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12.9.2002
Are they real ones, or are they fake?I was hanging out on a board the other day that describes dying dot-coms, when to my surprise I saw mention of this very site - The Job Fairy! The guy in question had been laid off from a dot-com and was frustrated, not necessarily with the lack of jobs, but with the plethora of fake job postings. Or are they fakes? Do recruiters even still have time to pursue such database stuffing maneuvers?
A good clue that the job is real is that multiple companies post the same job requirement up to the web. Of course, it will be a feeding frenzy, and you don't have much chance of landing that job. Another clue is that an actual company, not an agency or a recruiter, is posting the job. But what if it's an independent recruiter? One that has an e-mail address which doesn't exactly match the company name? It may still be real. They're having to put up their own money to post the ad.
Recruiters can go into a site like monster.com, and search for the presence of certain keywords. They don't always need to put up fake ads in order to gauge what the market is like for a particular specialty. However, some agencies, like Analysts, do have generic postings among their real ones. They have a certain probability of obtaining that kind of work, so they keep in touch with a decent amount of people who have those skills. When their salespeople do land a contract for that sort of work, they can fill it quickly. This is little comfort to those who are kept waiting in the wings, being told that "they expect to hear back from the client any day now".
Some companies, like Atlantis, re-post their ads for months in a row. This way, they always come up in the "new" searches on places like dice.com. Other companies, like Robert Half, may have actual work, but they lowball you and do not pay you benefits. So, with all the shenanigans going on with possibly fake ads and unethical recruiters, why play the online posting game?
Because there may be a real ad. Or there may be a real job behind a fake ad. Or even though the recruiter is a slime, they may be able to connect you with a real job. Or the recruiter may be trolling for resumes and then all of a sudden get a real posting, and not even have to post it live - your skills are adequate, and they present you.
Or it may be, in the case of a company I used to work for, that the hiring manager couldn't make up his mind as to what he wanted. He gave the HR people 6 (that's SIX) different sequential iterations of his job ad. HR personnel estimate that from draft of requisition to placement of candidate is 45 days, even in this current economic environment. That's why you may be seeing a slightly different job posting every month or two. The hiring manager can't get it right. Meanwhile, job requisitions are only open for a limited amount of time, and the HR people are getting antsy to put someone in it. (They're tired of hearing people whine about how overworked they are.) In this case, the head of HR had enough clout and connections that she just hired someone and sent him to report to that department. Extreme, but it wouldn't be the first time I'd seen that happen.
Your best defense is a strong offense. Post to every job that could possibly fit you, every single week. Even the ones that seem like they might be long shots. If you get a nasty e-mail back from a recruiter saying you're not even close, chances are it's a troll job posting. If they were busy placing candidates, they wouldn't have time to b**** at you. Make note of the agency; most of the ones that did that to me went out of business within six months, so you needn't bother posting to them anymore. It's like advertising - keeping your name in front of the recruiters never hurts. Going to the Mechanics of the Job Search section and following the steps can drastically increase the amount of phone calls and interviews. Exposure is key. Also patience, strategy, and cunning. There is always hiring going on; the American economy is remarkably resilient no matter what administration is in charge. Hang in there, and don't forget that any employer would be LUCKY to have you.
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