This was a question that we overheard recently, and that became the topic of an extended discussion on Facebook. The frustration in it was clear as a bell, and it ultimately led the editors at IMDiversity to decide we wanted to explore the topic more deeply.
From the inside perspective of folks who work with web technology and in the areas of student and professional recruitment (online and offline), we can say with some authority and certainty that the answer is, "Yes, some people do find and get jobs using online tools..."
But from the same perspective, we also have to add, "...but it's not always as quick and straightforward as it seems."
Remember those Super Bowl commercials a number of years back where an office worker just posted a resume on an online job board just sat back and waited for the job offers to flood in along with piles of gifts and bouquets of flowers? Well, we've been in the business for some time, and while we've certainly seen jobseekers get connected with hiring employers and ultimately close on good employment opportunities through using online tools, we've never seen one get a floral bouquet with it...not one!
Just "going fishing" by taking a 10 minutes to drop a resume on a job board may be an adequate job hunt strategy for a very elite job seeker with stellar credentials, mounds of experience, an eloquent writing style that allows his or her winning personality to radiate off the virtual page, and the ideal skillset and references, background and presentation style to make a perfect organizational fit that is recognized by a highly active, dedicated and keen-eyed recruiter just itching to make this one hire out of several ASAP.
But you and me ain't that very elite person. Folks like us have to, as the old adage goes, "treat finding a job as if it was our job." We know that getting a good job can take some thought, resourcefulness and sometimes a little luck.
We also know that no matter how clever the technology that stands between us and the job of our dreams, that doesn't mean that more traditional strategies, preparation, negotiation and yes, offline action, can be tossed out the window. We've seen that even the most advanced resume database tool cannot save the applicant with the sloppy and unproofread resume, or lackluster or cocky or careless cover letter. We've seen some great jobseekers and great jobs pass each other by like ships in the night just because of slightly mistyped or outdated contact information on one side or another or both.
All we have to do is look at the spam in our email in-boxes to be reminded that sometimes, the powerful automating and communications technologies that are created to make our lives easier can tend, as they evolve and spread, to become so complex that we have to stop and periodically reassess how we can make the best use of them.
The editors will address this issue in a number of ways on our site this year, and we want to invite you to share stories about your online job search experiences for an upcoming new feature, The Job Hunters Chronicles.
We are seeking submissions from you -- the jobseeker, our readers or other site visitors -- in short-article format sharing your insights about how you used the Internet in a job search, and your frank experiences of what "worked" or "definitely did not work" for you in locating, applying to, or negotiating for job opportunities using online methods and tools. What tips or strategies or pitfalls to avoid?
If you have a good story to share with other jobseekers, please send them in to The Job Hunters Chronicles.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
New Grad Job Features Winding Down this Week
As we move toward the conclusion of this year's Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair ending this coming weekend at THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online, co-presented by IMDiversity, we are pleased to announce the addition of new opportunities links and recruiter's messages by additional participants including...
Additionally and simultaneously, a number of fresh featured Internships/Fellowships and Entry-Level/New College Hire/Trainee Jobs have been posted the job channels at IMDiversity.
These free seasonal features are intended to connect diverse students and new college graduates to employers who are currently publishing opportunities available to students or to entry-level candidates just before graduation. In years, the editors jokingly referred to them as "the procrastinator's special," as in, where were you when the career center was holding all those campus job fairs last semester?
Of course, by this time, the opportunities we were featuring with early summer start dates are few on our jobs databases; over the past couple weeks, they've been replaced by many more that are already being filled for next fall and winter.
But these features this year also dispel the myth "employers have filled their college hiring needs" this close to graduation. We've heard from college recruitment professionals at a diverse range of companies and organizations -- from multinationals to non-profits to government agencies -- who told us the campus recruiting season definitely left them with remaining openings. Others had extended application deadlines for some frankly amazing opportunities, as well as well-paid fellowships, leadership projects, and internships offering substantive work experiences coming up quickly for the summer.
This year's virtual career fair was one of the liveliest and most well-trafficked we've hosted in some time, and also had some of the most robust participation by the companies. We definitely appreciated the time jobseekers took to fill out our Career Fair survey to tell us about which sites they visited and which had scheduled interviews with them. We also appreciated the input of employers who often provided very detailed, helpful advice about applying to the specific opportunities they were hiring for.
