7 truths you need to know about posting CVs in Jobsites

Who views your resumes when you post them in the job sites?
Employers….to a certain extent yes.
Placement consultants….100% yes.
Telemarketers….200% yes(!!!)

Here are the 7 truths you may want to know about posting your CVs in Jobsites…

Truth #1

Employers do not have time to search CVs in the job sites. Employers have moved beyond job portals for sieving CVs. The trend now is to focus on building up unique databases of CVs which is not found elsewhere. Young and  innovative, new-age HR Recruiters in large organisations use social media tools to connect and develop these unique databases.  They leave the painful job of searching resumes in jobsites to the consulting folks.

Truth #2

Consultants do search the sites extensively and the livelihood of a professional placement firm  predominantly depends on having access to a job site like Naukri.com or Timesjobs.com. The recruitment consultant in the firm searches the jobsite based on the brief he/she gets from the client(the employer). The client brief is a search brief which gives an idea on the keywords that can be used during the search process. For example, when I worked on an assignment for an MNC specialising in Diabetic care products, the search brief  was built with keywords like Insulins, Analogs, Bovine, SMBG, Pens etc.

Truth #3

If your CV is not getting response, it could be that you have lot of irrelevant key words in your CV. There may be a lot of keywords  which the industry uses but you have ignored in your CV.

Truth #4

You may post your resume free, but the jobsite charges money from their clients to provide access to the resume database. Its after all their business model. But they do a wonderful job of meeting client expectations in resume search. The job portals have worked well in R&D to develop some superb tools which places the keyword rich, well written CVs with clear resume heading  on top of search results.

Truth #5

For a consultant who is perseverant the resume search is a highly cerebral job. So, while posting your CV in a jobsite, spend some time to attract the consultant’s attention to  your CV. Never mess with your data or any fact you put on the CV. Always give the job chronology right.  One of the first reason a consultant ignores a CV is when the  sequence of the various places a candidate worked  is not clear, or worse if it has unexplained gaps. It will never go past the viewing stage. They do not have time to call you and check. They have 100 other well written CVs to call and move ahead.

Truth #6

If resume writing is not your cup of tea, probably its time to seek professional help in writing a key word rich resume before posting them on portals.  Alternately sending the CVs to consultants do not help either because consultants do not find use with your CV till they get a relevant search assignment. Most unsolicited CVs sent to a HR Consultant will often die down in the mail box or remain in some archived folder. For consultant/recruiter, its easier to search for a CV in a job portal rather than their own archived folders.

Truth #7

In a hot job market, the shelf life of a CV is less than 3months for middle level positions and less than a month for a entry to middle level positions. So, for a Placement firm having tons of archived CVs is not really an asset unlike old times. Biggest asset for them is a smart recruiter who understands the job opening and shortlists the right CVs and closes the positions. If you are seriously hunting for a job, updating your CV on a weekly basis to remain fresh on search results is very important.

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