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A friend who works as a recruiter for a mid sized company was showing me how they have automated the recruiting process using "applicant tracking software" and the Internet. VERY INTERESTING and scary too.
The recruiters are under extreme pressure not to waste the hiring managers time with poor quality applicants. The recruiter places the ad for the job opening and the flood gate opens up. 500 applicants for the typical white collar position! The hiring manager only has time for maybe 6 "face to face interviews," so he/she depends on the recruiter to cut out 494 of the 500 applicants.
Once the initial screen is over, the recruiter may talk by phone to maybe 15 people with a goal to invite 6 of these candidates for a face to face interview. NOW here is where the use of applicant tracking software along with the Internet becomes valuable and SCARY at the same time. My recruiter friend will do a search on each person he performed a phone interview on to help him decide who should be invited in for a face to face interview with the hiring manager. First stop is one of those people search background investigation websites, like www.intelius.com, to look up how old the person is!, then a check to see if they have a criminal record; then a check on Linkedin to see what type of network they have and get a general overview of their background as described on Linkedin; then finally, a check of the person on Facebook. If it is a job that involves customer service or quite a bit of interaction with customers and coworkers, then they will look at how many friends they have on Facebook and how the applicants friends look.
I find this level of investigation of applicants before an interview really shocking and scary. Don't you?
A friend who works as a recruiter for a mid sized company was showing me how they have automated the recruiting process using "applicant tracking software" and the Internet. VERY INTERESTING and scary too.
The recruiters are under extreme pressure not to waste the hiring managers time with poor quality applicants. The recruiter places the ad for the job opening and the flood gate opens up. 500 applicants for the typical white collar position! The hiring manager only has time for maybe 6 "face to face interviews," so he/she depends on the recruiter to cut out 494 of the 500 applicants.
Once the initial screen is over, the recruiter may talk by phone to maybe 15 people with a goal to invite 6 of these candidates for a face to face interview. NOW here is where the use of applicant tracking software along with the Internet becomes valuable and SCARY at the same time. My recruiter friend will do a search on each person he performed a phone interview on to help him decide who should be invited in for a face to face interview with the hiring manager. First stop is one of those people search background investigation websites, like www.intelius.com, to look up how old the person is!, then a check to see if they have a criminal record; then a check on Linkedin to see what type of network they have and get a general overview of their background as described on Linkedin; then finally, a check of the person on Facebook. If it is a job that involves customer service or quite a bit of interaction with customers and coworkers, then they will look at how many friends they have on Facebook and how the applicants friends look. I find this level of investigation of applicants before an interview really shocking and scary. Don't you?
I figured that something like this was going on. I retired probably 5 years ago and when I joined Facebook, the first thing that crossed my mind was all my young nieces and nephews who were on Facebook using foul language, saying rotten things to people, etc. I tried to tell them that I was pretty sure employers could look on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace and check out their backgrounds. Have any of them got good jobs?? Perhaps only 1 or 2 of them. The rest, the mouthy ones are struggling. Hmmmmm??? What do ya think? My husband is a big wig in an I.T. environment and what he knows about how computers operate would scare you to death. I have a Firewall on my computer here at home that stops most of the scary stuff but there is some stuff out there that nothing can stop. I have seen intellius.com and what it can do. Unreal. Note: The FBI can get into anyones computer at any time they want to see where they are going and what they are doing. Your IP #registers on the sites you visit and if the FBI has a site they are particularly looking at, i.e., such as child porn stuff and a person goes there, they will find you. It is a scary computerized world out there now but at the same time, some of the capabilities computers have given us are making the world a lot safer. Moral to the story??? Be good while on Facebook or any of the other social networks, you never know who is checking you out!
I'm so glad to be self-employed. Never have to pee in a dixie cup, never have to self-edit on the internet ("Kill all bosses now!) and never have to succumb to social media tracking.
Nothing new here, seriously. The FBI is interested in potential terrorists, serial killers, those passing secrets to other countries, that crazy Luka guy who chopped up his lover and filmed it on Youtube, and similar. Nobody cares about some Joe Schmo or Joanne Schmo Anne in Smalltown, USA. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) have been around for a while already. Big Corporate is very picky about who they hire, always has been. They want you to have the right school, the right resume, know the right people, and have "the right" everything. Again, that's nothing new. Those who have a problem with the level of control that Big Corporate has over its employees perhaps should not apply there. Those who want to live in that world will find a way to "get in." The average person who goes about their life doing their own thing, without breaking any (major) laws has nothing to fear.