We feel that the active participation of both helped make the 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair a real success, and are considering making such a feature a regular event on our sites for the future. Meanwhile, we'll continue to welcome feedback, suggestions or success stories from all who participated, and hope others still seeking a job will visit the fair in its final weekend.
- Citizen Schools National Teaching Fellowships
- Civilian Opportunities with the Department of Navy - Naval Inventory Control Point
- New opportunities added by IBM
Additionally and simultaneously, a number of fresh featured Internships/Fellowships and Entry-Level/New College Hire/Trainee Jobs have been posted the job channels at IMDiversity.
These free seasonal features are intended to connect diverse students and new college graduates to employers who are currently publishing opportunities available to students or to entry-level candidates just before graduation. In years, the editors jokingly referred to them as "the procrastinator's special," as in, where were you when the career center was holding all those campus job fairs last semester?
Of course, by this time, the opportunities we were featuring with early summer start dates are few on our jobs databases; over the past couple weeks, they've been replaced by many more that are already being filled for next fall and winter.
But these features this year also dispel the myth "employers have filled their college hiring needs" this close to graduation. We've heard from college recruitment professionals at a diverse range of companies and organizations -- from multinationals to non-profits to government agencies -- who told us the campus recruiting season definitely left them with remaining openings. Others had extended application deadlines for some frankly amazing opportunities, as well as well-paid fellowships, leadership projects, and internships offering substantive work experiences coming up quickly for the summer.
This year's virtual career fair was one of the liveliest and most well-trafficked we've hosted in some time, and also had some of the most robust participation by the companies. We definitely appreciated the time jobseekers took to fill out our Career Fair survey to tell us about which sites they visited and which had scheduled interviews with them. We also appreciated the input of employers who often provided very detailed, helpful advice about applying to the specific opportunities they were hiring for.
We feel that the active participation of both helped make the 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair a real success, and are considering making such a feature a regular event on our sites for the future. Meanwhile, we'll continue to welcome feedback, suggestions or success stories from all who participated, and hope others still seeking a job will visit the fair in its final weekend.
Friday, May 2, 2008
General What's New Postings Moving to New Address
After taking some time off to reconfigure our postings, IMDiversity's editors and contributors/bloggers have determined to separate the general "What's New" postings that we had been posting in this space for posting on a stand-alone but related address:
http://imdiversity.blogspot.com
This current blog, http://diversitycareers.blogspot.com/, will continue to be updated with appropriate content related to career development, workplace issues, diversity- and employment-related topics, and announcements of opportunities and events of interest to a wide range of visitors coming from the Career Center channel of our main site IMDiversity.com, and from elsewhere.
However, those announcements that are primarily related to internal news and announcements of goings-on with the IMDiversity.com and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online network, as well as THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine, will be posted on http://imdiversity.blogspot.com. These items will be primarily of interest to regular active-job-seeker visitors and clients of our organization, those making use of our jobs and resume tools, etc. on our main site, as well as those interested in corporate news and information about IMDiversity, Inc.
In fact, this is how we had planned to approach the integration of the blogs into our site activities from the beginning, believing that it was in the interests of our readers who were seeing different kinds of content. However, it took us a little while to (re)secure and configure the http://imdiversity.blogspot.com address.
We hope this change will be beneficial to our readers and site visitors moving forward.
-- The editors
http://imdiversity.blogspot.com
This current blog, http://diversitycareers.blogspot.com/, will continue to be updated with appropriate content related to career development, workplace issues, diversity- and employment-related topics, and announcements of opportunities and events of interest to a wide range of visitors coming from the Career Center channel of our main site IMDiversity.com, and from elsewhere.
However, those announcements that are primarily related to internal news and announcements of goings-on with the IMDiversity.com and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online network, as well as THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine, will be posted on http://imdiversity.blogspot.com. These items will be primarily of interest to regular active-job-seeker visitors and clients of our organization, those making use of our jobs and resume tools, etc. on our main site, as well as those interested in corporate news and information about IMDiversity, Inc.
In fact, this is how we had planned to approach the integration of the blogs into our site activities from the beginning, believing that it was in the interests of our readers who were seeing different kinds of content. However, it took us a little while to (re)secure and configure the http://imdiversity.blogspot.com address.
We hope this change will be beneficial to our readers and site visitors moving forward.
-- The editors
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