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Job postings suck! So, what is the alternative for job seekers?
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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I don't casually use the word 'suck'. My mother insisted we never to use the word 'suck' and to never tell our brothers to 'shut up'. This was just the way we were raised.
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So, when I say job postings 'suck', I'm not saying it lightly and want to really make a point.
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The point is this. The competition to get an interview, when a large group of candidates are applying for a job disproportionately restricts workers who have gaps in their work history; who are new to the job market; who are trying to seek work in a new field; or those who have limited Canadian work experience, education or training.
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Let's discuss for a moment the two mindsets of an employer who is getting ready to hire.
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Mindset Number 1: they are preparing for a lengthy hiring process where they will advertise the job thoroughly, carefully review resumes, select candidates for interviews, select for second interviews and diligently check references. This process can take weeks if not months and can consumer a hundred hours or more.
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Mindset Number 2: they are looking to hire someone and look about for candidate suggestions, connecting with colleagues, employees, friends and acquaintances. Should they come across a suitable candidate they may conduct an informal interview and while they may do reference checks, often they do not, trusting what they've learned from this process.
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Mindset Number 1 is high in data and process and low in intuition and personal experience. Mindset Number 2 is low in data and process but high in intuition and personal experience.
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I want to stress, this is a generalization and a lot of cross-over can happen. Also, many employers work in procedure-driven organizations that may require a multi-step hiring process with multiple checks along the way to satisfy corporate policy and collective agreements.
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Before you tell me that most employers don't adopt Mindset Number 2, I will remind you the constant refrain of the career development sector: that 70-80 per cent of jobs are in the hidden job market. Mindset Number 2 is 'the hidden job market'.
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Mindset Number 1 is posted jobs so let's explore why they suck so much. (Nobody's telling my mother!)
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Whether a single job attracts 10, 20, 50 or a hundred job postings, it's unlikely an employer will interview more than five or six candidates. And while employers make lofty statements about hiring someone who is a good fit for the team, a hard worker or someone with a great attitude, these are rarely factors for determining who gets the interview.
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Let's say an employer attracts 100 resumes and let's further assume that of the 100 resumes, 80 meet the basic qualifications of the job. The employer can't possibly interview 80 people so they choose arbitrary criteria. While the job might require two year's experience, they may sort to find people with five or more years of experience. While the job posting called for candidates with a certificate, they may just choose to interview people with a bachelor's degree.
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And while the add-ons are bad, the eliminations are worse. They may say, let's eliminate applicants with too much education because they might leave quickly, so we'll eliminate those with masters degrees and PhDs. Let's eliminate those with international experience and education. We'll also eliminate anyone who's not worked with certain technology or systems and anyone who's education is more than 20 years old.
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All too often this process eliminates immigrants, youth, mature workers and anyone who has experienced a gap in their work history.
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If we take the aggregate of all men 25-54 and all women 25-54, we're going to find that men are far less likely to have a gap in their work history and more accumulated experience than women, as women are more typically the principal caregivers to children in our society.
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I hope you see where I'm going with this. Selecting candidates for interviews is like shaking candidates through a giant strainer where they remaining candidates, the candidates who get interviewed, are more likely to be between 30-50; men; born in Canada; and not have a disability.
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It's not only likely but probable that most employers prefer candidates who are a good fit for their team, hard working and who have a great attitude, but they don't choose this from the 80 qualified applicants but instead from the five or six people who get into an interview.
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What is important for us to know as job developers is that this system is not only not working for our clients but it's also not working for employers. These ideal candidates may require less onboarding and less early supervision, but they're also the candidates most likely to ghost an employer, leave after a short while and demand higher and more frequent wage increases.
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Let's explore Mindset Number 2 for a moment. In this situation the employer is looking for intangibles first and qualifications and experience second. They are willing to trust colleagues, employees, friends and even acquaintances before even looking at work history.
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It is through this process that a candidate can be measured on their attitude and how they can articulate the hard work they will do or the contribution they can make to the team.
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When the employer has found a candidate they think will be a good fit, they're no longer setting arbitrary criteria. They're willing to make an accommodation for someone who may lack experience, because they believe the person can make a great contribution.
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While I might have almost convinced you that it's far better to source employers in Mindset Number 2, there's one major hurdle I really haven't addressed. Your clients or the students you're working with are not related to or connected with any of the employer's colleagues, staff, friends or acquaintances. They're brand new to the country or they're looking for their first job. They don't have a network.
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It's for this reason, they have to make one. They can go to networking meetings, job fairs and professional events, but those things don't happen every day, so they're going to need to cold call employers.
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This means preparing a list of the 10, 20 or 30 employers they would most like to work for, preparing a cover letter and resume and if possible, apply in-person to each one asking for an interview. It means following all of these employers in social media and after submitting their resume, following-up again and again. It means demonstrating through job search the qualities employers are most looking for in candidates.
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Going through a formal recruitment process versus a scouting candidates produces much the same results. One is not necessarily better than the other for the employer. One candidate may need less coaching but not stay around as long. Another candidate may require a lot more support and training at first but turn out to be more loyal.
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The difference is for our client and our employment goals. It requires much more work but can produce much better results in a much shorter period of time.
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Depending on the size of an employer, if I approach three employers its likely at least one of them is about to hire, needing to hire or will need to hire in the next few weeks. Hidden job market data suggests four out of five of these individuals will not hire through a posted job and will instead scout about for best candidate.
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Here's the lesson for today. We need to be less reliant on the employer who's in Mindset Number 1. They want competition, selection and to choose the best candidate on paper. Competition kills the multi-barriered job seeker.
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That's fine for us, but why do so many job seekers rely on job postings? It's the lottery ticket of job search. But instead of the odds being one-in-a-hundred-million, it's one in 10, 20 or 80. When I apply for a posted job, I know there's a 'chance' even if there's no chance at all.
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This can sound way more attractive than cold-calling 10 employers, interrupting them in their day and getting rejected by a receptionist. Unfortunately, applying to posted jobs is not a better way to do job search.
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When a job seeker applies for a job from the moment they hit 'send' they're in fantasy time. It puts off all job search until they spy a better posted job or hear about the job they applied for. I wonder what it pays? Could it be hybrid? I wonder when I could start? These are the sorts of questions that occupy someone's mind after they've applied for a posted job.
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Posted jobs don't just suck, they're destructive. Each time a person applies for a posted job and then goes days and weeks without hearing anything, it erodes their confidence, their enthusiasm and their resolve.
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Cold calling employers may be hard, but at least it's something that is in the control of the job seeker.
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I'm not saying job seekers should give up on posted jobs. Richard Nelson Bolles, author of 'What Colour Is Your Parachute' also had a low opinion of posted jobs, but to paraphrase Bolles, 'if there are 14 ways to look for work and one of them is to apply to posted jobs, still apply to posted jobs.'
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Moving forward, obviously you want to be aware of which employers are hiring in your community but make it your goal to connect with all employers regardless of whether they are hiring right now. Make it your objective that if an employer is going to hire, they call or email you before they take the time to write out and publish a job posting.
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We’ll be discussing the challenge of applying for posted jobs at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday Mar. 10th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
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On the morning of Monday March 10th 'Click this Link' to join the session LIVE.
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