What the job applicant has to fear is the main goal of the recruiter is to eliminate applicants from the pool of maybe 500 applicants for nearly every decent job. So they are looking for reasons not to bring you in for an interview:
Check Intelius: Applicant is too old, will not fit in with the 20 and 30 something types who seem to dominate in most offices today.
Check Linkedin: That person does not seem to have many contacts, maybe they are anti social, they are out of the running! Or heaven forbid, they don't have a Linkedin account!
Check Facebook: What only 50 friends? !! They must be a social misfit! They are out of the running! I don't like the way they or their friends look like, there out of the running!
Google Them? Do they have a good web presence? They better or their out of the running!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mystique13
Nothing new here, seriously. The FBI is interested in potential terrorists, serial killers, those passing secrets to other countries, that crazy Luka guy who chopped up his lover and filmed it on Youtube, and similar. Nobody cares about some Joe Schmo or Joanne Schmo Anne in Smalltown, USA. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) have been around for a while already. Big Corporate is very picky about who they hire, always has been. They want you to have the right school, the right resume, know the right people, and have "the right" everything. Again, that's nothing new. Those who have a problem with the level of control that Big Corporate has over its employees perhaps should not apply there. Those who want to live in that world will find a way to "get in." The average person who goes about their life doing their own thing, without breaking any (major) laws has nothing to fear.
What the job applicant has to fear is the main goal of the recruiter is to eliminate applicants from the pool of maybe 500 applicants for nearly every decent job. So they are looking for reasons not to bring you in for an interview:
Check Intelius: Applicant is too old, will not fit in with the 20 and 30 something types who seem to dominate in most offices today.
Check Linkedin: That person does not seem to have many contacts, maybe they are anti social, they are out of the running! Or heaven forbid, they don't have a Linkedin account!
Check Facebook: What only 50 friends? !! They must be a social misfit! They are out of the running! I don't like the way they or their friends look like, there out of the running!
Google Them? Do they have a good web presence? They better or their out of the running!
Sorry I don't agree with all that your friend says and wouldn't take it as gospel.
First off HR people to secure their own jobs will interview 25 people in person rather than 5 people like they used to.
There have been several posts on here about people going on 3 interviews and finding out that there are 15 other people in the running with them.
There was one HR woman on here saying she spent 3 months interviewing people for a temp job doing data entry, that's ridiculous.
The other thing is if you think they go on Facebook to see how many "friends" you have you're wrong. They go on Facebook to see if you're out drinking and what kind of person you are.
And no one in the real world has 50 friends. You must be young.
In real life you have a few real friends, and many acquaintances.
There is funny ad on TV for some car, it shows a young woman in her early 20s and she has 300 friends on Facebook, her poor parents in their 50s only have a few...such losers.
Then it shows the parents out enjoying life while she sits online all day....LOL.
Almost everyone that I know in a position to hire someone googles potential hires. Friend of mine almost hired someone until he saw her Facebook account and it was full of tales of getting drunk and pub crawling every weekend with pictures to match.
I paid to run a background check on myself and google myself on regular basis while I'm job hunting. That way there are no surprises lurking out there. Have a very unique name, only three people with my name in the U.S., so lucky for me the other two guys with my name have their act together as well. (one is my dad, so he better stay in line)
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Our HR staff has been reduced over the last few years and they do not need to interview additional people to keep their jobs, they are overburdened as it is. As the hiring manager I am provided with all aplicactions/resumes and even if over 100 will look at every one and make the initial elimination. HR will then verify that those meet the minimum qualifications and will only do a background check (extensive) on the person selected after interviews before the offer is made. I'm the one that does research on the top 5-10 candidates that I will be interviewing, and while things like facebook are useful I do not use that in my decision unless they have posted being a mass murderer or something. I would, however compare their work history on something like Linkedin to their resume in case something has been added or left off one or the other.
Yep, typical idiotic modern hiring practices - since there are practically no jobs available, the goal is to quickly get rid of as many people as possible:
1) If you're "too old" you won't have a chance.
2) If you're out of work, you probably won't have a chance - "no unemployed need apply."
3) If you're not social enough (Facebook, etc.), you're out of the running. I get a particular laugh out of this one since as guy who's spent his whole career in the defense world, they specifically tell us NOT to go overboard with social media... but that probably counts against us in other industries?!
4) If they don't like something about your resume on some website somewhere, you're out.
5) Maybe they learn about your relatives online through social media, don't like them, and thus you're out.
6) Race, gender, religion - oops, you're out!
And so it goes... the end result is only hiring young people who make great beer-buddies or eye-candy.... oh, but companies can't find any qualified people, or so they claim!
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