Narratives of the Disengaged: The Job Search

29West

Last week I started the Resume to Nowhere project, where I would sent only cover letters to prospective employers, provided that my qualifications match their requirements. There was one job posting on Careerbuilder that got me suspicious. As I checked out the actual company web site, there is no such position listed.

Rather than send a cover letter, I submitted an inquiry instead:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in response to the Administrative Assistant position with 29West. I originally saw the position listed on Careerbuilder (link is provided):

http:urlblahblah

I checked your company web site and there is no such position listed. Recently there have been a colossal amount of recruiters acting as representatives for that company just for informational purposes, and I am just making certain that this position is legitimate before sending my credentials.

Your response is greatly appreciated.

Judi

That's a legitimate question, right? I even made sure that I provided a reason for my reluctance to heed their initial request.

Unfortunately, there is still no response from 29West this company as of this writing. This tells me:

a) My inquiry was never read because it immediately got dumped into a database. The e-mail address was a generic jobs at company dot com.

b) My e-mail was read and quickly deleted. People cannot be bothered with such "petty" requests. There's some juicy office gossip going on and they don't want to miss one word of it!

c) My e-mail was quickly read and deleted. It's easier to ignore it rather than struggle to find an answer as to why they can't follow through with a simple request. How do you say you're being rude in a discreet way?

d) It was really a scamcruiter who posted the job on Careerbuilder, acting on the company's "behalf."

Good job, 29West. Based on your lack of response and inability to follow through with a simple request, you definitely sound like an employer I would not want to work for.

My name is apparently Roland Burris

The other day I checked my inbox for my little experiment. I received an auto-generated e-mail from the paper who I've applied a job through. It said:

Have you heard back from the employer for the Advertising position? The employer may not have seen your resume. Unless you do something to stand out from the competition, odds are you won't be considered for this position. Here's what we can do for you: 1) Call and email out client, 2) Put your resume at the top of the stack, 3) Match you with other employers looking for your skill set, 4) Highlight you for other jobs you apply to via the DH for the next 90 days.

It included a link that says "Click here to learn how you can highlight yourself."

So naturally....I clicked!

And when I clicked, I was not surprised to see that it lead me to a form to complete asking for information that they do not need whatsoever. As I was looking at the form closer...take a guess what it said at the top?

"Yes, Highlight my resume to this employer and others for only $39.95"

Wow!!!

Really?

That must be a BARGAIN!!

Are they trying to tell me that this a deal of a lifetime? Do other places charge more? I suspect that if I give this paper the money they want, they will work feverishly hard to "highlight" me as one of the best candidates. Maybe even a seat in the U.S. Senate! I feel like I'm role-playing with the paper acting as Blagojevich and I'm playing the part of Roland Burris.

In fact, let's translate the following:

"Yes, Highlight my resume to this employer and others for only $39.95"

Translation: This is a f*cking golden opportunity, I'm not going to give it away for f*ckin' nothing!

Ha. For 40 bucks, I'd rather invest it in the following:

- a new outfit for interviewing purposes
- resume paper and other supplies
- a new ink cartridge to print my resumes
- a carton of smokes
- a two week supply of food for my dogs
- other groceries

These are all items where I know I will get some sort of return for my investment. I refuse to pay someone money in the hopes of getting a job. Let your skills do the talking folks....not your money.

The Resume to Nowhere™ Project

I have decided to transform this into a full-fledged project. I am doing this for several reasons: a) this gives me something to do while conducting job searches at the same time; b) my husband applauded this idea which means I'm not crazy; c) this allows me to get back into the groove using Excel again; and d) I love terrorizing people.

Just incase you have not been following my blog, The Resume to Nowhere™ Project is basically an amateur study I am conducting. It's a test to evaulate how employers will respond to applicants that send a cover letter in lieu of a resume. The increase of identity theft, scammers, spammers, and clueless recruiters have inspired me to conduct this test from this point forward. Previously, I mentioned that there has been discussion among hiring authorities that cover letters are the utmost importance, and resumes are secondary. Most of the time they are not even read.

A cover letter is a brief summary of your career and should include your qualifications. Your qualifications should be parallel to the position you are applying for. This should be enough for the prospective employer to follow up with you. If you are selected for an interview, all other information can be disclosed at that time.

It is important to note that the idea of not sending resumes was not something I came up with on my own. About a month ago, I came across a blog from someone who works at Imagination Publishing. It has a post about resumes and went on to say that  resumes should be a dying breed. This blogger continued on with suggestions, such as:

- a well written cover letter (duh)
- three letters of recommendation
- any writing samples, graphic design portfolio, blog samples, PowerPoint presentations, etc., any other supplement you can provide, depending on the position you're applying for.

This leads me to believe that there is got to be other employers who think the same way. Hence, this project was born.

I really wish I saved that post. That blog was originally posted on Imagination's web site under "Careers," but it is no longer there. I cannot remember the blogger's name. I need to give him credit because I do not want to be sued! In addition, it had very interesting comments from those who opposed the idea, insisting that employers will never break away from the mundane routine of accepting resumes. We shall see....that's what my little project is all about.

