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: <larrysobersat_private> To: <securityjobsat_private> 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? >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Feb 06 2002 - 09:58:32 PST