Why is it so hard to apply for a job? January 14, 2009
Posted by hardly Job Hunt Process, careers, jobs, work
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Mary Katherine sent me a note yesterday.
"Why do companies make it so hard to submit a resume for a job?"
"Which ones?", says I.
"T-Mobile, Cobalt, Concur..."
"Oh boy, that's a blog post", thinks I.
Now, I can tell you that any one of these companies would be danged happy to have Mary Katherine on their team. But, they are certainly giving her pause.
For all you Mary Katherine's out there, here are the 'usual suspect' answers that you'll hear from companies who make applying difficult:
- Gotta stop SPAM from getting into the process.
- The fields need to be filled out accurately, and the more data we have, the easier it makes it to match you to an open role.
- Need to make sure that the people applying REALLY want the job.
These are all true. But, there are a few others as well:
- The ATS (Applicant Tracking System) vendor(s) these firms use are behind the times in applying natural-language recognition to their software (you'd think that there would be some trickle-down from all the work the CIA, NSA, DARPA have paid for, and guess what, there is! Just hasn't hit the ATS world as much as other systems verticals).
- It's a good guess that the HR & Recruiting function at said company is measured on a cost basis, so they need to do everything possible to eliminate anything that would take away from working with high-quality candidates.
- Further, budgets are tight, so we need to make the filter so fine that some candidates don't get through the door; too many people are applying because of the economy, and there's a lot of 'resume spam' we need to eliminate.
This all seems to describe a marketing process that needs a pithy Seth Godin post. A business jiu-jitsu move that turns it all on its head. Because stuff like this HARMS a business's BRAND.
The problem is, it's probably going to take YEARS for these companies to change their on-line application process (first, the ATS vendors need to improve, and then the HR IT folks need to figure out how to implement it, and then the HR Leaders need to ask for it, etc).
What's a job-hunter to do?
Try a little old with a little new.
The old is to go in through the back door. Send your resume in to a contact within the company. The new is to go hop on LinkedIn and do a search for all the people in your network that work at your target company (use the advanced people search). Send your resume and a nice intro email to them.
I bet it will take you less time to do this than it will to figure out how to submit your resume the other way.
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