| | Consumer Ed Assignment
Upon joining our class Website, go to the site and
read the project about Career Portfolios. This is what you must
do and submit prior to Tuesday, October 17, 2006.
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Meanwhile, here's an important article:
Sorry, no one's reading that resume you sent
Computers now doing most of the weeding out
By Loretta Grantham
Cox News Service
Published September 27, 2006
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Baffled because you nailed the qualifications
for a job and never heard a word? Peeved because you blew an entire
weekend polishing your resume? Here's the likely truth: No one ever saw
it.
"The first thing that job seekers have to get over is that it's not
personal," says Gerry Crispin, a recruiting technology expert. "The
chance when you apply for a job that someone actually sees your resume
is probably less than 5 percent."
Less than a decade ago, job applicants obsessed over whether to craft
their curriculum vitae on white or ivory paper and which font would
project authority without pretense. Then there was the question of
whether to play fast and loose and let it spill onto a second page.
The idea was to impress someone in a suit at a desk.
Now, you must "impress" a computer programmed to eliminate you.
And while the goal is to lighten the load on humans in human resources,
executive recruiter Susan Smith says today's hiring hoops frustrate
firms as much as applicants.
"The Internet is wonderful, but it's this giant blob of information
that corporate recruiters have to deal with. The whole process has
become overwhelming.
"They have to weed through e-mails and attachments and online resumes and paper resumes and job boards on the Web.
"There are too many people applying for too many jobs in too many ways."
That being said, networking (as in talking to folks, not linking computer systems) is the best strategy for boosting your rank.
Inside help
"Never, ever apply without first getting someone in the company to
refer you," says Crispin, who analyzes how businesses recruit online.
"One out of every three hires has been referred by an employee.
"If you don't know someone in the company, stand outside the door at 5
o'clock and accost people as they come out," he says, only half joking.
"We live in a networked world, and if you haven't heard of MySpace or
an alumni directory or a professional association, then you've
obviously been living in a cave. And there's not a big market for cave
men."
At most large companies, resumes land in a database after being
received via e-mail; through the firm's Web site; from an Internet job
board, or, in the case of a paper resume, after being scanned.
Hiring managers set up a search request to sniff out keywords, such as
those used in the job description, along with other identifying
factors. For example, the desired accounting candidate must be a
Vanderbilt grad with a grade-point average above 3.5 who now lives in
ZIP code 27858.
So although you may be the brightest CPA in your firm and your mom's
favorite child, your resume will plummet to the bottom of the virtual
pile if you're not a dead-on match -- or close to it. And, in most
instances, you'll never know why.
Kathryn Troutman has made a career out of coaching applicants through
Resumix, a keyword database used by the federal government and other
businesses, such as Florida Power and Light, which employs 10,000 in
Florida.
"I work with people who've submitted resumes but aren't getting
referred to hiring managers," says Troutman, who runs The Resume Place
in Baltimore and wrote The Federal Resume Guidebook.
Top skills
"I analyze the target announcement and look for the top five to seven
skills: adviser, briefing manager, project manager, PowerPoint
developer and so forth.
"Then I look at the resume. I make a game out of it, actually. If the
resume doesn't hit the top skills, the applicant basically missed the
point because they didn't read the announcement close enough. I teach
people how to integrate the skills into their resume so it will come up
in the system."
FPL has received 12,000 resumes this year. Deciphering the deluge by hand would be impractical, not to mention expensive.
"We try to send everybody who is applying to the Web," says spokesman
Jim Davison. "We want people to apply to specific jobs and not blindly
shoot a resume here. Once recruiters receive the ranked resumes from
Resumix, they make the decision whether the manager who's hiring will
get a certain resume and possibly meet that person. This may involve
one or more phone interviews beforehand."
But Michael Goodboe, vice president of human resources at Wackenhut,
isn't sold on recruiting technology, opting instead to have his staff
review each submission.
Not so sure
"I'm not so sure the software will do what I want it to do," he says.
"Plus, we're a federal government contractor, so we have to follow
rules that severely impact how we process resumes from Internet
applicants."
Wackenhut employs 40,000 across the country and is the largest provider of security guards at U.S. nuclear plants.
"In my business, we marvel at technology. But it has created a frustrating administrative burden on the hiring end."
A computer's inability to gauge X factors, such as drive and
enthusiasm, is why some businesses say they're seeing a plunge in
resume submissions. Applicants are fed up.
"They tell me they'd rather just come to a job fair or try to drop by
human resources for a face-to-face meeting," says a hiring manager in
West Palm Beach. "They feel sending in a resume is a huge waste of time"
Staffing strategist Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads in Kendall Park, N.J., agrees that the process has become very impersonal.
"Very few companies treat prospective employees with any degree of
respect," he says. "Technology doesn't replace the responsibility of
the recruiter to manage the relationship with job candidates. Among the
best 100 companies, only about two-thirds even acknowledge that they've
received a resume. They most likely never knew you existed."
The heaviest-weighted factor when a computer sorts resumes is employee
referral, Crispin says. If you click that this is how you heard about
the opening -- as opposed to through HotJobs or Jobster, for instance
-- a box will pop up asking you the person's name. Otherwise, include
this detail in your cover letter.
Be sure, however, that this person can actually vouch for you.
"At the end of the day, if an employee is being asked who they'd like
as a colleague, they're going to recommend somebody who they know will
do a good job," he says. "It's not about race, gender or age because
corporations are still getting the diversity they want through
referrals. It's about building relationships."
That said, use your resume to knock on the door of your dream job. But take someone to lunch to get invited inside.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
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