The Search: How a Good Candidate Clears the H.R. Hurdles
October 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
IT’S an employer’s market right now, and that means employers can be fussy. They can include a long list of requirements in their job descriptions — demanding, perhaps, a certain number of years’ experience in one corner of an industry, knowledge of an obscure programming language and fluency in, say, Latvian.
Sean Kelly
With an average of six job seekers for every job opening right now, chances are that they’ll be able to find someone who fits their very specific bill. That’s frustrating for those who may not fit the job description to a T as it appears on a posting, but who know that they could succeed at the job.
Other job seekers are facing a different kind of frustration. Accepting the realities of the marketplace, they are willing to take a step down from their previous work. But that immediately raises suspicions that they will be out the door as soon as the market improves.
So how do you persuade a company to hire you if you are underqualified — or overqualified — for the job, and the laws of supply and demand are against you?
If your only relationship with the company is electronic, via a job board or a posting, your chances are not good. H.R. people confronting hundreds of faceless online applications have one main goal: to weed out as many people as they can.
“The employer is not expected to be creative or flexible or see the opportunity in you that you think you might have” when the relationship is purely electronic, said Bernadette Kenny, chief career officer at Adecco North …
Read the original article at NYTimes
