Continental Shelf

Seriously, I spend more hours a day on job search than one normally does on an actual job. I’ve decided hiring systems fall into four categories:

1. Very large companies that have their own automated system. They post their openings; you can send your resume via their online system without ever contacting an actual person, getting only a tracking number — which you can’t actually track back since there is no feature to access the rating assigned to your file. Even with a strong resume, the odds these will ever lead to an interview, let alone a job, are vanishingly small; I believe the system is actually there to screen you out. The company’s HR department will only use it if the two main avenues, personal networking and recruiting firms, are exhausted.
2. Small and medium firms that have their own HR department. With a bit of luck you can contact a real live person and discover who to contact in order to get news of your application status. If you have a good resume, someone will take 20 seconds to look at it and you may get a call. The hiring process will probably go through stops-and-starts as everyone is too busy to really get on this (it’s not billable.) It’s not rare to get an interview then later realize that the person screening resumes had not sufficiently examined yours.
3. Firms that hire a good professional recruiting firm to screen candidates. You have more work to do up front before reaching an interview with the employer, because the recruiter will ask tons of sticky questions on the phone and in writing, and perhaps in a face-to-face interview, trying to pare down a short list of well-chosen candidates for the employer. It’s a lot of work but past this point, interviews generally go well.
4. Firms that hire a cut-rate recruiting firm. All these recruiters want to know is whether you’re still breathing and can write your name in block letters with less than three mistakes. They have no idea what you are worth as a candidate, nor what the employer really needs. They hope that by throwing enough candidates at the employer, one of them will stick and they’ll get their commission.

I generally do well in interviews but it’s much easier if the recruiter or the HR person have done their job well. Not only have they checked that I am a reasonable match for the employer’s needs and expectations, but their questions help me prepare for those that will come in the interview.