What Makes Job Seekers, Recruiters and HR "Mad"

I love technology. Being able to communicate around the world in fractions of seconds is amazing to me. Searching for people, or jobs, or just information with a few keystrokes rather than buying 15 newspapers, or having to travel to the library (still a great place to go) to borrow a phone book, or having bookshelves filled with encyclopedias. But what have we lost in the process of all this technology? Recently, I've participated in discussion items through some groups (Job Angels and The Job Board specifically) on LinkedIn that have left me contemplating this thought.

On Job & Career Network, there is a discussion titled "JOBSEEKERS; What do Recruiters and HR staffers do that really gets you upset? RECRUITERS/HR: What do jobseekers do that really gets you upset?" There are nearly 3,000 comments on this discussion, which anyone using LinkedIn will acknowledge is a significant amount of activity. Believe it or not, there is one common thread through most of the comments; where has the communication gone? What ever happened to "common" decency, respect and follow through? It isn't so common anymore, is it?

I remember the day when resumes were either mailed or hand delivered to an organization. Now, I'm not THAT old, and this isn't one of your grandparents stories about walking 10 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways! Now that we have settled that, I'll continue. =) During the pre-internet (olden?) days, organizations would usually send a letter letting you know they had chosen someone else or call you congratulating you on your selection. Don't hold your breath waiting on these "niceties" today. Yes, there are still a few "old school" organizations out there, but by and large, the communication factor has disappeared.

So where does that leave us? My recommendation to job seekers is to lower your expectations. I don't like this new reality, but stomping my feet and throwing my fists in the air, screaming how "wrong" this is, isn't going to change it. (I'm just one person, and as good as I think I am, I haven't figured out how to change the world....yet!) Does it stink that the human element has nearly been removed from a job search? Of course it does. We can focus on how wrong it is, and how much we'd like it to be different, or we can accept the way it is and try to find a way to "work" with it.

On the other side of the coin is the HR and Recruiting personnel. I completely understand how inundated you are with qualified and not so qualified candidates and the ability to keep up with them all is nearly impossible. For recruiters, finding clients willing to pay for your services has become increasingly challenging, and your candidate base has increased exponentially over the last 2 years. Many of these candidates have made the possibilitiy of marketing them nearly impossible because they don't have quality documents. Keeping up with the amount of incoming email and phone calls from candidates becomes overwhelming; almost to the point of needing to add another 20 hours to each day. HR personnel often receive upwards of 1,000 resumes for each opening they have and are tasked with weeding through them to find "the most qualified" candidate. How much can you really do in a day? External recruiters usually only get paid if they make a placement, so their focus is on working with the most marketable candidates. HR personnel have a responsibility to their company to find the "best" candidates in a relatively short period of time, and have reams of paper to sort through to find them. I'm fortunate enough to work with all parties involved, so I understand the challenges each of you face. So how do we bring all the pieces together and make everyone happy?

I think the short answer is, you can't. We can't make everyone happy all the time. However, job seekers can make themselves more marketable by having quality documents. Job seekers can take the initiative and follow up on a regular, non stalking, basis and get the answers they so desperately crave. They can take the power back by not sitting and waiting for the incoming communication. Is that the way it should be? Does it really matter if that's the way it should be? No, on both counts. But guess what....that's the way it is. Lower your expectations and you'll never be disappointed.

I do wish HR and recruiters could put the human element back into what they are doing and realize that they are dealing with people and not paper. Unfortunately, they are doing all they can to maintain their employed status and the human element has been removed. Maybe when this economic crisis is over, we can get back to the way things "used to be". It sure would be nice for the change to happen sooner, though.


Kim Cyr can be reached at kcyr@cspgroups.com, 888-831-9495 or www.cspgroups.com