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Online job applications -- avoid at all costs? (1 Viewer)

Doug B

Doug B

Footballguy
Ran across a few articles like these recently:

Ten Reasons Online Job Applications Are A Waste Of Time (Forbes)

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.
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Don't Waste Your Time with Online Job Applications -- Here's Why! (LinkedIn)
 

The recruiting process is profoundly broken. Every aspect of the traditional recruiting system is badly designed and badly executed ...

To begin the hiring process, we write delusional job ads that drive talented people away and make the average, capable job-seeking person decide that it's not worth applying for the job because they'll never have a chance of getting it.

Next, we force job-seekers to fill out endless forms on our bureaucratic, inhuman Applicant Tracking Systems. Can you imagine forcing customers to fill out form after form in order to buy from your company? You'd never dream of doing that!

Your company would go out of business in six weeks if you treated customers the shameful way you treat job-seekers.

...

As a job-seeker, you're wasting your time and energy applying for jobs online. Most applications sent through automated recruiting sites don't get a glance.

Even if your application or resume contains all the keywords found in the job ad, that won't help you.
Tons of people know how to cut and paste keywords out of a job ad into a resume. After the keyword-searching algorithm narrows the huge stack of applications down to a smaller stack of them, there are still way too many applications for a human being to look at -- so they don't.

Wasting your time is bad, but depleting your precious mojo is even worse! Automated recruiting sites make brilliant and talented job-seekers feel like garbage.
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...

That LinkedIn article is seven years old -- so this is not exactly cutting-edge info. So ... it's networking or nothing to land a position in 2018, even more so than it was 10-20 years ago?

 
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Got my most recent position by applying to the LinkedIn job post.  Got called the next day, interviewed right before Xmas, follow up interview early January and offer letter the next day :shrug:

 
What's the alternative? Not sure HR departments take resumes through snail mail anymore. Just ended a 6 month job search. Every application was online, whether linkedin, monster, indeed, or thru employer site directly.

 
Maybe things have changed since its been awhile.  From my recollection of dice, you just needed to send your resume when applying for a job.   Seemed easy enough.   It required very little effort.  What forms are they referring to?

 
As the Staffing Leader for a Fortune 500 company I can't disagree more. We hire approximately 3000 externally every year. About 2k is call center. Every new hire had to apply online. Our agency usage is maybe 2% of our hires. 

I will admit to the black hole factor though. Looking at exempt level professional hiring, we easily get 100+ applicants for one hire. We do communicate to everyone but realize that 99%+ are getting the thanks but no thanks letter. 

 
This just doesn’t make any sense. Why would a company pay a website to post their opening and not bother with applications that are sent in? Unless there is a step in the process I am unfamiliar with that would preclude them from paying. 

 
I think folks are reading too much into the “online” portion and not enough on the “online application” part, which I agree with. 

With my previous job search, I found companies wanting me to create profiles and rewrite my cover letter to answer their specific questions and still attach another cover letter. It was often too much.

Youd usually never hear back and if you remembered to log in, you might see a “other candidates selected” status next to your application. Even LinkedIn found a way to let job posters/seekers apply with their LinkedIn profile to ease applications. 

I think if companies make people dance too much they’ll get folks who are super super interested only and might miss perfect candidates by creating too much overhead. 

 
dschuler said:
Are they supposed to fax a resume instead?
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Many of these types of articles recommend mailing a package of documents to hiring managers or department heads directly. Prospective employees are supposed to do significant research/calling around/"cyber-stalking" to learn the names of the decision-makers. This personal touch is not supposed to guarantee anything, just increase one's odds.

 
Here's a specific example of advice from another article by the same author:
 

Employers don't have to hire anyone. They don't have to invest the eight-tenths of a second that it would take them to reply to your resume pitched into a Black Hole.

That channel [online application - db] is useless for job-seekers, and my advice is to abandon it, pronto.

The only thing that's going to get a hiring manager's attention is a direct communication that mentions the obstacle the manager is trying to get over. We call that obstacle the Business Pain in the manager's hiring equation.

