Employment Black Holes

            Not only do black holes exist in outer space, they also exist right here on earth in the employment market. Virtually every job seeker has experienced them or will. And, much like the ones found in space, there are few telltale signs of a holes existence until after you have been sucked in.

            How do you tell when you have experienced one? It is actually pretty easy. When you send your resume in response to an employment advertisement and never hear from anyone – you more than likely encountered a black hole.

            If you speak with the creators of holes (human resource personnel, hiring managers and recruiters) about employment black holes, they likely will deny that they exist in their organization. But they do exist – in abundance.

            You will very likely encounter holes with the big employment Web sites and when dealing with human resource departments. When an advertised position reaches larger numbers of potential candidates the system becomes overloaded with candidates. The resume ends up with a multitude of other resumes, dozens, hundreds – even thousands – all to be reviewed by one or possibly a few screeners. Sometimes they even use a computer designed to look for key words. They are only going to select a handful of candidates to interview. In the majority of cases they will likely spend only a few seconds, if that, examining your resume. Often, after receiving a certain number of resumes, the reviewers stop looking at any others.

            The screener, recruiter or who ever reviews the resumes are in fact probably doing their job of finding potential employees for an employer. Finding you a job is not their job.

            Human resource personnel and recruiters are no better than the person performing the job. Some perform their jobs quite well and others are completely inept.

                        There are plenty of instances of human resource departments filing away or losing altogether resumes of great candidates needed right away, even when department managers are begging for qualified applicants.

                     What this means to you is – do not give up finding a job to others that have no               interest in getting you a job. There are too many job seekers spending week after week     sending resume after resume into a black hole. Their reasoning is since there are so many          jobs listed at the site, they eventually will get one. Months later they are frustrated and    depressed.

            Do not become a passive job seeker lost in the black holes. Become proactive, not become it is the latest buzz word, but because you want the best job possible and the approach is in your best interest.