Finding a Job Today

How technology has affected the search for a job

Over the last few months, my search for a full time job offer has gone into full effect. Included with my search for internships the past two years, there have been many different ways in which companies recruit students, and also how students research companies. Technology has definitely evolved these searches over the past couple of decades.

The entire process of finding a job, a quick research of the company, and applying for the job, in some instances took only 5 minutes. There is a huge problem with this. It has become way too easy to apply for jobs, which is causing the HR staffs of companies to be overwhelmed with the amount of resumes they receive, which does not allow them to thoroughly evaluate all of the applicants.

Before the internet how did someone find a job? My guess is that it was done mostly through job fairs with face to face interaction and a conversation. If not job fairs, then an applicant had to search through their college career services, word of mouth, and newspaper articles. While career services and word of mouth are still prominent ways to search, how many of us take the easy route and simply type in “entry level engineering jobs in New York” into google.

With the unemployment and under employment of recent college graduates at an all-time high, shouldn’t the applicants and also the companies looking to hire take the application process even more seriously? There are many different aspects to this problem and there are no simple solutions. One main problem is that the economy has caused many companies to understaff their HR departments. The HR staffs do not simply have enough time to conduct phone interviews with applicants and do not enough time or resources to travel to different job fairs across the country.  Another problem is that there are million dollar industries benefitting off of the online job search.  Companies like indeed, monster, and job.com are job search databases that employ thousands and make millions of dollars each year. These companies strive off of the quick job search and only want to make the process even faster. The last main problem is that technology has caused us to always look for the shortcut. Why would we want to spend hours on applying and researching for jobs, when it can be done in minutes?

Technology has connected the whole world through the internet. Now applicants in Europe, Asia, and Africa can apply for jobs in the United States, whereas before that were not as easy. Even within the United States, students on the west coast can apply for jobs on the east coast. This is causing the number of applicants to rise, which further hampers the HR staffs.

One possible solution that I have for this problem is to use technology as an aide. Many companies have been using Skype and google hangout to conduct interviews.  It would also be beneficial for companies to make their job databases more through. Companies should add more detailed questionnaire sections. This would encourage the applicants that are very interested to invest their time to apply, and also weed out the applicants who are looking for a quick, easy job search to look elsewhere.