Applying for a job online? How to make electronic screening work for you instead of against you.

By MedZilla Staff Writer

Marysville, WA - January 9, 2004--If you apply for jobs online, whether via job boards or corporate Web sites, your basic understanding of the behind-the-scenes technology used to process your information could significantly strengthen your chances of landing the ideal job.

“Years ago, we’d send in or fax paper resumes. Human beings—be it recruiters and hiring managers--would receive, review, and file or pitch them,” says Frank Heasley, PhD, President and CEO of MedZilla.com, a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that targets jobseekers and HR professionals in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science.

“Faced with stacks of resumes, Human Resources and other staffing professionals are all too willing to be replaced by computer programs which promise to take the tedium out of screening resumes. Technology is changing the whole process, and, specifically, the role of human beings. Computers have taken the place of the human eye in filtering which resumes make it to recruiters’ desks. This more automated system presents challenges to the job seeker. You may be qualified for the job, but you must also be prepared to navigate what has become a cold, calculated, and often Kafkaesque process.

“For employers, the technology means an outwardly more efficient, less cumbersome process for receiving, reviewing and storing resumes. However, for candidates the technology means more time spent filling out custom online applications on corporate Web sites, and less time cutting and pasting standard resumes. It also means that those candidates who are better at filling out applications in a way that the systems will recognize them have better chances at getting to the top of the ‘good’ pile of resumes.”

Applicant tracking systems

Many corporations—especially large companies—have automated their recruiting processes using applicant-tracking systems (ATSs). In their simplest forms, ATSs are resume databases, creating candidate pools for employers and providing electronic filing cabinets for recruiting information within an organization, says Adam Feigenbaum, senior marketing and sales manager, iCIMS, an applicant tracking solution provider in Hazlet, NJ.

The more extensive ATS applications might also screen candidates and make decisions about which individuals are best for the job based on the employer’s input of key terms and qualifications. For recruiters and HR managers at companies deluged with hundreds of responses to a single job posting, the technology would seem to be a godsend.

The outcome, however, is different from the candidate’s perspective. The good news for candidates is that some of the more advanced ATS systems allow a candidate to get immediate feedback about the system’s receipt of a job application or resume, whether or not that candidate is qualified for the job, and the status of their application. The challenge is that ATSs are different and companies vary in their application requirements. Sometimes candidates apply via job boards like MedZilla, with user-friendly, one-time applications. However, many corporations today are asking that candidates apply yet another time on their own corporate Web sites, requiring candidates to spend more time filling out online forms.

“Kurt,” a job applicant seeking a position in biotech, applied with an online job board for a position with a major biotech company, only to get an e-mail that the company was not accepting applications by e-mail. He learned he would have to go to the company’s Web site to re-apply, which wasn’t very useful, he explained; especially since he couldn’t find the job on his second try.

Fill out forms completely, and other tips for online applications

The best advice, experts say, is don’t skirt around ATSs.

“We tell our clients that they have to oblige when corporations want to drive them to their own Web sites,” Dr. Heasley says, “unless they are working with a recruiter that has an ‘in’ with the company and can forgo the ATS.”

Do what you are told and do it well.

Andre Allen, director of strategic business alliances for Pearson Reid London House, an assessment, recruiting, prescreening company, says that candidates should have their personal and professional information available when applying online for a job. Be ready to answer all the questions on applications, he says.

Don’t buck the system.

Some applicants opt to go the old fashioned route and send in their paper resumes rather than fill out online applications or resume forms. Jeff Dahltorp, director of global marketing and business development of TruStar Solutions, an Internet recruiting solutions company, says that might not be a good idea. The reality, he says, is that paper resumes create more work for recruiters, who have to input what’s on a paper resume into corporate systems. “So, there actually is an added cost for companies to process and handle paper and faxed resumes,” he says.

Fancy isn’t necessarily a good thing when applying online.

Feigenbaum warns that while graphics, tables, charts and other embedded things might make paper resumes stand out, they do the opposite to online resumes that are being processed by ATSs. When a resume is submitted, he says, it goes through a “parsing process,” where name, address, e-mail address and skill sets are pulled off the resume to create the candidate profile. “If these pieces of information are embedded in graphics or in elaborate headers or within tables in a resume, sometimes it’s difficult for that information to be pulled off and found by search engines used in these systems,” Feigenbaum says.

Read the job advertisement or posting for key words.

John Dooney, human resource manager with the Society of Human Resource Management, says that candidates could up their chances for being recognized by ATSs simply by incorporating all the key terms in a job posting into their resumes or job applications. “Put in as many key words as possible. … if the key word isn’t in there, you’re information won’t pop up,” he says.

Don’t limit your job search. Job boards continue to be key.

“Regardless of whether corporate Web sites ask you to apply for a job directly, job boards continue to be the place to see the myriad of jobs available in the marketplace. Job boards, like MedZilla, hone your search so that you have jobs in your field to choose from—then you can apply for some using our technology and others by going directly to the corporate sites. The point is that you don’t want to be limited to the jobs on one corporate Web site,” Dr. Heasley says.

About MedZilla.com
Established in 1994, MedZilla is the original Web site to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000 resumes from candidates actively seeking new positions and 50,000 archived resumes. These resources have been characterized as the largest, most comprehensive databases of their kind on the Web in the industries served.