Employers don't talk about the Business Pain in their job ads. If you read the job ad unskeptically, you might get the idea that this employer has no problems at all and that everything is hunky-dory and perfect throughout the company. You might start to believe that the employer was doing you a favor by considering you for employment.

Don't believe that nonsense. If there were no pain, there wouldn't be a job ad! Why do companies hire people -- for their health? No. They hire people when the cost of hiring a new person is much less than the cost of the Business Pain they're already experiencing.

Your job is to identify that Business Pain, not exactly, but in general, and mention it in a Pain Letter that you'll send directly to your hiring manager's desk through the postal service.

Yes, the most effective job search channel in 2014 is the old-school letter sent in the mail!
 
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Maybe she's full of bull, or delivering advice only applicable to a narrow strip of fields, I dunno. Just casting about for some wisdom at this point.

 
Our last two hires came from Indeed and both are amazing employees.   The people that applied for the positions that we posted all sent us resumes and we'd read through them and filter out the ones that we decided to interview.   I am the manager of a small business--so I cannot speak for the hiring practices of larger businesses---but I can easily say that Indeed helped us out and simplified the hiring process.  

 
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More from that last link:
 

Imagine that you're a busy hiring manager with just one precious job opening to fill. It's imperative that you hire someone smart and nimble, someone who understands what you're up against and has been there. Who are you going to look at most seriously: the sheepie candidate whose resume arrives in a resume pile spewed out of your company's Black Hole, or the candidate who took the time and initiative to research you and your firm and write to you directly - not about him- or herself but about you and your business issues?

That's why Pain Letter-Human-Voiced Resume packets sent through the mail work so well. The manager is in pain, s/he opens the day's mail, and look! Here is Doctor You with the morphine.
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:shrug:

No approach is 100% -- probably not even 5%. Maybe not even that. But heck, isn't that advice at least a little useful? Resume farms feel like 1-in-a-zillion, and don't even seem to generate phone calls or e-mails back, much less interviews or job offers.

 
Ilov80s said:
My employer doesn't interview anyone that hasn't completed the online application.
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Yep

DaVinci said:
The largest employer in the world, the US government, does the majority of its hiring online.
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Yep. But there are many rules that apply to the Federal jobs that don't necessarily apply to the private sector. 

 
I have gotten a lot of interviews through online applications.  It's true that networking is the best way to find a new job, if you have the connections, but otherwise online applications have worked great for me.  Also, having a filled-out profile on LinkedIn and other professional sites like Monster or Glassdoor, has resulted in a lot of HR people and hiring managers proactively contacting me directly, without me applying.  However, after I speak with them and agree to move forward with the interview process, they still want me to fill out the online application.

 
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NutterButter said:
Maybe things have changed since its been awhile.  From my recollection of dice, you just needed to send your resume when applying for a job.   Seemed easy enough.   It required very little effort.  What forms are they referring to?
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There are like 10-12 pages these days in an online application to fill out your personal info, work history, education, etc etc. Most sites offer some kind of program to parse through your resume and auto fill it for you, but they are often imperfect and are better off doing it yourself. So any online application can take anywhere from a half hour to an hour when doing all that, then writing up a cover letter.

 
Fishboy said:
As the Staffing Leader for a Fortune 500 company I can't disagree more. We hire approximately 3000 externally every year. About 2k is call center. Every new hire had to apply online. Our agency usage is maybe 2% of our hires. 

I will admit to the black hole factor though. Looking at exempt level professional hiring, we easily get 100+ applicants for one hire. We do communicate to everyone but realize that 99%+ are getting the thanks but no thanks letter. 
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I received my last 2 jobs online.  I have applied for a few since the start of the year all online and have had a few rounds of interviews.

Fishboy- I am an exempt, Professional.  Kudos to your team for communicating to the unsuccessful folks.

 
When I was hiring for my company a few months ago, we used LinkedIn and a preferred headhunter. That's it.

