How to get an interviewI am a recruiter who reads resumes and interviews people all day long. Here are a few tips: 1. Only 4 out of hundred who use to the internet to look for a job get an actual invitation for an interview. Target the company you whom you want to work and call into the HR Director. Make sure you are dressed appropriately and bring three copies of your resume. That' s great for 1997. This is 2007, and now most large companies outsource their HR functions. They present a policy of "INTERNET APPLICATIONS ONLY". Do not call. Do not send letters. Do not visit the office or ask for names or phone numbers. Job hunters are faced with a wall of silence. Other than sneaking into the building and reading names on desks and doors, how can a person get information on who to contact or contact anyone at the company? That is, IF there is someone local and not just in India??? A dilemma with INTERNET ONLY applications is that there are automated mail filters on both sides of the exchange that are doing their best to interfere with your attempts to get noticed. The filters might drop you if you have an attachment; if you' re not going to the right inbox; if the subject line is missing a job code; if your resume doesn' t include the right buzzwords, or if the filters fail to recognize the words due to a program bug or formatting snafu anywhere in the chain. Then....if a company wants to contact you via email....YOUR OWN EMAIL SORTER could toss that very critical email in the junk folder!!! Catch-22! It' s beginning to look like we' ve got a better chance of hitting a jackpot on a progressive slot machine than get out email through to the right people!! I would like to hear your MODERN suggestions for this very MODERN conundrum. The internet only produces a job return of 4 people out of 100 who apply for a job get an invitation for an interview. Even though they do ask you to apply on-line there is still a human on the other side of this equation. It is the task of the job seeker to go to the library and use Hoovers or other business related database tools to find names. Most jobs are not posted and can be accessed through other channels besides the internet.
I applied for a job on-line with a company that said they only accept on-line applications. But I went ahead and sent a copy to the location of the job. I got a call from the local HR person for an interview. Nothing was said about what I had done. I am sure that often times the local people appreciate direct contact, rather than working through the system of a large organization. | |
|
Career Tips
|