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And a new week is upon us here at Warehouse and Operations as a Career, we appreciate you listening in today and hope you’re having a Productive and prosperous one. We had a great time last week visiting with so many Individuals at the Job Fair, it was great being able to speak with everyone out in the field and we hope you enjoyed the show! We’re going to try and get out and go mobile more often and talk to others, people really performing the tasks that you’re interested in! The topic of Job Seeking on Social Media came up a couple of times this month, maybe with us speaking about Resumes and Interviewing it’s been pushed to the forefront of our minds so I thought we’d look into that segment of the Recruiting and Sourcing or how the different Agencies are using Social Media to get the word out there on positions and job opportunities there working to fill & maybe we can discuss a few of our responsibilities as job seekers and applicants or maybe what we should be doing or need to be doing to get that interview and be placed in one of the positions. Here in a bit we’ll be visiting with an Administrator of just one such group and get their thoughts on what they are and how to use them to our advantage!
For today’s topics let’s start with the Job Boards, maybe that’s not really Social Media I guess but it is an on-line platform and there’s many many of them so I’m going to assume their each worth our time and energy.
Companies can utilize Job Boards as a form of advertising, posting the positions there needing to fill. There’s several that are free for the company to use but I find typically the positions are presented to a small market, maybe like a local market, and usually only hits or produces off of one or two keywords. To really reach us, or us the prospective employees, a company may subscribe to a service or purchase X number of resumes or hits for review. I mentioned keywords a bit ago, keywords could be something like Sanitation, Warehouse, Order Selector, Loader, words we may key in when we’re looking for employment or positions, what we’re good at or qualified to do. We use to look at the classified section on the newspaper to look for employment and companies that are hiring, a tedious process, carrying around a section of the paper every day. Job Boards seems to be the primary classifieds now as far as employment offerings go. There really easy to navigate and search by position and keywords, we can look at just the things were interested in. They make it easy for companies to search for candidates as well, keying in the same words of Sanitation, Order selector, Loader etc, they can see resumes from just those of us that possess those skills and are seeking those positions!
Most all the larger ones, and there’s some Hugh ones out there with I guess like millions of hits a day are free to us job seekers, the employer pays to post or advertise their open position. As we’ve spoke to before, there can be a lot of candidates replying to the position were interested in and it’s of the upmost importance that our reply, our resume and work history is presented in such a way that it’s going to get noticed and were going to get that phone interview. I read an article from our Twitter feed last month where it stated that if we’ve spent less than a day writing our resume, rereading it and making changes then we haven’t put in the time needed to catch HR’s attention. I’m not certain about all that but as we’ve discussed before I do feel it’s important we present or sell our experiences and accomplishments and use as many keywords as is relevant to the job’s we’ve done and the position we’re after! If you missed our episode entitled The Resume, episode 5 I think, go check it out, I think we covered a few different types or formats and walked through using keywords to grab our hiring agent’s attention!
Social Media, while researching for this episode I learned that many people may consider the Internet it’s self a form of social media now. I notice advertisements, true advertising about employment in banners and side platforms even when we’re looking up subjects and such. And with all the targeted advertising out there we can have those types of ad’s thrown at us just by visiting a Job Board or doing a keyword search such as employment! I had a question last week while at the job fair I guess we could talk about for a minute or two. I was asked what I thought of using Groups within social media to research companies we may be interested in. I’m actually a member of or have joined about a dozen different groups, really just to see what’s happening with employment across the nation, many cities have their own usually created by someone just interested in helping others find employment. I personally think their great and a very useful platform for us. What I do see a lot of is Agencies or Recruiters posting the same positions throughout the community of groups so we’ll see the same posting in several different groups. And the number of members may be an indicator of quality of content, or maybe not I guess, since we see them listed in so many groups. I joined one that says to have 56k members, one that states 26k, one that shows 3k and a few more that range from 187 to 1k. As I said, I usually see postings by the same agencies and recruiters so I think it just matters that we’re looking at a few or at least 1! Agencies and recruiters probably join so many due to the fact they need help and want to get there needs and offers out there to as many of us as possible. Again, this is why it’s so important that our resume and work history is short yet specific enough to get us noticed when its being read, Oh and using keywords that are going to appeal to them as it relates to their posting or offering!
Now, how do we reply to those posts or how we should not reply to those posts may be the more pertinent question.
First I think we have to remember this is a job posting. Usually we’ll see the Position or what the job is, like warehouseman, the work week and shift hours could be listed and the pay is typically in there somewhere. We’ll usually be given an address and maybe times to apply or a phone number could be listed for us to call for more information. We want to be remembered here so our reply needs to be constructive and to the point. I’ve seen many times a reply sent as “interested”, that may not get us an interview or even someone reaching out to us. Another one is “PM me specifics”, I’m thinking the recruiter could think they have already shared the specifics with us. I’m told the best replies, at least in a recruiters eyes are more like “I have 3 years’ experience and will come in and apply tomorrow” or “Thanks (Recruiters Name) I will call this afternoon and ask for you”. I think questions are fine as well, it may just be important to keep them relevant though, something like “is this position background friendly, I have 5 years’ experience” would be perfectly fine or “I have experience, Is this company on a bus line” is to the point and can be answered. Something like just “background checked and a question mark” may be passed over or if we ask “drug test” we may not have anyone reach out to us. Our goal is to get our information to them, for them to remember us, get a meeting with them. In my experience we need to remember these people could be our next employer, there not our close friends, there not even acquaintances, we need to do something to get them to reach out to us and want to know more about what we can do. They need help, an employee, and this may very well be our chance to get selected, at least leave a positive thought with them. And it’s been suggested to me that we try and be brief in our comments and not necessarily try and carry on a conversation, write enough to be noticed and then follow their directions as to where to go and when or where to call and whom to ask for. I’d write something or leave a comment though and let them know were coming by or giving them a call, I think it only shows them were very interested and that there search is over, they’ve found the employee they need!
We have John on the phone with us today to share a few thoughts with us, maybe give us some pointers as to Job Boards and Social Media groups. John’s visited with us a few times before, spoken with us regarding Staffing Agencies, how they work and how we can work with Recruiters and has attended both of our WAOC Round Table Discussions. John is the North American V.P. of Operations for a large Sourcing Solutions company and he’s the Admin for an Job Board Group on Social Media and has just started a Open Discussion Group for Warehouse Workers also.
John Welcome back to WAOC Sir, I hope I got all those accomplishments correct?
John –
- So you and your Teams probably look through a hundred different Resumes from several different Job Boards every day. Are any of them written differently or better than others, what makes one stick out over the other, everything being equal experience wise, is there something we can do where you’ll call us first over the other one? Kind of a long question isn’t it!
John –
- I know you run a Social Media Group of your own & participate in several others. Could you share with us why you started yours and what you think of Groups?
John –
- Any opinions or suggestions for us as we’re job hunting as it relates to Job Boards and Social Media?
John –
John Thanks for speaking with us today, you helped clarify a few of my concerns and I’m sure several of our groups questions were answered today. How about visiting with us again one day, maybe give us a follow-up interview after we’ve tried some of your suggestions?
John –
Social Media and Job Boards are so powerful and useful to us as Job Seekers today, I hope WAOC sparked a few thoughts & maybe answered a couple of questions you had on how to get noticed by the person posting the position and how to be that chosen candidate!
Until next week we here at WAOC wish you the best of luck in your endeavors and we’d like to remind us all that Safety at home and the workplace begins with each of us!