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Home » Archives » May 2009 » The Job Market - the process

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05/20/2009: "The Job Market - the process"


Currently, I am stuck with the joys of job hunting. I have some part-time work, but not enough to get by on.

The interesting thing is how differently various companies behave.

Some companies are very automated - you get an email when you create an account with them (some that include your password - very bad style), an email for each job you apply to, emails if jobs are added that meet search criteria, and so on. They seem very professional, yet dealing with them generally seems like you are just sending information to /dev/null. You generally are successful in dealing with them, except for what counts - actually getting a job. I definitely like the ones that run searches for you, even though without having your resume delivered by someone who knows you, they are still generally a waste of time.

A very few companies actually do things "right". For example, I saw an opening with Expressor on LinkedIn. It seemed like a good fit so I applied. I got the immediate response email about my application (from LinkedIn). A couple of weeks later, I got the Thank you for applying, we have chosen to pursue other candidates email. While of course I don't like that - this was an email from a real person's email address (not that I tried to get any other communications), and it appears to have been sent when the job posting was removed.

In comparison, there are some of the large company sites. Sometimes you see multiple jobs, with identical descriptions. Clearly, if the descriptions are identical and fit, then they are all an equal fit - but I have no way of knowing if this is just multiple positions in the same group, or actually different positions. If its the same hiring manager then it is silly, and possibly annoying, to submit to each of them, but if its different hiring managers then I should... You hope the system will remove duplicates, but what about the adage of including custom cover letters - if the job ID is different, then there are different cover letters, so which one will they get?

From some of the same large companies, they seem to have a policy of putting a removal date on all openings. This means that for some of the jobs, they end up reposting them, which is another match for your search criteria, so you should send in another application. However, if this is still the same hiring manager - there really is no point.

I guess the biggest pain about the big companies is that there is no real feedback - it would take so little for them to send an email that the job you applied for has now been closed, yet without it, you don't have any idea if you still have a chance or not.



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