via our website” or (B) they use headhunters or resume-posting sites to actively recruit people or © they aren’t really desperate to fill the position, but want to have proof that they “Looked for six months” if the right H1-B person comes along? Any ideas?