As I was conducting my job search and project, I came across a job posting on Careerbuilder for an Administrative Assistant with a software compnay. It was very lengthy in job requirements and qualifications. And for whatever reason, my eyes were drawn to the following words:

This is a full time position, ****please include your annual salary requirements.****

****Recruiters: please DO NOT contact this employer!  ****

For some reason I was intrigued by those words. This caused to visit the company's web site, as I normally do. When I visited the Careers section, the only job postings they listed were Software Engineer positions. Due to my highly skeptical nature (I'm a virgo) this set off a red flag. Fortunatley, there was an e-mail address at the bottom of the page for HR. Of course, I sent them the following e-mail (company name omitted):

"To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in response to the Administrative Assistant position with XXX. I originally saw the position listed on Careerbuilder. I checked your company web site and there is no such position listed. Recently there have been a colossal amount of recruiters acting as representatives for that company just for informational purposes, and I am just making certain that this position is legitimate before sending my credentials.

Your response is greatly appreciated.

Judi C."

I am still waiting on a response as of this writing. If it's legit, it's legit! But that also means someone at HR is slacking off, and they need to be fired.

All this information and responses is being recorded and noted on my spreadsheet.

By taking on this little project, I hope to achieve the following goals:

- make employers re-think their application process. For example, ask applicants to send cover letters instead.

- Raise awareness among the company's hiring staff to compose clear and PRECISE job descriptions. In other words, don't make an entry-level job appear like a management level position filled with fancy, corporate-America type langauge. I heavily suspect this will reduce the amount of resumes coming in.

- Reduce the amount of postings of fake and bait-and-switch jobs.

- Reduce spam of any kind.

- Raise awareness among jobseekers on the importance of constructing well-written cover letters.

- Gain fame and fortune and have a guest spot appearance on "Real Time with Bill Maher."

Ok, no, I was kidding about that last part. Kind of.

Resume to Nowhere™ - an experiment

This is what happens with no job -- the mind tends to wander into places it should not be.

Au contraire!

Over the weekend I stumbled upon some articles on the idiotic trend of scammers posting fake jobs just to retrieve personal information. These same articles also allude that if you fall under the category of posting your resume online, you're just asking for trouble.

I am uncomfortable right now. I am now in the position of not knowing the unknown. In my naivety, I tend to think my resume will arrive at its proper destination and will get read in its entirety. My thinking, by default, steers me into the direction of receiving a phone call and set up an interview. That phone call hardly comes, and now my private information is in the hands of someone (or something) I do not know. That's pretty risky considering identity theft is sadly all the rage.

Of course, I realize that not every hiring manager can respond to every applicant, thus the lack of response. But that is not always the case, based on what I've recently read. All too often I hear recruiters and hiring managers say they don't read resumes. I've had interviews where the interviewee didn't even have my resume on hand (luckily, I'm a smart fart that always brings 3-4 clean copies of my resume to hand out -- just incase) so they end up searching their e-mails to pull up my resume!

By not being selected means the information is "kept on file" for six months. Oh great. Now my private information is sitting somewhere in the black hole of cyberspace. God forbid a hacker comes along and poof! Now he's got all your information.

Paranoid? Yeah, you can safely assume that. At the same time, I also respect my privacy. I feel that I shouldn't be obligated to reveal such information if I'm not being considered in the first place. One might wonder about salary requirements. Listing a requirement of any kind means you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Information about salary history? No thank you. It is no one's business how much money I was making except for the IRS. Other than those folks, there is no relevance to having that information. Maybe the prospective employer wants to see how I've progressed from job to job, you might say? I cannot see how this information is important when I list my salary requirement as "open."

All other information can be briefly but eloquently constructed on a cover letter. Filled with intelligent prose, your cover letter should be enough to initiate a phone call. Here is my wild and crazy idea:

• I've set up a separate e-mail account just for this experiment. This e-mail will be strictly used for sending my cover letter to prospective employers.

• The body of the e-mail contains only the cover letter. At the end of the cover letter says the following:

"Due to privacy and protection reasons, I have elected not to submit my resume unless there is continued interest. Please reply to this address should you decide to inquire further. I look forward to hearing from you."

**Please note: if it is a I job I strongly desire, I will go the usual, mundane route of including a resume.

• The only contact information I include is my e-mail address. I do not list a postal address or a phone number.

• Hit "Send" and watch what kind of response I get.

I am proud to report that I have already gotten two responses since yesterday when I started this! One was:

• "Position closed, check website for vacancies"

(huh? But it's still listed in the local paper!)

• Your resume has been received for the ADVERTISING position with MAN MARKETING.

Did you know that 44 people on average apply to Advertising & Design positions in Chicago? Don’t be just another resume!

Provide the hiring manager additional information about your qualifications and background by completing the questionnaire for this position.

(Does this need any more clarification? I never sent them a resume!)

So, I will continue with this experiment and will start tracking the responses I get. I encourage anyone to do the same if you desire. If you decide to venture into this quest, feel free to add your own experiences. Or, if you think I'm being paranoid and I should spend my time seriously looking for a job and quit the bitching, I can accept that. Unbeknown to the folks that don't know me, I am quite capable of handling many projects simultaneously.