The Extracurricular Being

Today's age of information has made a lot of things faster.  The postal mail has been replaced by the email.  The libraries have been replaced by the ultimate Google search.  And social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have enabled us to reconnect with our long lost friends, which actually used to take years or even decades.

The same applies to job hunting.  I'm sure we remember our parents telling us how hard it is to look for a job during their time.  "Kelangan naming magbilang ng poste at magpudpod ng sapatos," my mom told me several years ago.  Now, we can search and apply for millions of job openings out there through job portals like JobStreet.  A click of a mouse has indeed saved millions of job seekers from the burden of miles and hours of walk.

JobStreet has indeed made job hunting faster, but not necessarily easier.

Imagine this: a company can receive up to 100 job applications per position per day, and that statistically means that technology has just diminished your chance of getting hired to at most one percent!  Take note that we are not yet counting the other online applications for the same position that the company have received in the previous days AND will receive for the next coming days!  And at that rate, it's more than easy for any overworked yet underpaid recruitment officer to overlook any applicant's credentials.

With that stiff online competition for jobs, most people still find it hard to land a job despite technology's help.

So in that case, I will be sharing you some tips on how to increase your chance of getting a job with the help of the JobStreet site.

Of course, before submitting your application, please make sure to it that you have the skills needed for the job.  I still know people who showcase their skills that are unrelated for the position, so I hope nobody here would commit that mortal sin in job hunting.

Now let's begin.  Let's take this job ad from Accenture as an example.

Do you know that there are three ways for you to apply for that job?  Yup, not one, not two, but three!  And for you to increase your chance of getting hired, you need to utilize all the available job application channels.

First is by clicking the Click Here to Apply button.  This option is the one used most by job hunters.  The Click Here to Apply feature requires you to have a JobStreet account and be logged in to the JobStreet site.

Second is by clicking the Apply Via Email button.  Not all job ads have this button, but for those that do grab the opportunity to augment your chance of getting hired by clicking this button.  The Apply Via Email does not require you to have a JobStreet account.

And third is by emailing the company's recruitment department itself.  Somewhere at the bottom of this particular ad, it has a line there that contains the company's recruitment email.  You can use email address to send your resume via email.  Like the Apply Via Email feature, not all job ads have the company's recruitment email address, so make good use of the said recruitment email address if it is available.

So in this job ad alone, you have just tripled your chance of getting hired!

But then again, do not place all your eggs in just one basket.

The job ad that we used as an example is for the position of BPO Data Assistant in Accenture.  As of press time, if you would make a Job Title search in Jobstreet using the words "BPO Data Assistant", here's how it looks like:

As you can see, there are several job ads in JobStreet for the same position.  A lot of applicants commit the horrible mistake of applying in only one job ad.  Most would reason out, "Eh inapplyan ko na kanina 'yan eh."

Their missing a very important point.

Remember the stats that we talked about moments ago?  A company can receive up to 100 job applications per position per day, in that case you need to augment your probability of getting noticed by increasing the chance for your resume to be viewed.  Yes, you MUST apply for the said position again through the other job ads that the company posted in JobStreet for the said position.  So in case of a job vacancy appearing in JobStreet as multiple ads, I would advise to submit your online job application through up to five job ads.

Now why five?  Some would argue that if a job vacancy appears over and over again in JobStreet to the point that 100 ads are posted for the same position, then you must submit your application through all those 100 ads.  Hmmm... that does not sound good to me.  Why?  Imagine playing a Lady Gaga song over and over again.  Poker Face perhaps.  How does it feel?  You're right!  It's very annoying!  When it comes to applying through multiple job ads, please use good judgment when it comes to deciding how many job ads would be enough to give your resume more recruiters' viewership so to speak.  If your resume pops up too many times on the recruiter's end, they may think you're making a mockery out of the recruitment process.  Of course we don't want that to happen.  I think five job ads is enough.

I hope these tips would work on you as it worked for me.  Right now I am working as a Customer Master Data Analyst for a multinational company.  I applied for the said job in 2008 through three job ads in JobStreet.  I failed on the first and second job ads, but passed on the third one.

Sometimes recruiters need to take a second look at our resume for them to recognize our worth.

(Images courtesy of JobStreet)

There's no such thing as winning a singing contest by vocal prowess.  It's all judges discretion.

I hope you all still remember how to report a discriminative job advertisement in JobStreet.  If you can still recall, we actually reported a "live" discriminative job ad due to age discrimination.  You can view this post to have your memory refreshed.

Let me share to you the reply we received from JobStreet.  I think it would be better for me to post here a screen shot of the email from JobStreet for the sake of data integrity.

For those who are having problems reading the email per the image above, let me copy JobStreet's reply and post it here.  JobStreet replied to us, "Thank you for your email. We will ask the employer to modify their ad although the age will still be up to the employer for their job requirement."

Unfortunately, things are still up to the employer's sole prerogative. 

This is the sad reality of job hunting.  You can collect and showcase all credentials you can think of.  But at the end of the day, it's the employer who has the last say.

And the sad reality of employer's prerogative applies not only in job applications.  It also applies in employees' evaluations, ranging from regularization to promotion.

