Changing Reality on the NET

Jobster led me down and setting my brain on the Jobster slogan of "great people with great opportunities"- I took a serious and hard look at various marketing and technical ideas in relation to the online recruitment world.

In the past two to five years huge numbers of recruiters turned to online job posting services and believed the online boards were the "holy grail" of finding better candidates. At first only the technically savvy candidate applied and this was a good pay-off for all the technical openings of the late 90's. But as the mainstream consumer moved online, the resume spam often found in print classified ads was quickly behind.

This time it was multiplied by a hundred-fold and today some recruiters would rather just hit the delete button. Complex systems of keyword tools and online sorting methodologies invade the interview process and candidates that could be a great fit are accidentally set aside in favor of those candidates who had the right keyword.

In essence, the job boards took the "human" out of human resources. Without the personal interaction and a quick conversation about where you want to go and how you want to get there, the millions of resumes online have become a catalogue of library books that no one has read. Apparently lost in isles of resumes- there isn't one librarian who can tell you which one is the best book to read.

This has caused a severe dis-joining of the human element. Previously candidates needed to submit a resume to a recruiter and that recruiter was responsible for categorizing your skills and your objectives with that of the company. Now many companies are spending millions on having a computers sort through the candidates and the "system" is losing the touch of the human interaction element.

This can be fixed, but I'm amazed so far that no one besides Jobster seems to be venturing down this path. You can read more about some of the ideas they are trying to encourage on the Jobster Blog. Perhaps some other companies will tackle this industry with some innovative technical know-how too.