We had a ton of resumes come in via LinkedIn that were completely and totally unqualified, including a ton of (I assume) H1B applicants - grad students from India trying to land their first post-greaduation job (we were looking for 10+ years experience so they weren't close).  I mean, it was 10:1 unqualified to qualified applicants from Linkedin. 

I'd imagine for less specialized fields, it's a lot worse. 

The ability to electronically submit resumes means anyone and everyone can submit. That means employers are bombarded, and it only makes sense that they try to use some algorithm to sort. 

After being on the other side, I would agree that cyber-stalking via LinkedIn would be a great way to get attention. Look at other employees, and try to emphasize what you have in common with them.  If you are a good fit, they'll figure it out. 

One other trick to help with automated algorythms: cut and paste the job description into your resume.  Put it in the footer, font size =1, color = white. The scanning algorithm will pick up all key words and score it highly, but the human reviewer will never see it. If anyone figures it out, you get bonus points for figuring out how to beat the system. Obviously, this doesn't work for the sites where you have to enter each field manually. 

 
Dan Lambskin said:
Also recruiters can’t get their 20% when you apply directly, so not exactly shocked they would give this advice 
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While the author of the two articles in the OP is a recruiter, her advice is actually that the applicant should apply directly.

 
Like many things, I imagine the broad answer here is both industry and experience-level specific. I'm in banking/risk management and can't imagine either submitting an application online or sending some kind of hard copy directly to an in-house recruiter as a first step. 

 
It's unavoidable.  Most of the major corporations now require a loggin, and to submit through their website.  It's incredibly annoying to waste your time doing this for jobs you are unlikely to hear back on.

 
wilked said:
There is an underlying principle here tho

the most marketable / capable people get their jobs via networking, as a rule 
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It is more about who you know than what you know, but your statement is false. Just because someone came in via Indeed doesn't mean they are any less capable than Bob who happens to know Jim the VP...

 
Magic_Man said:
It is more about who you know than what you know, but your statement is false. Just because someone came in via Indeed doesn't mean they are any less capable than Bob who happens to know Jim the VP...
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I think that you are mixing up cause and effect here

I am not saying that someone who lands their job via Indeed is less capable than someone you got their job because Jessica head of HR lives next door...

What I am saying is that the more capable workers get their N+1 (next) jobs via networking.  This is for a host of reasons - more capable are more involved in conferences / vendors / staying current in their industry / research opportunities / etc.  This means their 'net' is cast wide, and therefore they hear about openings and opportunities (and more practically are recruited directly for those opportunities) well ahead of others.

 
Doug B said:
Here's a specific example of advice from another article by the same author:
 

Maybe she's full of bull, or delivering advice only applicable to a narrow strip of fields, I dunno. Just casting about for some wisdom at this point.
Click to expand...
Employers don't have to hire anyone. They don't have to invest the eight-tenths of a second that it would take them to reply to your resume pitched into a Black Hole.

Well, you can read the first sentence and easily apply that to the old school letter in the mail. Either way, they aren’t obligated to reply. 

 
Dan Lambskin said:
Also recruiters can’t get their 20% when you apply directly, so not exactly shocked they would give this advice 
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I am passively looking and just ran into this. Applied for one job directly via linked in, and something else that was with a recruiter. Didn't like the company for the masked recruiter job, so they brought up the job I applied for directly. I stopped them mid-sentence and told them I had applied for it, and they predictably got angry. I said, well if you mask the names of the companies so you can get your commission, I can't know what you represent. Conversation ended pretty quickly. I fail to see the value that they present or reason I'd want to deal with them at all and have their fee go against my potential compensation, head hunting feels like a DOA business model.

 
Cjw_55106 said:
Employers don't have to hire anyone. They don't have to invest the eight-tenths of a second that it would take them to reply to your resume pitched into a Black Hole.

