This weekend I noticed that the job board Jobsite started up its ad campaign again featuring that cheeky Mancunian scamp Max Beesley. It features him walking down the street urging you to log onto the website to start your job search – calling this “delegation”. In reality this delegation is as simple as uploading your CV and allowing Jobsite to trumpet the slogan; “Our job is searching for your job.”
This is job searching outsourcing – in other words all you need to do is upload one CV into the website, which in turn is uploaded into a vast database, sit back and wait for a flood of calls from recruitment agencies. Well that’s the theory anyway. The reality is something very different.
Once your CV has been uploaded in the system it can be searched on by recruitment agencies – so your keywords within the CV are really important. Does your CV contain all the keywords you want to be found by? (Check out last week’s post on word clouds!) Your CV also has to be refreshed regularly, so no sitting back and assuming all you need to do is upload it once. The reason is that once your details have been uploaded once, you’ll be found on the initial searches a recruitment agency makes. When that same recruitment agency looks again two weeks later you’re already considered to be old data – there will be a flood of people being searched before they get round to seeing yours.
The other issue of course is you can only upload one CV – so that’s one CV that is going to hit all those target areas you’d like to work within. We know that a well tailored and relevant CV is the one that is most likely to get shortlisted for an interview but job boards can only accept one version. That means your “delegation” has led to only being profiled in one way, potentially losing out on other opportunities because your CV didn’t appear as relevant as someone elses.
So my original question; can you really delegate your job search? The About.com definition;
“When you delegate, you empower someone else to act for you. The act of delegation, then, involves conferring (some of) your functions or powers on another so he or she can act on your behalf.”
Would you really hand over control of your job search (and personal data) to a website and expect the results to be great? Too many people get frustrated about their job search – never hearing back from an application – not being able to speak to a real person about an application – not having enough detail about a role to make a judgement call on whether it is right for them. Delegating your job search to a website is a sure fire way to start you on a road to frustration.
The way forward is to use these websites as just another tool in your job search toolkit; use them sparingly, drop your details on for a few days and take them off again and repeat the process (ensure you’re always current and the data not left to sit on the website and fester). Upload a profile/ CV but use a section of the CV (bottom of the last page) to list out the keywords you want to use. Make a note in the CV to the reader letting them know that you want to tailor your CV for any individual role you are considered for.
You can never relinquish control of your job search but if you do you also relinquish the right to complain when it’s not going your way.
Image © bfishadow and used with permission.
Twitter: ck_warren
Good article and good advice on refreshing your CV. Have never considered that before.
I’ve been searching for sometime now and have been finding advertisments for these websites increasingly annoying as, for the most part, communication is a completely one way. Most are little more than a focused search engine and not the instant answer to your problems that they suggest they are.
Hopefully a few refreshes here and there will lead to a bit more interaction.