Job search tips : Cut My Losses

I applied for a job right here on Monster that was "perfect" for me. It was in my field (graphic design), decent commute, better work and definitely better pay. I applied and waited.....and waited. Eventually, I checked the job posting and the listing was gone. I was able to email the HR dept of this company to see if the position had been filled or if they were in the selection process for interviews. I got a reply back that they were reviewing resumes and to send mine which I did, again. Its been a week and I still haven' t heard anything. Should I cut my losses? I question my interest now because this has dragged out(the job has been on Monster since June) and even if I were to get an interview, I' m wondering what kind of work environment I would be walking into. Why do companies do this?

The company may just not be interested, they might have had to put it on a back burner, they might have decided to not do forward with the position, they might have filled it internally any number of things could be going on - good case in point, a friend of mine had applied in April for a city job and she went through all the tests and several interviews and then got told she didn' t get the job - only to get a phone call three weeks later (yesterday) that she got it after all - seems the first candidate must not have worked out for whatever reason.

Apply to as many jobs that suit your qualifications as you feel appropriate. Applying to one job and waiting until you receive some type of response is not the most efficient use of your time and is definately not the most efficient way to go about seeking a job.

Unfortunately, many a company will, while not neccesarily ignoring you, not respond to you in a timely fashion. Or any fashion.

The company may have put the job on hold or was only posting the position as part of the hiring protocol even though they already had someone internally who was going to fill the position.

If you go into My Monster and then into your Apply history, you will be able to check if your application was received, reviewed, if the job was closed, how many days it has left, how many other applicants matched the job description, etc.

This may give you a hint as to why you were not contacted.

I work for a Law Firm which has a corporate office in California, which is where my actual boss works out of, and which has branches in several states across America. Currently, I am the executive legal secretary to the head attorney of the branch I work mainly in plus I am responsible for the two additional branches in this city, the branches already established in two states and the branch which we are establishing in an additional state. I am responsible for the production, quality of work and most all staff except the attorney's (thank god....just kidding, I love em {cough cough hack hack}) I interview, hire, evaluate, schedule, review billing matters, type and prepare motions and discovery, put out client fires, work with the court systems in all the states I am involved for quality control and to update myself with new and rumored rules and regulations, unfortunately fire (only had to do that once and it was quite recent. Quite ugly, too.) I have been fortunate enough to be able to do a lot of work at home during this summer so that I could be here for my son. I have real time videa available so that I can look in to the out of state offices (which I only do after I have called them to let them know I will be peeking at them). I do have to go to each office and have been able to visit a different state each month so that I don't have to be flying more than I am on the ground.

The majority of my information comes from what I went through while I was job seeking after relocating to this city for my husband's promotion. I knew nothing about the intricacies of the interviewing and hiring process, could never understand why everybody kept saying it was sooooooooo hard and they had soooooooo much to do because it involved sooooooooo much. This, as far as I have experienced, is unture. If you can prioritize, multi-task, delegate, it is not that hard. There is still a lot I don't know because I haven't been faced with it.

A lot of how I review resume's, interview, hire, train, etc comes from the ignorance I have perceived from those who interviewed me. Basically, the way I was treated as I searched for a job, I do the opposite of. I have been told I am quite successful in my position, I feel that I have been doing a very good job, I get many accolades and much praise from my boss based on what she hears and sees.

I am definately growing as a person and as a professional woman with this position and, granted I haven't been here long (just under 5 months) but I see the changes that have been made as a direct result of my management and supervision. I grow prouder about my skills and my abilities with almost each passing day as I see my personal improvement and the way I utilize it.

Where do you place you job ads? Do you use agencies at all and if so why? Do employers frown upon headhunters because they send people' s resumes to hundreds of companies? What methods of looking for employment do you recommend? I appreciate your help.

The ads for any jobs available in any of my branches are placed in the newspapers in that area from Sunday thru Wednesday. I will authorize these ads to run for two weeks. I also authorize these advertisements to run on-line in the paper's employment website. I have placed advertisements in Craigslist.com but didn't really receive a good response. I have used Careerbuilders and received a very good response. I don't use Monster but other hiring managers within the firm do.

I would like to try the Division of Employment and Human Services and check out what they have to offer in the form of Adult Employment Workshops but I can never seem to get to talk to the correct person. I really want to check into it here because of all the Capable Adult Homeless People roaming around.

The other agency that I would like to try is one that contracts with employers to put mentally ill adults to work with repetitive manual jobs. I worked in Arizona with a government agency who contracted with a company like this and the individuals they sent us were so cute and hardworking.

Because we are a Law Firm, we have the option of going through the American Bar Association and the State's Bar Association for talented and knowledgeable individuals. You register with either of the Bar Associations and they notify you when we send them a message that we will have a job opening. All they do is send you the message, it is then your responsibility to follow through. I do not know who they send messages to unless you mention it in your cover letter.

I definately DO NOT and I WILL NEVER go through an agency to find people who want to work for me. I have person feelings on this matter and, if you want to know, believe wholeheartedly that agencies of all kinds are comprised of con artists and people with no talent and limited skills who think they know everything.

