Some time ago I wrote an article about the endless frustration shared with me by my friends and some of my readers who were in job search. Despite folks’ best efforts at using conventional job search techniques, many already realize that using the web is an inevitable part of any job search strategy.
But the one-million dollar question is: How to find a relevant job posting that:
* matches your work skills?
* gets sent almost immediately after it’s posted?
* doesn’t include loads of other worthless job listings?
SEARCH ENGINES: NOTHING BETTER THAN SPAM
In a seemingly kindhearted gesture to answer these burning questions, some employment search resources (such as Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and countless others) offer so-called “job search agents”. To subscribe to an agent, you enter keywords directly related to the job you’re looking for, specify any geographical location for a job search, and you choose how frequently you wish related job postings should be e-mailed to you.
The problem with these “search agents”: they send you loads of job leads that have absolutely nothing to do with what you’re looking for. In the end, your inbox becomes filled with bogus “job leads” frequently amounting to nothing better than spam.
CASE IN POINT
To prove this contention, I recently activated a job search agent using the keyword phrase “technical writer” as the basis of my search criteria. I clicked “Activate”, and within a few hours I received the first of my daily job search agent results: nothing but a listing of high-end IT (say: geek) jobs for which I was in no way qualified to apply. None of the jobs listed had anything to do with technical writing.
Only after broadening the geographical search criteria did I began to receive some decent leads, but I also suffered from a proportionally increased number of junk job leads through which I had to sift.
It seemed like nothing short of being forced to make a deal with the Devil.
WHY THEY DO IT
Upon sharing this experience with a friend of mine, she asked me quite bluntly, “Why do they do send you such [unspeakable]?”
The answer seems simple enough.
Given that these job search engines are providing job seekers with a “free” service, you actually have to “make payment” in the form of sifting through their spam job listings for any job that may be relevant to what you’re looking for. In the meantime, as you skim through their listings, there is a chance that you might run across a job posting that would be a good fit for a friend of yours. The idea then is to have you refer job leads to others who are seeking work, get them placed, and thus have the online job search engine reap some profit through a referral commission for that placement.
While this strategy seems to make good enough business sense (after all, a business has to make a profit somehow), the job seeker is the one doling out payment in the form of fruitless and wasted time poring over endless lists of irrelevant job postings – frequently being left empty-handed.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Given the fact that your e-mail inbox is probably already loaded to the brim with spam, it’s no wonder you’re easily frustrated with further spam coming from a job search agent that you subscribed to. Unfortunately, it seems that sifting through their listings is a necessary evil with which you have to put up.
Can there be relief in sight for your endless turmoil?
Actually, yes, I believe there is one viable solution. I will write about it soon. Feel free to subscribe to my article feeds to keep up to date on a relatively new service I just found that does provide relevant job search agents.
In the meantime, try to enjoy yourself somehow – while you skim through those endless job agent listings!
Have fun!
– John
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