Getting a job online – Part 3
Web August 9th, 2006Tip 3: Finding the right job
Lets imagine the scenario. You are looking at a job site online and you see a role that you want to apply for. You click the Apply Now! button, send off your CV and a quick covering note if they ask for it and you sit back and wait for them to call you.
Listen up! It’s not going to happen!
Out of 30 roles that I applied for over a 10 week period, only a handful of agencies called me back. In fact, I got more calls from agencies that had seen my CV on a website than I did for roles I applied for.
Someone from an agency once gave me some advice on searching for a job online.
If you don’t feel like you are working hard at it, then you are probably doing it wrong!
There is a tendency to click the “Apply Now!” button and then do nothing. All you are really doing is adding rubbish to someone’s inbox. Just think of how many people are doing the same thing as you. The mail servers used by recruitment agencies must be bursting at the seams!
I found these tips work the best:
- When you find a role online, do not click the “Apply Now!” button.
- Email the agency direct with a proper email explaining your suitability for the role.
- Even better, call them up!
- If you do apply online, call them the next day if you have not heard anything back from them.
- I know it will annoy them, but it is worth getting your name into their heads. I expect that they don’t even read half of the CVs that come in for job applications.
I know its quite an old cliche, but “getting your foot in the door” is a good thing. Pester them and they will know who you are! Thats half the battle done.
This post is part of the How to get a job online series by Taoski.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Entries
August 9th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
It also tends to be important to realise that a number of recruiters will actually fill roles from their database of candidates before *ever* advertising the role at all. So frequently the roles you see on the websites are only those that haven’t already been filled by existing candidates.
So it can sometimes be important to get your “foot in the door” with recruitment agents so you can get considered for the other roles!
August 9th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I agree.
I read on one of the Monster forums about someone who had called an agency who admitted that they did’nt read all of the CVs that came in for a role. The agency then re-advertised the job a few days later just to get “more people on their books”.
I remember applying for a role with one agency and got no reply. I then saw it re-advertised with another agency the next day and then got a reply from them saying “sorry, the role has been filled”!
What was the point of that?
August 10th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Of course the big issue that I have with the approach and that I have taken great pains to perpetually embarrass recruitment agents with, is that the CV you have sent them is usually customized to the role that was advertised.
Which means it frequently misses out screeds of information that is relevant to those jobs that they are internally screening for.
So once in front of a recruiter once the process for the job applied for has run its course I will continue to torment them by slowly pointing out things they should be keeping in mind for other roles – like the 5 years Domino adminstration experience, the 5 other programming languages we use that weren’t relevant for that other role, etc, etc.
I’ve already noticed some of the recruiters around here getting the point and realising if they are going to internally screen then they need to do more work with actually establishing what an applicants skills and history are…
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:21 pm
[...] post is part of the How to get a job online series by Taoski. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part5 [...]
March 8th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
I think it says a lot about our expectations of Jesus. Nice one