Get Hired by a Robot
I was talking to Graham the other day, and we were discussing how hard it is to run the gauntlet of resume submission and actually getting an interview...well, or even a callback or acknowledgement, or really any notification that you didn't just send your resume to a bottomless bit-bucket.
I remembered that I had recently read an article about how virtually all resume-submission forms/emails/etc. are in fact run by software packages of one kind or another, and that very few get to be read by human eyes. But I didn't remember where.
As luck would have it, Boing Boing links to it. Or, you can just go directly to the Business 2.0 article.
I'm happy to report that at PS actual humans read every resume sent our way. Well, when we're not too lazy to shove it over to the PC, where MS Word lives. But, we'll happily look at your resume website and confirm that yes, we would never, ever hire you based solely on the hideous monstrosity that is your personal website. Oh yes, and we also never respond. Just like robots.
Comments
Resume headaches.
Several interesting things to report. First, it is a legal requirement of all companies in the US that they keep all resumes they receive on file, this from Slashdot:
selan writes "Did you know that federal law requires companies to store a copy of every single resume they receive? This applies to emailed resumes too, regardless of whether the applicant got the company's name wrong or is applying for a job that doesn't exist at the company. Employers not in compliance risk being fined and could lose government contracts. The resulting storage problems are creating massive headaches at companies who are overwhelmed with bulk-emailed resumes. The Baltimore Sun has the story."
Next, when Boris told me that algorithms were now being used, rather than people, to parse out resumes and look for various "keywords", the first thought that came to mind - how can they do that?
If you take ten people, show them one line from a resume listing a skill, and ask them all to re-write it in their own words, giving them a guide on how to write a skills section on the resume, you will likely get ten differently-worded answers. How can a computer account for that? The list of keywords would have to be massive to cope with each individual's writing style, personal words, basically.
The more I hear of the practices of the modern-day HR department, the more I wish I could sit down with a few of them for a short few moments and explain just how screwed up they are when it comes to finding good people for their organization. I think a long portion of that would be on how ridiculous the policy of hiring based on personal recommendation from someone in the company is, and another big portion would be on the ridiculous nature of Internet-based resume soliciting and just what in the world can go wrong when you are easily qualified for a position, and never hear anything back from them.
I hear your pain
Unfortunately, the old boys network is alive and well (to your first point). To your second point, it simply is not feasible for one person (a recruiter at a major firm) to manually sift through 300+ resumes for a single position. The only thing to do is to put technology on your side and look at some of the tips on writing/designing your resume so that it will get lots of "hits" from the software used.
It is the same situation with Google -- at first, people complained that they got low rankings (usually because they used stuff like keyword stuffing or other meta-tag tricks to trick other search engines). Then, people learned how to work with Google and gain higher rankings.
Have you gone to any resume workshops? There are lots of free resources where people will help tune up your resume. Don't pay for anything -- most of that stuff is scams.
Plus -- update your profile on LinkedIn -- it'll be good practice.
Related story
Just recently I was told that I didn't pass the Crystal Decisions technical exam due to some weaknesses in my answers on some relatively trivial problems (one was traversing a tree the other was an inheritance type question).
The really funny thing is that although I can't write the code, so it would compile (on paper), I would be able to explain the theory, design and reasoning for my choices. This is prolly far and away better than some other coder monkey that writes perfect code on paper but can't think outside a square. I don't consider myself a genius coder, I am very competant at best, but I also consider these written tests to be rather useless for persons such as myself.
I am prolly better than the person they will end up hiring but because I can't write tests (just look at my schooling marks) I will be relegated to finding other paths with other companies.
So be it...
It's illegal to give job applicants IQ tests in USA
Are they legal here in Canada? Puzzle interviews are thinly-veiled substitute IQ tests.
I have never used tests to filter applicants. I always go with interview results. There's a personal story to explain that which I won't post but will tell privately, having to do with the first interview I ever took, at age 18, which was of significance to my life & career - aside from meeting parents of gfriends.
and it'd be mucho harder
to anticipate your biases and game your human filters, or perhaps all it'd take is to photoshop our pictures into images of sufficient Human Facial Attractiveness index so you'd pay attention.