Companies Don't Want To Put Jobs Online... So Some Politicians Want To Force Them To

from the how-nice dept

Mon, Aug 21st 2006 2:16pm — Mike Masnick

Stories about "resume spam" are not new. For years, we've heard reports of companies saying that whenever they post open jobs online they got inundated with resumes (often from unqualified individuals). In fact, a few years ago we wrote about how job candidates were standing out by going back to sending paper resumes to companies. This is backed up by a new report today that claims many HR professionals are purposely not putting open jobs online, saying they'll only get inundated. The timing on this report is interesting, given that a bunch of well-meaning politicians in New York tried to pass a new law that would required a bunch of companies to put their job openings online. It basically would have put that requirement on any company over 20 employees that does work for the state or receives any kind of subsidy or tax break. Luckily, though, for those companies' HR departments, the governor vetoed the bill.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

15 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Dan, 21 Aug 2006 @ 2:36pm

Yeah... forcing online posting of resumes?

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Nick, 21 Aug 2006 @ 3:39pm
  
  Re:
  They weren't forcing online posting of resumes. The law would force employers to list jobs online.
  
  Stupid.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2006 @ 3:37pm

But its important that everyone get the opportunity to do work for the state in an inefficient way. This proposal helps, and kills two birds with one stone!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Michael, 21 Aug 2006 @ 4:12pm

What's next?
Mmm... What's next? Forcing companies to hire the most qualified applicants?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Rikko, 21 Aug 2006 @ 4:18pm
  
  Re: What's next?
  No, Michael, this is government we're talking about.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2006 @ 4:17pm
  
  Re: What's next?
  "Mmm... What's next? Forcing companies to hire the most qualified applicants?"
  
  That'd be a complete 180 since they're already forced to do the opposite; it's called affirmative action.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Transit60, 21 Aug 2006 @ 4:18pm

Jobs Online
I work for a department of city government where we just began using an online job posting program that only allows for onine job applications. The program is supposed to sort through the applicants and send the most qualified to be interviewed. Only problem is, it's easy to defeat it's purpose by just typing in what the program wants to hear, and figuring out what it wants is as easy as looking at the job posting and repeating the qulifications that it lists. Works every time. Very lame.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2006 @ 4:36pm
  
  Re: Jobs Online
  Transit60
  
  That was a short post for a Gov. Worker. What did you do with the other 5 hours a day you waste?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Brad, 21 Aug 2006 @ 4:38pm

RTFA, idiots.
Serriously, did anyone actually read the whole thing before commenting?

Dan: It's not posting resumes online, it's posting job listings. "stupid stupid stupid" indeed (Nick pointed this out too).

Transit60: If someone is smart enough to figure out how to spoof an automated resume sorter, they're probably smart enough to warrent talking to for a menial government job, wouldn't you think?

It has been a long standing law that US government jobs must be posted in a "suitably trafficked public forum" and posted for a set duration (whcih varies by state). The reason for this is to allow people SOME insight into the way their government works. That's why every time a school wants to hire someone new it shows up in your local newspaper. I for one think that if my tax dollars are supporting a company, they should actually have to publically announce that they're hiring, rather than just hiring a friend of a current employee. Just a thought, but wouldn't YOU rather that YOUR tax dollars went to the more qualified candidate?

Notice this wasn't for EVERY company, just those receiving special dispensations from the government. I support it, even if it requires someone to actually do their job (HR departments!)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2006 @ 5:02pm

Circumvention
I support objective qualification of candidate. But all this will do is waste everyone's time.

e.g. HR gathers 300 resumes, interviews 10, Hiring Manager carefully follows process by interviewing 6. Then he declares his friend from a prior job the most qualified.

doodaa..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Aug 2006 @ 5:06pm

The idea of online job applications to me is annoying, and it verges on offensive. I mean seriously, I wouldn't have even wiped in the morning, much less dressed up and prepared a nice resume if all that was required of me was to submit a few crappy thing in some forsaken online database.

I mean, online postings are fine and well, but every company should have a paper-route as well... Forcing people to place them online would just make it to where they would forget about paper-applications, or on-site application processes. I can still think of no more effective way to de-humanize the process.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Transit60, 21 Aug 2006 @ 6:16pm
  
  Re:
  This is the long wind-ed point I was trying to make...but now I need to get back to my menial job
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
River, 21 Aug 2006 @ 6:09pm

The government realy needs to get back to the business of reading what is expected of them and take care of that rather than involving themselve in the business of the private sector. The government needs to quit intruding in the lives of it's citizens. The government needs to quit trying to tell us what to do and WE need to start telling the government what to do.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Tyshaun, 21 Aug 2006 @ 8:27pm

GET OFF YOU SOAPBOXES AND READ!
This policy is perfectly within the spirit of many other government contract stipulations. I work for a defense contractor and the government puts lots of requirements for those seeking contracts (like a certain amount of employees must be American, hiring must be gender and race blind, etc). These companies know the score and if they don't like it, they can just not bid on goverment contracts

Mike, shame on you for misrepresenting the true nature of what's happening.

BTW, there is one huge benefit to doing this that people have glossed over, it helps to fight nepotism and cronism. If anyone remembers the good old days of Tamminy Hall when basically the entire family of politicians were given jobs, you can see where this system is much more equitable to the general population. The point of the legislation is/was to give all job hunters an opportunity to apply for a job, not just those in the inner circle who may hear about a job through the old boys network.

I'm surprised TechDirt would take a position that is so enti-technological advancement.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Avatar28, 21 Aug 2006 @ 9:37pm

PITA
Actually the local school system here in Nashville has had an online only policy for awhile. The principal at our kids school wanted her to apply for a certain position. The job was no posted on the school system's web page. So the HR person at the school told us to go to the board office and apply there. Whoa, big mistake. All we got was rude treatment and told that all applications MUST go through the internet and there is NO other way to apply. No matter the job wasn't yet listed there. Online only is a bad idea and can actually make the whole process more of a PITA, especially when there is no flexibility in it.

Still, that's the government's choice if it wants to mandate putting its jobs online. Gov't really should not be in the business of forcing all companies to post all of their job openings online. Many will anyways but it shouldn't be a law. Plus how much taxpayer money will be spent enforcing this ordinance? Quite a lot, I'm sure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]