Well, you can read the first sentence and easily apply that to the old school letter in the mail. Either way, they aren’t obligated to reply. 
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Not to mention you have to rely on them to check and read their snail mail.  What if they’re traveling for 2 weeks and already lining up candidates that applied online 

the whole thing seems dumb to me.  I’ve landed 6 jobs in the last 15 years and countless interviews and zero of them involved me writing a letter and mailing to the hiring manager.

 
mquinnjr said:
I am passively looking and just ran into this. Applied for one job directly via linked in, and something else that was with a recruiter. Didn't like the company for the masked recruiter job, so they brought up the job I applied for directly. I stopped them mid-sentence and told them I had applied for it, and they predictably got angry. I said, well if you mask the names of the companies so you can get your commission, I can't know what you represent. Conversation ended pretty quickly. I fail to see the value that they present or reason I'd want to deal with them at all and have their fee go against my potential compensation, head hunting feels like a DOA business model.
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I don’t want to disparage recruiters because there are some good ones out there and they have helped me land a job, but at the end of the day, yeah, they’re communism driven.  How hard will they fight to get you and extra 5-10K if you want it when they’re only seeing $1-2K of it

 
As someone who is currently/continuously going through the hiring process... I can tell you why I only contact 20% of the online applicants I recieve.  It's because the other 80% are morons.  These morons fall into several categories:

  • Not even remotely qualified for the very specific job description posted online
  • Poorly written resume in one of more category - all of which signify a lack of attention to detail, intelligence, or both

    Bad English, grammar, and/or ability to communicate in a written form
  • No organization or flow
  • Way too wordy, no summary of skills/experience/certifications/etc

[*]Not leaving any contact information (admittedly a flaw in our job posting system to not make this mandatory, but come on people)

[*]Just throwing their (usually very poorly written) resume out there hoping to find a sucker

 
Dan Lambskin said:
I don’t want to disparage recruiters because there are some good ones out there and they have helped me land a job, but at the end of the day, yeah, they’re communism driven.  How hard will they fight to get you and extra 5-10K if you want it when they’re only seeing $1-2K of it
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Yeah I used one a long time ago to place into my current company, but I was laid off at the time so I needed to get something fast. I'm secure but looking now, and a decade+ is a long time. I don't see what advantage they present any longer vs. looking yourself. I think if you're in a bind that's one thing, but I'd rather do the legwork myself for direct placement if I'm not in a rush. You're going to be pushed into what opportunity they can sell you into, get placed, and get their commission. I don't want to relinquish that control at all over my career if I can avoid it.

 
Keerock said:
As someone who is currently/continuously going through the hiring process... I can tell you why I only contact 20% of the online applicants I recieve.  It's because the other 80% are morons.  These morons fall into several categories:

  • Not even remotely qualified for the very specific job description posted online
  • Poorly written resume in one of more category - all of which signify a lack of attention to detail, intelligence, or both

    Bad English, grammar, and/or ability to communicate in a written form
  • No organization or flow
  • Way too wordy, no summary of skills/experience/certifications/etc

[*]Not leaving any contact information (admittedly a flaw in our job posting system to not make this mandatory, but come on people)

[*]Just throwing their (usually very poorly written) resume out there hoping to find a sucker
Click to expand...
So you really are the grammar police?

 
we use a recruiter mostly because we only have one HR person in our company (200 or so employees on-site).  She doesn't really have time to screen resumes, and the hiring manager generally doesn't either.  The resumes the recruiter gives us have typically been much better than what comes in via linkedin. 

I don't know how he finds guys.  I suppose by stalking folks on linkedin, but also general networking.  If they provide company A with 10 resumes for a position, that means they have 9 qualified resumes for similar job with company B, and on down the line.

 
Cjw_55106 said:
Employers don't have to hire anyone. They don't have to invest the eight-tenths of a second that it would take them to reply to your resume pitched into a Black Hole.

Well, you can read the first sentence and easily apply that to the old school letter in the mail. Either way, they aren’t obligated to reply. 
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While true, the "snail mail" route -- using a large envelope, not a #10 -- is supposed to be more eye-catching and attention-getting :shrug:   I don't think anyone's claiming a certain outcome to that strategy.

For me personally, even with items I know are junk mail ... I will almost always open a large document envelope to see what's in their. Don't know why I find #10s easier to cast aside, but I do :shrug:  

 
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