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Why Employers Have Trouble Filling Open Positions – and How to Take Advantage

…and why the previous strategy I posted on how to successfully use the Internet to land a job works so well. 

 
 
First Things First, Stop Being Afraid.
 
Ignore everything  you hear on TV about the decline of employment. 
 
Stop buying into the fear, all it does is discourage you from trying and believing that any effort at all would just be a waste of energy. Not True.
 
What if I told you that a large majority of employers actually have trouble filling open positions, and that job openings will often sit unfilled and hidden from most potential candidates for up to 6 months to a year? The more technical the role and more specific skill set required, the more true this is. There are jobs out there right now that you could be landing interviews for that are right underneath your and the competition’s nose. 

 

Industry job recruiters rarely have the network and experience to know where to look to find qualified candidates. HR representatives and recruiters tend to be office based employees that handle large volumes of paperwork, sort out conflict between employees, and handle the hiring process. They are outsiders to the industry.
 
It is most likely painfully obvious to you where you would go to find people to fill roles for your industry and you can probably list several names right off the top of your head of people that are looking for employment, this is insider information that you have accumulated during your time working. Recruiters have not spent time in your actual feild, they spent time moving paper.  They are not privy to this information, and the ones at their company that do, are too busy focusing on the demands of their day job to do anything useful with it to fill openings. 
 

Recruiters want to do everything in their power to fill any openings before having to resort to going to a major career site such as career builder, monster, and indeed. The minute a job is posted to one of these sites, recruiters  become extremely overwhelmed with the sheer number of responses that come in. Think of an extremly attractive girl on an online dating website, but worse. Much much worse. 

 
Second: Take Advantage 
 
 This gives you, the job seeker, a huge opportunity to take advantage of. 
 
The gap that is created by the lack of insider knowledge in the hands of the company employee in charge of advertising open positions means that a high percentage of job openings stay unfilled for a long time and are kept out of major job searches. 
 
 
 
 
The typically process goes something like this:
 
  1. The opening is advertised internally 
  2. Are there any internal candidates to fill this position?  
  3. The opening gets posted to the company website
  4. Are there any recommendations from existing employees? resumes sent in for friends and family
  5. Opening sits on company website for a pre-determined set of time usually 6 months to a year and is never found by hopeful candidates. 
  6. Opening gets sent to a mass career website. 
 
Third: Take Action 
 
 
The correct attitude to have to take advantage of this scenario is to realize that at any given time, for what ever skill set you have, there exists an employer that is hopelessly trying to hire someone like you and even pay more than your last job.  It is simply a numbers game. 
 
Out of the hundreds of thousand employers in your field, there will always exist one that is looking for YOU.  You can’t find them because you don’t know how to look (See my previous post: 10 Steps to Sucessfully Find a Job Using the Internet) They can’t find you because recruiters lack the insider knowledge to know the right rocks to turn over to find you. 
You need to strike as soon as you can from the moment an opening is posted to a company website.
 
After an opening has gone stale and unfilled, it will inevitably get pushed to one of the mass job websites, an online black hole of resumes. And when that happens,  good luck trying to be the lucky sperm to fertilize that egg. 
 
 
 
Now go after them before they get there.
 
Post any experience you have ever had in this manner down below, we would absolutely love to hear from you.

 

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10 Steps to Successfully Find a Job Using the Internet

Wake up, make a pot of coffee, sign into one of the dozen mass job search websites like careerbuilder, monster and indeed.  Apply to every new job posting that even remotely fits your resume. Rinse and repeat and wait for follow ups to come into your inbox. Days, weeks and  months later and Surprise! there are none.

headache

Does this sound like you?

Let’s talk about some of the ways to actually find a job using the internet as an effective tool instead of going with the masses and competing with every single person on the internet.  By applying online to the Ebay and Craigslist of job posting websites, chances are that by the time a potential employer receives their thousandth applicant by lunch time day of posting, there will almost always be someone more qualified and attractive on paper to beat you well out of first place.

Let’s begin!

1. Organize your resumes.  Each time you create a new flavor or slight variety, save it to a folder and don’t delete it. You never know what creative insights you had that will be useful in the future. Make sure your existing ones have been proof read by yourself and others.

2. State your intent. Start putting together a list or at the very least some heavy thought into the types of jobs and roles that you would like to aggressively pursue that match your experience and qualifications.

3. Find employers in your area. Use a combination of Google Maps and the Internet and do your homework. Start finding out about companies in your area that employee people for the jobs you are looking for. For now, stay away from mass job search engines, you want to find individual company websites.

Radiology Map

4. Keep it simple. The most effective way to do this, is imagine you are a customer that would hire this type of company. What sort of key words would you type into a search engine to find them? Example: If you are a radiologist looking for work, try searching for “emergency x-ray service” or just “radiology.”

5. Keep Track. Once you start finding company websites, write them down and keep a log where you can can notes. A word document or Excel spreadsheet is perfect for this. Of particular interest to you as a potential new employee is their rating on Google business and Google maps. Put more attention on the companies with higher average review ratings.

6. Access individual career websites. Look for the career portion of their website. Sometimes it is large button that is easy to find, other times it will be a small line of text at the very bottom that just says “Careers.”  It will almost always be listed somewhere off their home page.

career link

7. Search each company’s job postings. Go through all of them  regardless of location. Even if there are no open ones in your area, use the job listings to help you fine tune your resume. The listings themselves will usually give away exactly what they are looking for in potential applications. Never lie, but if you have any matching skills or experience, make sure to include it in your resume.

8. Begin applying for your job. Think of these collection of career websites as your own personal career search engine that most do not take the time to find.

9.  Apply to other jobs as that are in your pay scale. If a company hires your type of skill set, but there are no current openings in your area, apply anyways to the other openings and include a note that you would be willing to learn more aspects of their business by working outside your role until an opening in your area of expertise comes.  You would be surprised at how often this happens, especially at bigger companies, and is extremely encouraged.

10. Get the call back. Continue to search out new companies and custom tailor resumes and cover letters to match job postings, while applying for position that match your experience that are in any geographical location, as well as applying for jobs that do not necessarily match your experience but that you would be happy to do for a year or so until something better comes along. At this step you are looking for a person to reach out and contact you so that you can explain the above.

Example conversations to have are:

“I applied for this job out of state because it seems like a great match for my skill set. Are there any openings in the local branch that you know of, or can you speak to any of the local hiring managers to see what positions are needing to be filled? I would be happy to learn more about the way your company operates by fulfilling a necessary role in the meantime until one opens up that I am more suited for.”

You would be surprised at how much recruiters are willing to work with you, remember that their primary goal is to fill vacant spots for the company, so anything you do to help that is a win-win for them.

Now,  land the job. I can share my strategies  on how to stand out of the heard, but it’s up to you to ace the interview.

Happy job hunting.