All:
I wanted to thank everyone for their input regarding the lack of contact
from potential employers. I also promised a few of you who responded that I
would summarize the responses. I rec'd a little over 50 responses with most
people replying solely to myself and a few replying to the entire list.
It's a little wordy, but there were so many great responses. Remember,
these are not my thought or opinions, they are just a summary of the
responses that were sent to me:
Non-existent jobs (resume-bait, ghost-jobs)
-JOB SEEKER'S PERSPECTIVE
- Many of you felt that most of these positions were posted in an attempt
to collect resumes in anticipation of a hiring-frenzy, when the economy
recovers.
- Failing companies that want to give the appearance of financial
stability.
-HR/RECRUITER'S PERSPECTIVE
- A recruiter replied and admitted that it was a common practice to
maintain open job ads. He said that this ensured an active and focused
candidate list for key skills profiles.
Lazy HR professionals not updating web-site
-JOB SEEKER'S PERSPECTIVE
- Some felt that the HR group was lax in updating the employment section of
the website.
-HR/RECRUITER'S PERSPECTIVE
- An HR professional admitted that she sometimes forgot to forward the
request to web administrators to update the website or if she did the
bottleneck sometimes was the web administrators. (I can relate to some
degree, because updating the career section of the company's website takes a
backseat to Code Red, Nimda or the multiple other tasks IT professionals
have on a daily basis.)
Stale Job Search Engines
-JOB SEEKER'S PERSPECTIVE
- Some Job Search Engines pull from multiple job banks and are known to
keep stale content. You'll know when you hit one, when you click on the
apply button and it takes you back to the main job bank or employer's site
and the link is either dead or you get a page stating the job information is
no longer available.
-HR/RECRUITER'S PERSPECTIVE
- No response gathered
Incompetent HR Professionals
-JOB SEEKER'S PERSPECTIVE
- Some felt that HR/recruiters have become a hindrance to the entire
job-search process. They seem to be an obstacle between the job-seeker and
the technical hiring manager and if we didn't have the
magic-word-of-the-week (CISSP, MCSE, etc) on our resumes then the resume
would be fed to the shredder.
-HR/RECRUITER'S PERSPECTIVE
- An HR professional replied and said that many times there is a lack of
understanding of the technical skills needed for the position and all they
have to go on is the buzzwords submitted by the hiring manager. They also
said that many times they would have scanned through hundreds of resumes and
they would quit after getting 20-30 candidates. If the manager found his
candidate out of that stack, then the rest of us were either entered into
the company job bank for 6 months or sent to the shredder.
- A recruiter replied and said that many times they are given the green
light to begin searching for candidates for a particular position, only to
have the hiring manager come back and say to "hold-off" due to a re-org,
budget constraints or pressure from management to find an internal
candidate.
Poor Job Market
-JOB SEEKER'S PERSPECTIVE
- Some felt that due to the current economic condition and the massive
layoffs (dot.com meltdown), that the job market was inundated with job
seekers and insufficient job opportunities. Most felt that since HR had so
many people to choose from they didn't need to respond anymore. (I feel you
should at least get a drop-dead letter/card with the standard don't call us,
we'll call you if you're interested. It doesn't cost anything to place a
rule on the HR mailbox to auto-respond to email submissions. I actually had
a phone interview and would have never heard anything from the company had I
not contacted the HR office.)
- Some noticed jobs with salaries that couldn't possibly match the job
requirements. Usually, low-ball offers such as 10-15 years of experience,
CCIE, CISSP for 40-50K.
- Out of the majority of responses, two individuals said they were still
receiving job offers. Unfortunately, they didn't mention what state they
were living in.
- Some felt that most legitimate companies are not posting their job ads,
but still using their internal contacts, ex-contractors and
recruiters/headhunters. (I've actually seen this happen with a company here
locally. They didn't post the job on their website, nor did they advertise
the position in the local paper. Instead, they contacted a few contracting
firms and headhunters to fill the position.)
- Someone mentioned that a bulk of the work was being farmed outside of the
country or being given to immigrant workers, who would accept much lower
salaries.
-HR/RECRUITER'S PERSPECTIVE
- An HR professional mentioned that it was cheaper and easier to have a
contracting firm do the recruitment. They would usually send in the
candidate as a contractor and have the person work through the normal
probationary period (the old contract to perm position) and if the candidate
worked out, they would hire the individual. The HR professional said the
entire process was more efficient than searching for a candidate, hiring the
candidate, setting up benefits, spending training hours to get the candidate
acclimated to the position and then possibly terminating the candidate due
to job incompatibilities.
TIPS & TECHNIQUES
-JOB SEEKER'S
- Network, network, network (did I mention network?) Practically everyone
agreed that their job opportunity was a result of a friend or a friend of a
friend. One guy said not to only use contacts in the industry, but to talk
to everyone, your doctor, the mailman, people at the gym, etc, because you
never know who they may know. (I guess I have to be more social during
those training classes, seminars and conventions that IT people attend.
You'll recognize me as the guy, who keeps handing out business cards and
shaking hands at the next SANS conference!)
-HR/RECRUITER'S
- Always identify the job you are applying for
- Always give brief information regarding experience or type of job desired
in body of email message, so recruiter/HR professional can quickly identify
candidate's needs
- Tailor your resume for the position that you are applying for (which
could mean something as little as a well-written cover letter or as drastic
as re-writing your resume)
- Don't make laundry lists on your resume. Only note skills that the job
requires. (If you're applying for a firewall position, no one cares if
you've mastered Powerpoint)
- Make a list accomplishments at previous jobs ("What you've *done* is more
important than what you *know* and it needs to relate to what I need")
- Be honest about your abilities
(I must thank Paul Schmehl for his list of tips. If you didn't read his
message, here's the link for the entire email:
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/77/254182)
And the number one tip that I got from both sides is that I need to call
these companies after submitting my resume. (I would like to respond to
this and mention that I have called many companies and many times it is next
to impossible to get past the pit-bull HR secretary/receptionist, who has
been told to only forward calls from candidates who have been contacted. A
few times, I did get an HR professional, who either gave me lip service or
didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about.)
LESSONS LEARNED
Just to give the group a little background on myself, I have a Master's
degree with 10 years of experience in the IT industry starting as a lowly
tech and working my way through the ranks to security engineer. I was being
extremely selective as to the positions that I was applying for and
following up the ads that listed the actual employer with a phone call.
After this email and all the responses, my focus has definitely changed. I
read an article where the writer advised not to apply on-line, but to choose
a few companies that would be ideal to work for and target them. Since I am
currently employed and have the luxury of a paycheck, I will follow the
advice of the article and select 5-10 industry leaders (Microsoft, Bank of
America,etc) and submit to them and wait for an opportunity to arise.
Meanwhile, I will focus on improving weaknesses in my skill-set and work on
achieving the CISSP certification.
Good luck to all of you!
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 3:21 PM
Subject: No Contact
>
>
> All:
>
> Have any of you had any contact on positions that
> you applied for on-line?
>
> I'm asking because I keep hearing how many people
> are unemployed and that the companies can pick &
> choose & lowball infosec personnel currently, but I
> noticed that many positions are sitting out there for
> months.
>
> The same positions keep showing up on searches
> and I've had to modify my queries to only retrieve jobs
> that have been posted in the last 7 days (I still see
> some of the older jobs, because the company
> reposts them).
>
> I've applied for at least 30-40 jobs in the last month
> and have only received one drop-dead card from HR
> and an three automated emails upon submisssion.
> Could this be a case of the lazy HR rep filling the
> positions but not updating the websites?
>