If a recruiter from a well-known multi-state headhunting facility approached me with the possiblity of placing a qualified individual for a currently open position, I would have no objections to reviewing their resume. I would have objections to paying this headhunter for services I did not initiate.

A headhunter who does his job and sends his client's resume to hundreds of companies cannot be faulted. That is what he is supposed to do. I fault him when he contacts me and says pay me (insert ginormous amount) and I will place an ad to try to get people to work for you. I do that already without the ginormous amount being paid out. I am not going to pay someone for doing exactly what I can do myself.

I really do recommend that you answer every advertisement you see that matches your skills and you feel you are qualified for. This includes job boards, newspapers, websites for companies you think you want to work for. If you see an advertisement posted that you responded to 3 weeks ago, either send another resume or send a follow up note inquiring as to the status. Hey, things happen, papers get shuffled, resumes do get misplaced. I would rather have someone interested enough in the company and in the position contact me about a job they had applied for than show no interest at all and just let things go.

This is also rather telling to me regarding the way a person follows through with their projects and assignments.

Lastly, I never had any personal luck with cold calling and cold emailing, and have discovered that a high number of employers do not like unsolicited resumes and will toss them. Even if they know there is the possibility of a job opening within the next few days. If you have the time and feel that it will do you good, go for it. Never be afraid to send something to a company you are interested in. There is always the possibility of internal openings, expecially in larger organizations.

This is the actual last thing, NEVER BE AFRAID of following up. There are a lot of people here who say that to follow up is a bad thing because hiring managers do not want to be bothered. WRONG!!!!! While hiring managers do not want to be stalked, there is absolutely nothing wrong with showing your continued interest.

Everyone wants you to submit resumes online and a message usually appears that says do not contact us we will contact you if interested. I did call one company 2-3 times and left messages on voice mail but never received a call back. Another company I contacted informed me they only take resumes online and they would call if interested. The operator wouldn't let me speak to anyone when I told her I had a few questions in regards to the posting and without knowing the answers I wasn't sure if I would apply or not. (I wanted to know what their second shift hours were).

I will take your recommendation and mail a follow up letter, hopefully it reaches HR. Do you recommend I put a copy of my resume with it?

I really appreciate your advise. Thank you.

Address the letter directly to the Human Resources Department and not just to the company in general. If you have a contact name, use it. This is a type of personalization that generally appeals to companies.

A lot of companies do have the "do not call" rule, and I followed it unless I had a problem with either submitting my resume due to the company having a problem with their website or I had a question regarding a specific aspect of the position.

A couple of stories that I have about this are:

I was attempting to apply to a particular company and after spending 20 minutes fine tuning my information to fit the formatting of the on-line application, I hit the submit button. A message appeared stating that there was a problem with the company website and to try back later. I waited until the next day, logged back on to the website hopeing that my information had been saved, only to find out that it hadn't and I had to start from scratch. I spent another 20 minutes inputting my information and hit the submit button. The same message that the website was down. The company had a "do not contact" message on their home page, but I called anyway. I gota receptionist who didn't know what department I wanted to speak with even after I stated HUMAN RESOURCES. Finally after 5 minutes of her, she transferred me to HR. I explained my problem and was very curtly told, and I remember these words to this day, "What? Can't you read. NO PHONE CALLS." And she hung up. She didn't even let me explain why I was calling. I called the main number again, got a different receptionist who immediately transferred me to a person in a different department. I explained that I wanted HR and the girl stated that she was reluctant to transfer me there because the woman at the front desk was mean. I explained to her what I was calling about and she said that it was a good thing I called because the only way the company knows if the external site is down, is if somebody tells them. She said she would give my message to a manager in HR. She did. Not only did I receive a return call from a manager, the manager invited me to meet with him, utilize a computer in the department and even review some internal openings. I went down the next day, the HR manager liked my resume enough to invite hiring managers from two departments other than the one I was applying to down to his office to speak with me.

Another example is:

I was responding to an advertisement in the newspaper which stated that I was to log in to the company website and click into the employment and careers section. I was then to access the reference number for the position I wanted and I could apply. My problem was that everytime I input the reference number, a message popped up stating no such position existed. After a couple of times getting the same message, I hit the "All Jobs" button and read through almost 5 pages of jobs for positions in all of the branches in several states. I finally found the one I wanted. The reference numbers were different. Either the newspaper transposed the third and the last numbers or the person who put the position on the website did. Anyway, I called the only number I could find to report the error so they would not miss out on qualified people who didn't want to spend the time searching as I had. I was thanked for my diligence and for my concern that they wouldn't receive all resumes from all qualified people, gave me a fax number and an email address to send my resume to and I never heard from them again. Oh, well. No biggie. I checked two days later and they hadn't corrected the error.

Sometimes, I called or emailed even though they stated not to and I either received a very nice response stating they were glad to know I was still interested or I heard nothing. Usually nothing, but...whatever. I figure if a person makes the effort to figure out how to express continued interest, then they should be given due consideration. As long as it doesn't get stalker-ish.

Well, I have been applying to other postings consistently but this particular job caught my eye because it was because of the job description, location, and pay....mainly the pay;) I've moved past it and will continue to apply to jobs. Thanks for everyone's input.

Career Tips

Cut My Losses