We all know the fact that we pursue formal education to get a job.  We spend unforgiving amount time and money to gain a documentation of our competence, because these documentations is a way of pleasing whoever is assessing our application.  But whether we like it or not, companies can still hire or not hire anyone for any reason.  I have seen cum laude's being turned down simply because the HR officer did not find them entertaining, and I have seen applicants gifted with angelic faces and diabolical curves getting hired despite their failure to meet the 35 words per minute passing rate in a typing test.

And the most heart-breaking fact is the reality of employer's prerogative is an absolute truth.  It knows no exceptions.  Yes, the legislative branch of the government can have equal employment opportunity bills approved into laws.  JobStreet and JobsDB can regularly remove discriminative ads from their site.  But what happens during the interview is strictly between the applicant and the assessor.  The company may not write their discriminative preferences in their ads, but they can turn down anybody without telling anyone why.

So that being the case, the absolute truth of employer's prerogative teaches us, surprisingly, both pride and humility.  Cool isn't it?

Now what do I mean by that?  When we apply for a job, there can only be two outcomes: it's either you get hired or not. 

For those who get the job offer, the initial reaction is to hold the self in high regards, massaging the ego with thoughts of credentials and qualifications.  Wrong!  Please bear in mind that you got hired because the assessor finds you pleasing.  No more, no less.  Yes, you can be as qualified as you believe, but no matter how qualified you are, the assessor can shred your resume at any moment he/she finds you bland!  And please remember that there are definitely other applicants out there who are far more qualified than you but did not get the job offer for some reasons beyond their control.  Please have the humility to remember all these.

And for those who did not get hired, don't take it too hard on yourselves.  Take a look at your resume, your skills, and your character.  If you honestly find yourselves qualified for the job, then walk away and find a company who can find your worth.  Have the pride remind yourselves that not everyone can see your good qualities.  You did not get hired not because you are dumb or something but because you were not able to please your interviewer, which is obviously not your fault.

I hope I was able to impart some job market wisdom here.  Sure, you can still pursue your formal education and polish your skills, but let me stress one thing: you cannot please everybody, and not everybody can please you.

Yup, you read it right!  We can have discriminatory job ads reported in JobStreet.

As I've said in my previous post, we job hunters can do something about discrimination in the Philippine.

For example, I was able to spot a job ad that discriminates people who are above 27 years old.

Let's walk through the process of reporting the said job ad.

1. Click the "Report Advertisment" link at the bottom of the job ad webpage.

2. A new window will be opened.  Enter your email address.  This is where Jobstreet will contact you regarding the status of your report, so be sure to check your email regularly.

3. In the "Report this advertisement as" drop down menu, choose the reason for reporting the job ad.  Please note that a job ad can be reported not only for discrimination (e.g. age/gender, language/marital status, race/religion), but also for fraudulent/misleading claims and poor job description.

4. In the "Write your comments here" box, you can type your comments regarding the job ad you are reporting.

5. Finally, click the "OK" button below the "Write your comments here" box.  It will open a new window, wherein Jobstreet will confirm that you have successfully submitted your report.

Images courtesy of JobStreet.

Equal employment opportunity is often defined as the protection from being discriminated or denied of employment opportunities on the basis of race, disability, religion, age, gender amnd other immutable traits.  In the United States, various laws prohibit these forms of employment discrimination, and the said law is being strictly enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

That means it is clearly a violation of employment opportunity laws when we see a job opening ad in in the format below:

WANTED: Customer Service Representative

Requirements:
Female, not more than 26 years old
Graduate of a reputable university (UP, Ateneo, La Salle, UST, UA&P)
Pleasing personality

Sad to say, the said format of job ad is very common here in the Philippines.  And if you happen to be either a male OR a 27-year-old female, your chance to get hired just got busted and the sad thing about it is you were never really given the chance to market yourself and your merits before the HR officers.

Here in the Philippines, some equal employment opportunity bills have already been passed in the Philippine Senate.  Senate Bill No. 49 and Senate Bill No. 354 have been written and passed by our good senators Juan Flavier and Jinggoy Ejercito-Estrada respectively, and the said bills are currently pending in the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development.

And while these bills are waiting for these bills to be approved, discriminative job ads continue to plague the job market today, undeniably contributing to the soaring unemployment rate of this country.  Companies continue to post discriminative job ads, capitalizing on the assumption that we Filipinos cannot do anything about it.

Or they just thought so.

It's not that we can't do anything about it.  Of course we can!  Most of us just chose not to act on it!

Not me!  While we may have good solons who are promoting equal opportunity employment, I cannot sit here and wait for the government to fix things for me.  I decided take action

In this blog, I will post here job ads that do not only violate the principle equal employment opportunity but are also disagreeable (for lack of better word).  I used the word disaggreeable because some job ads out there are not only discriminative but are also disagreeable in other aspects like (you wouldn't believe this) grammar and capitalization!  So be sure to check things out in this blog.

We will make the whole online world see how corrupt the Philippine job market is as reflected in its job ads.

Yes, we undergraduates do experience hardships in getting a job here in the Philippines.  But do you know that college graduates also find it hard to land a job?  How and why is it so?  We may just find out why in this blog...