When you fill out the online job application, your application enters a database of applications, sometimes called the automated applicant tracking system, or the online application repository. Most people know of it as the resume black hole. How many times have you heard of people filling out dozens or even hundreds of online applications without even getting one response back!
Automated systems sort and process the applications. If your application isn’t processed and brought to the top of the list of applications, it simply won’t even be reviewed by human beings.
What do you need to get to the top of the automated list, and get past the autobot filters designed to weed out applicants before HR or anyone else needs to spend any time on it?
You will need three things:
1. Exact keywords and phrases
2. Find jobs that closely match your skills and abilities
3. The right contacts to follow up with.
Exact Keywords And Phrases
If you don’t have the exact keywords and phrases that the automated system is looking for, your application will fail. It is that simple. For an example, I will assume most everyone has done a Google search before. In the Google search window, a person will type in a search term and Google will deliver a list of possible sites that relate to the term that you typed in. Although the algorithms are different, the automated applicant tracking systems have, at their heart, the very same mechanisms and return to the employer’s agent, the HR person or company recruiter, a list of applications that have all of the specific keywords and phrases that they are looking for.
The irony here is that many people will have the experience and pre-requisites expected, but will not be in this list of top qualified candidates because the automated systems just won’t find their application.
Find Jobs That Closely Match Your Skills And Abilities
As was pointed out, the automated systems are looking for specific keywords and phrases, it is easiest to match those keywords when you are applying for jobs that you really do qualify for. But, where do you find those perfect jobs that you are looking for? Finding the right jobs requires knowing where to look, and how to get the right help finding the job opportunities. It is estimated that the big job boards such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and etc. only account for 4 to 8 percent of all hires nationally. What that means is that the majority of the jobs available are not on the big job boards. Job Search Laws can teach you exactly where to look for the right jobs. It will teach you how to access the “hidden job market” where the competition is significantly less, and odds are much greater in your favour for getting hired.
Finding just the right job opportunities will cut down the frustration factors immensely and actually improve your chances of interviews and job offers.
The Right Contacts To Follow Up With
Most people think that online job application means that you can’t contact the company, and that there won’t be any human interaction until you win the job application lottery and your name is chosen. Frankly, this attitude keeps most people from making the short list at the companies that they are interested in. If you have the first two things mentioned above, then you need to let a real person know it.
Companies often hire people who are a known entity. They are friends of someone in the company, or have worked with someone in the past. This is where the saying comes from, “who you know matters more that what you know”
No place is that more evident than when it comes to getting hired. As it turns out, knowing who to contact and how to contact them is a key component to becoming that known entity, and gaining a foot up on your competition.
Most people go about contacting someone in the company in a completely wrong way. They usually end up with the simple remark, “if they choose your resume, you will get a phone call from them.” That is usually the last thing anyone hears from the potential employer’s company. Finding the right people to contact and contacting them in the right way will make a big difference in the employer interest in your online job application.
If you are finally ready for a better online job application experience, then learn the little known secrets that actually get people hired, that help them burst past the automated and human filters to get interviews and job offers like crazy.
There is no other employment manual that addresses the real problems of today’s job search, which happens to be in the new online job application process and all of the baggage that it introduces, rather than in the lack of jobs or the current economic conditions.
- Dean Giles
Reprinted from the Gray Hair Management newsletter, www.grayhairmanagement.com
Dean Giles, Job Search Coach
Twenty one years as a Project Manager gave me a lot of experience on the interviewing and hiring end of the job market. One company acquisition and a subsequent reduction-in-force, put me on the opposite end of that equation. I quickly found that the automated online job application mechanisms had pretty much high-jacked the hiring processes. I found that the hiring process for most people is completely broken and that what I had learned over 21 years had to be applied in new and creative ways. I documented how the new systems worked, why the old ones are failing most people right now, and exactly how to take advantage of the new systems and hierarchies. I have managed to help a number people get employed or change jobs even after they had lost all hope of finding a new job. Visit JobSearchLaws.com to learn more.
