Question:
Anybody used some of those .com job placement sites for the
Atlanta area? Would like to get some recommendations.
Headhunter.net has had some pretty relevant leads. I wasn't as
impressed with monster.com. The trick is weeding out the recruiter
spam that shows up when you search 'Atlanta' and wind up getting 'Live
Anywhere!' posts (eg. Travel your ass off!). Matrix is a major spammer
of Headhunter. I think they may own a stake in it if not the whole
site.
Answer:
Some people feel that by merely posting their resume on the internet,
that employers will come banging at their door to offer them a job. From
my personal observations, this rarely happens. To best improve your
chances of getting a job with the highest pay possible, your resume
should be tailored specifically to the job you seek to fill. This
requires both reading the company's employment ad and in researching the
company you hope to work for. When there are many potential candidates
for a job opening, employers can turn their attention to looking for
information to disqualify candidates at the resume review stage, when the
least amount of time has been invested in the potential employee. The
most frequent example of this that I hear of is individuals with
extensive COBOL programing experience being weeded-out of Object Oriented
Programming language jobs, due to the employers misbelieve that COBOL
programmers cannot be retrained to program in the Object Oriented
languages. But there are also many other cases where people are
weeded-out at the resume review stage of hiring. Individuals with IT
certifications, but no practical work experience are frequently weeded
out. And the exact opposite also occurs. Some employers, typically IT
consulting firms, weed out individuals without certifications, regardless
of their experience. So, from my observations, blindly revealing your
resume doesn't really help too much in a job search.
Another problem with posting your resume on the internet is that it can
also become available to your current employer. Once your current
employer becomes aware that you are looking for a job elsewhere, the best
case scenario will be that you will be put in a very uncomfortable or
embarrassing situation. From my limited life experiences, this act of
disloyalty doesn't generally result in a pay raise or in any other
improvements or benefits in your current job, as some people may
erroneously believe. If you seek to improve your current work
environment, a diplomatic, direct approach is best. Put yourself in your
bosses' shoes. If you discovered through another worker that one of your
employees is actively searching for employment elsewhere, what would you
do? Would you still want this employee to work on lucrative long-term
contracts? Or would you merely terminate this employee quietly to
decrease the potential risk that this employee will gather proprietary
and confidential information to use in a latter job? Hanging on to a
worker who is dissatisfied with his job does not improve the overall
morale of your company.
There are ways to use the internet to help you get a job. My advice is
to use a site where you don't have to put up your resume.
Computerjobs.com is Atlanta-based. You can search for a job there
without posting your resume. And careermosaic will actually email you
leads to jobs that fits the criteria you are looking for.
