Applying for a job online? How to make electronic screening work for you instead of against you.
Applicant tracking systems ease the burden for recruiters and employers by processing resumes and applications from job applicants, determining who’s best for the job and filing the information. While good for employers, the technology might adversely affect unknowing job applicants. MedZilla asks the experts to offer tips about how applicants can best use the technology to their advantage.
Marysville, WA (PRWEB) January 9 2004-—If you apply for jobs online, whether
via job boards or corporate Web sites, your basic understanding of the
behind-the-scenes technology used to process your information could
significantly strengthen your chances of landing the ideal job.
“Years
ago, we’d send in or fax paper resumes. Human beings—be it recruiters and hiring
managers--would receive, review, and file or pitch them,” says Frank Heasley,
PhD, President and CEO of MedZilla.com, a leading Internet recruitment and
professional community that targets jobseekers and HR professionals in
biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science.
“Faced with
stacks of resumes, Human Resources and other staffing professionals are all too
willing to be replaced by computer programs which promise to take the tedium out
of screening resumes. Technology is changing the whole process, and,
specifically, the role of human beings. Computers have taken the place of the
human eye in filtering which resumes make it to recruiters’ desks. This more
automated system presents challenges to the job seeker. You may be qualified for
the job, but you must also be prepared to navigate what has become a cold,
calculated, and often Kafkaesque process.
“For employers, the technology
means an outwardly more efficient, less cumbersome process for receiving,
reviewing and storing resumes. However, for candidates the technology means more
time spent filling out custom online applications on corporate Web sites, and
less time cutting and pasting standard resumes. It also means that those
candidates who are better at filling out applications in a way that the systems
will recognize them have better chances at getting to the top of the ‘good’ pile
of resumes.”
Applicant tracking systems
Many
corporations—especially large companies—have automated their recruiting
processes using applicant-tracking systems (ATSs). In their simplest forms, ATSs
are resume databases, creating candidate pools for employers and providing
electronic filing cabinets for recruiting information within an organization,
says Adam Feigenbaum, senior marketing and sales manager, iCIMS, an applicant
tracking solution provider in Hazlet, NJ.
The more extensive ATS
applications might also screen candidates and make decisions about which
individuals are best for the job based on the employer’s input of key terms and
qualifications. For recruiters and HR managers at companies deluged with
hundreds of responses to a single job posting, the technology would seem to be a
godsend.
The outcome, however, is different from the candidate’s
perspective. The good news for candidates is that some of the more advanced ATS
systems allow a candidate to get immediate feedback about the system’s receipt
of a job application or resume, whether or not that candidate is qualified for
the job, and the status of their application. The challenge is that ATSs are
different and companies vary in their application requirements. Sometimes
candidates apply via job boards like MedZilla, with user-friendly, one-time
applications. However, many corporations today are asking that candidates apply
yet another time on their own corporate Web sites, requiring candidates to spend
more time filling out online forms.
“Kurt,” a job applicant seeking a
position in biotech, applied with an online job board for a position with a
major biotech company, only to get an e-mail that the company was not accepting
applications by e-mail. He learned he would have to go to the company’s Web site
to re-apply, which wasn’t very useful, he explained; especially since he
couldn’t find the job on his second try.
Fill out forms completely, and
other tips for online applications
The best advice, experts say, is don’t
skirt around ATSs.
“We tell our clients that they have to oblige when
corporations want to drive them to their own Web sites,” Dr. Heasley says,
“unless they are working with a recruiter that has an ‘in’ with the company and
can forgo the ATS.”
Do what you are told and do it well.
Andre
Allen, director of strategic business alliances for Pearson Reid London House,
an assessment, recruiting, prescreening company, says that candidates should
have their personal and professional information available when applying online
for a job. Be ready to answer all the questions on applications, he
says.
Don’t buck the system.
Some applicants opt to go the old
fashioned route and send in their paper resumes rather than fill out online
applications or resume forms. Jeff Dahltorp, director of global marketing and
business development of TruStar Solutions, an Internet recruiting solutions
company, says that might not be a good idea. The reality, he says, is that paper
resumes create more work for recruiters, who have to input what’s on a paper
resume into corporate systems. “So, there actually is an added cost for
companies to process and handle paper and faxed resumes,” he says.
Fancy
isn’t necessarily a good thing when applying online.
Feigenbaum warns
that while graphics, tables, charts and other embedded things might make paper
resumes stand out, they do the opposite to online resumes that are being
processed by ATSs. When a resume is submitted, he says, it goes through a
“parsing process,” where name, address, e-mail address and skill sets are pulled
off the resume to create the candidate profile. “If these pieces of information
are embedded in graphics or in elaborate headers or within tables in a resume,
sometimes it’s difficult for that information to be pulled off and found by
search engines used in these systems,” Feigenbaum says.
Read the job
advertisement or posting for key words.
John Dooney, human resource
manager with the Society of Human Resource Management, says that candidates
could up their chances for being recognized by ATSs simply by incorporating all
the key terms in a job posting into their resumes or job applications. “Put in
as many key words as possible. … if the key word isn’t in there, you’re
information won’t pop up,” he says.
Don’t limit your job search. Job
boards continue to be key.
“Regardless of whether corporate Web sites
ask you to apply for a job directly, job boards continue to be the place to see
the myriad of jobs available in the marketplace. Job boards, like MedZilla, hone
your search so that you have jobs in your field to choose from—then you can
apply for some using our technology and others by going directly to the
corporate sites. The point is that you don’t want to be limited to the jobs on
one corporate Web site,” Dr. Heasley says.
About
MedZilla.com
Established in mid 1994, MedZilla is the original web site
to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in
biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla
databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000 resumes from candidates
actively seeking new positions and 50,000 archived resumes.
Medzilla® is
a Registered Trademark owned by Medzilla Inc. Copyright ©2004, MedZilla, Inc.
Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute this text in its entirety, and
if electronically, with a link to the URL www.medzilla.com. For
permission to quote from or reproduce any portion of this message, please
contact Michele Groutage, Director of Marketing and Development, MedZilla, Inc.
Email: e-mail protected from spam bots.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/1/prweb97333.htm