Now every applicant knows that when an organization posts a job online they include a title, position description, required skills and then some verbiage about being an equal opportunity employer and a few words about their compensation and benefits package.
What you don’t often see are the keywords the recruiter uses to make sure that the posting winds up in the right searches done by applicants and will be used as part of the connect the dots algorithms used by their applicant tracking system to determine which resumes actually get past the ATS and into the inbox of a real live recruiter who will then spend 20 to 30 seconds scanning each resume until people are selected to be interviewed.
Some of the people with whom I’ve worked are frustrated by the job boards because they seem so indiscriminate in which jobs wind up in the person’s search. “How on earth did this nursing supervisor job show up when I’m looking for an Asset Manager position in a bank? These job boards stink! They’ll just throw anything at you and hope you’ll apply. They’re a waste of my time!”
I understand the frustration, I really do, but it’s not always the job site’s fault. People choose the keywords that will be used to make a match between posting and applicant, and sometimes this is done in a very slipshod, scattershot manner.
Below is an example of one I just found. These are the keywords that a recruiter used to attract applicants for an entry-level position in the marketing department. As you can see the recruiter included just about everything short of “must have a pulse.” They did include “Executive Vice President” and “HS graduate.” I will grant you that most EVP’s have graduated high school, but this is the reason many of your search results are filled with inappropriate postings. It’s because some recruiters aren’t doing their jobs well enough to properly serve their organizations by developing a list of keywords truly reflective of the kind of person they seek. It’s easier to just slug in this all-inclusive “must be able to enter the building without getting trapped in revolving door” list they developed and possibly use for every job they post.
The upshot is then I hear from recruiters that they aren’t getting the right stream of candidates in their pipeline and it’s so hard to fill positions. This is probably one more reason that LinkedIn is becoming so much more popular as a source.
The final irony is that the list below came from a posting from a management consulting firm. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and sit back if you plan to read through the entire list. And please share your comments, frustrations or horror stories. We need to do something to halt this spreading epidemic of sloppy recruiting.
Only the best,
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