Stunning Secrets to Getting Hired

Getting hired can be a difficult thing in today's economy and circumstances. There are a number of factors that lead to getting hired. Three main ones are:

1. Finding real jobs.
2. Getting the right things on the resume/job application.
3. Getting past the automated systems and HR filters to the hiring manager.

Finding Real Jobs 

We've all seen the advertisements--Local Jobs (Hiring Now) Positions open in your area. Hiring immediately - Apply Here.. Once you get on the site, you may actually see many ads for jobs that look good, interesting, and enticing. These jobs may or may not be real. What I mean is that just because the jobs are advertised doesn't mean that those positions are really available to you at this time. Many of those ads are just place-holders meant to get a lot of applicants into the offering company's Applicant Tracking Database. But, why would anyone advertise just to get applicants into their database? It comes down to the automated systems that are used to acquire employees. It actually takes some time to set up ads, get them posted, and get applicants coming in. It is faster for the hiring company, if they already have a list of people to start looking at. This way they only have to consult the database when they are really ready to hire. 

Other jobs that you see out there are old and outdated-the positions that the companies once had, have already been filled. It just happens that it costs more in time and money to take down the ads, rather than leave them up. And to make matters worse, the big job conglomerates routinely spider those pages every month or so and pick up the dead job again and again. 

Some job listings are out there as a fishing expedition. Companies know that they need someone, but they aren't sure exactly what they need in a candidate. They put out an online ad anyway. As applications come in and as job requirements become more solidified, the company changes the ad to better fit their thinking. Sometimes this takes many months and many revisions, so the job openings appear, get stale, then disappears without ever creating a real new job. 

What all this means is that a lot of people apply online for a job, or multiple jobs, that they just aren't going to hear back from. Companies don't care about how much time, effort, and total frustration these systems cause the applicants, the systems save the company time and effort when hiring, and that is their only concern. 

If you don't want to be spinning your wheels, applying for dead or non-existent jobs, and pulling your hair out waiting for responses to your online job applications that you will never get, then you need to know how to spot the real jobs immediately. You need to know how to separate the time wasters from the real McCoys.

Getting the Right Things on Your Resume or Job Application 

Your resume and job application are the only tools you have to get in the door at a perspective company. These tools are the veritable keys that can get you in or keep you on the outside. Each and every resume and job application will need to be custom made for the specific job that you are applying for. The problem is, knowing what needs to be on that resume and job application. Get the resume and job application right, and you will get more interviews than you thought possible. Get it wrong, and you will hear the crickets chirping while you wait for the phone to ring. 

Getting Past the Automated Systems and HR Filters to Get to the Hiring Managers 

Ever get one of those form letter, rejection letter emails from one of your online job applications? You can tell that it is a form letter because of how poorly the content fits with the position that you applied for and their excuse for passing you up. 

Frankly, getting a rejection letter is a relief in some cases. Not because you didn't want the job, but because often you get no response at all from the company, and wonder for weeks if you just might still, by some miracle, get a surprise interview (which by the way never happens). At least with the rejection email, you aren't left wondering. 

However, I started investigating why people were getting the rejection letters, and I was floored at the answer. The rejection emails come out of the automated systems, the resumes and job applications were often never even looked at by a human being. The applicant tracking systems search for specific words and phrases. If those words or phrases are not found, then they move onto the next application. Interestingly enough, the same words and phrases are the ones that the HR personnel are looking for when they look at the application, after getting it out of the automated system. HR is often just another filter to make sure that only the most qualified applicants get through. Don't get nixed by the autobots, or filtered out by HR. Learn exactly what these filters need to see in your application to get through to the hiring managers.

- Dean Giles, Job Search Coach 

Twenty one years as a Project Manager gave me a lot of experience on the interviewing and hiring end of the job market. One company acquisition and a subsequent reduction-in-force, put me on the opposite end of that equation. I quickly found that the automated online job application mechanisms had pretty much high-jacked the hiring processes. I found that the hiring process for most people is completely broken and that what I had learned over 21 years had to be applied in new and creative ways. I documented how the new systems worked, why the old ones are failing most people right now, and exactly how to take advantage of the new systems and hierarchies. I have managed to help a number people get employed or change jobs even after they had lost all hope of finding a new job.