NIH Nightmare - Online Job Application Systems
With an uncomfortably long period of unsuccessful job hunting under my belt, I'm beginning to wonder what it is that drives every company to develop its own unique web tools for accepting job applications.
All you're doing is creating a unique record, asking users to populate fields with a bunch of very similar data, and storing a single binary object. Why does this process need to be re-invented 417,000 times?
Words fail me. OK, that's not true, I have a lot of words to describe the next online job application system I run across, and I typically re-input the exact same data into 10-15 of them every week. Every system is a new and different way to collect the same information. Sometimes the site itself is redundant. You want my resume in ASCII format and I'm supposed to upload it? Even worse, upload it first so the website can attempt to helpfully fill in the form itself. Of course, any resume template not shipped with MS Word 2003 fails and I'm left editing everything obsessively for fear I might miss a wrongly auto-populated field, and end up telling the HR department that my salary requirements are 11/03/2006-Present.
A single submission utility, configurable by the user and supported widely by employers, could solve this problem. Lacking that, I guess there's only one thing that can stop the madness...
... somebody hire me!
- Anthony Dye's blog
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Comments
I understand. Pretty
I understand. Pretty unoptimized, isn't it?
There may be hope in OpenID. That is, your identity...your data resides with you, and you authorize others to access segments of your data.
What gets me is that most of the information sent to an employer remains unused. We write cover letters and resumes that pad the core data that the employer really wants to know with other stuff that we think employers want to see. However, since every employer is different, we're never sure which core data they really want to see.
Then the corporate recruiter scans the resume + cover letter to extract some information. This extracted information probably isn't the core data because they often don't entirely understand the technical intricacies of the role. But people are filtered nonetheless, and the remaining candidates are sent to the hiring manager who again extracts the data he needs to make a decision about who to interview in person.
Wouldn't it be nice to figure out what the hiring manager needs up front, and deliver it to them without all the extraneous information that clouds what they really want to know?
Anthony. Wow. Why is this
Anthony. Wow. Why is this the 1st time I have read one of the more obvious and painful realities of the job seeker??? Refilling the same (with slight variant) data on job apps is killing me. Slowly. 20-40 minutes each week.
Matt. OpenID has got my flingers tightly crossed. I might end up permanently deformed. But it's gonna be awhile until 417K jobsites conform.
In the meantime, someone please take heed to Anthony's message. Knock it off. You're taking a sad process and making it worse.
Having just been through a
Having just been through a job searching process myself, I can relate to this pain. Towards the end of my search, I was giving much more weight to jobs posted on LinkedIn because I could send them to my profile. It didn't always take the place of a nightmare web form, but it was something I could do first that was easier.
We can only hope that in the future there will be a better solution to this madness.
There's gotta be. Matt was
There's gotta be. Matt was talking about openid which has promise. But what's stopping us from developing an xml schema and getting the State of Texas to adopt and enforce. All entities registered with the Secretary of State would need to comply with adoption of this standard. So, without too much sweat, an app can be written by Texas Workforce Commission where I could develop a resume, convert to xml schema and submit to any employer in the state. Seems sorta breezy.
COntinuing the point, I have an account with workintexas.com and it makes me cry everytime I gotta use it. Of the "job matches" that pop up according to my saved searches, 93.4% require that I create an account on some other site.
My resume and deets! oughta be a "block" of standard data that is processable via any job hiring site.
The big assumption is that our pains are as great as we dramatically state they are. If in fact the problem was real and deep enough (not saying it's not) then I'd expect that someone is working on it already. Even so, if someone is working on it somewhere else, central texas can build it better, with chrome, and wicked rockstar music.
I helped get an Ordinance passed in the COA. I thought at first it'd be hard. To our surprise, Mike Martinez was wondering what took us sooooo long to ask for his support. The ordinance, passed unanimously without any animosity.
Thank you all for the
Thank you all for the comments... it's good to know somebody else is tearing his hair out over this.
I really love the idea of trying for some kind of salvation. Honestly, workintexas.com is a horror show for me as well. You have absolutely no idea what you're going to find on the other side of the link... once in a while they want you to print out and mail your resume! Sure, let me just ring up the Pony Express... it'll be there tomorrow unless indians attack.
Some kind of synergy with existing systems like LinkedIn could also be a good way to bootstrap a new system into wide-ish usage. Ideally what you want is a system where users input all the data into an app of some sort, convert to xml, and employers can select which fields they want to have populated. You could even have the employer send an automated email back! Right now it feels like throwing rocks into the air and hoping one hits somebody. Unless you hear a yell, you never know what happened...
One interesting outgrowth of this is that success would effectively kill the 'resume' industry. When you reduce to data, it's all about what you've done and what you say, not how your resume is formatted.
It's a filter: making the
It's a filter: making the application process relatively unique to each employer is an effective test of how much effort you're willing to to invest in the job, and sometimes of how well you follow instructions.
Such filters may be nuisances, but they are necessary. If resume data flowed more freely, just imagine how much more data hiring companies would receive, and how much of that additional data would likely come from unqualified applicants. Companies would incur additional costs for the additional staff needed to sift through the data, and receive little (if any) additional benefit.
Blasting resumes out to every possible employer (the "shotgun" approach) doesn't work, and only makes an applicant look desperate. I don't waste my time (or an employer's) by applying for jobs that don't closely fit my background and interests; when I find a good match (lately about one a month), I'll often tailor a version of my resume to highlight my relevant qualifications, and I've been getting some good interviews.
- John
You're suggesting that it's
You're suggesting that it's obtuse and non-standard on purpose?!
Suggesting it? I'm coming
Suggesting it? I'm coming right out and saying it: organizations have strong incentives to keep the status quo.
(Please don't kill the messenger!)
Good luck with your search
- John
Good to hear your
Good to hear your voices...ditto on the experience. One particular major company has a failed process on their site and yet I cannot get anyone at that company to fix their site. Ah, well. Networking, networking, and finding ways to meet others face-to-face still provides the top method to seek the next career step. (According to; What color is my parachute?, by Richard Bolles, he states that it takes 80 pairs of eyes to help you find your next job/career/workplace.)
-Bright eyed here! :D