From: allen@tessi.com (Allen Warren)
Subject: Re: Inappropriate responses to job posting
Organization: Test Systems Strategies, Inc., Beaverton, Oregon
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 21:58:02 GMT

mgw@world.std.com (maryanne g wolf) writes:

>I am job-hunting, and I have also screened resumes.
>I understand that it is annoying to get resumes you are not interested in.
>I'd like the people who don't want inappropriate resumes
>to propose an alternative.  I'm not convinced that there is one.

>Imagine you work for a company which will not pay a recruiter if an
>inferior but adequate candidate applies without one.  Imagine that you
>don't advertise or post most jobs because people don't like being
>buried in resumes.  It has been my experience that some companies do
>NOT advertise all of the positions that are available, even when they
>advertise some of them.  Imagine that you are hiring in one of these
>unadvertised positions.  An outsider would not know whether you're
>hiring, whether you advertise all positions, or whether any recruiters
>are used, much less the ones that have this job-hunter's resume.

>So, for the sake of discussion, imagine that this hypothetical
>job-hunter is totally perfect for the unadvertised position, better
>qualified than all of the friends of people who already work on the
>project.  Again, they have no way to know whether this is true.

>Now, if the job-hunter has no friend in the right part of your
>company, and you don't advertise because your time is wasted by
>unwanted resumes, how does your prospective perfect candidate find out
>about the job?  I can understand demanding that a cold resume or a
>poor match for the posted position come with an appropriate
>cover-letter, but unless companies can be counted upon to advertise
>all their positions, which they don't, there is no alternative to
>sending resumes to people who might not want them, as far as I can see.

>Is there?

Maryanne,

I guess I don't understand why, in your hypothetical situation described
above, a company would NOT advertise for a position needing filled.  Why
would a company desire to not advertise for all positions available?  I
know some companies have a policy whereby positions must be offered internally
first, and are then advertised externally after a certain amount of time
if the position remains unfilled.  And I don't understand why, in your
hypothetical situation, you state "but unless companies can be counted upon
to advertise all their positions"?  Why would a company have to necessarily
advertise externally for a position that, while being needed, might not
possibly have the funding at the moment?

I work for a small software company.  Because of our location in the Pacific
Northwest, and possibly because of the job market at present, whenever we
put an advertisement into the newspaper for a job opening, we literally get
deluged with resumes, some of which have absolutely NOTHING to do with the
job posted.  So you *might* assert that we have not advertised for all 
positions available.  With our small size of a company, that's not true.
Also, with 50-100 resumes coming in per day, do you know what resources it
takes to check each resume/cover letter and make sure each person is given
a fair shake in terms of matching the resume to a posted position?  Additionally,
many of the people who screen the resumes may not even know that a resume
received may be from a person whose skills don't match the job posting, but
could be an incredible find for a person who doesn't necessarily have an
open req. but was contemplating hiring on another individual.

Yes, job postings may not necessarily show ALL available jobs, but a resume
that fits a job not necessarily available may never end up in the right hands
anyway.

allen
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc