The Internet: The Great Job Slot Machine

There are more than 5000 web sites on the Internet with job postings. In fact, there are over 8 million jobs posted online. It would seem a simple enough thing to do just to get one of them.

But for every job posted online there are seven resumes (on some sites, even more). On the most prolific job board on the Internet they claim over 6 million resumes against less than 500,000 job postings. For job seekers, that’s an enormous amount of competition.

The fact of the matter is that job postings on the Internet have very little to do with careers. Job postings are really more of a way to give companies a bigger pool of candidates to choose from and job boards more clicks to report on their web sites. And they shamelessly promote themselves with high-minded, self-important accolades in the process.

They advertise it as a free service for job seekers. They promise to change lives. In fact, they dare you to use their web site to rise above the mediocrity of your current career status. Unsuspecting numbers of the unemployed – or merely countless others who wonder if they just can’t do better – innocently stumble to these sites like hopeful lottery players.

It’s big business. The product is information – personal and private information - the kind of comprehensive information that you would find on a resume. And they’re not giving job seekers a thing in return for the information they submit online. In fact, the online job boards are robbing job seekers blind.

Here’s how it works: a job seeker goes to a job site and finds an attractive job posting. They click to apply and either fill-out a form or submit a pre-formatted resume. But that’s where the similarity between a real job search and the Internet job hunt ends.

The big problem is that job postings online are nameless. Many times a job seeker won’t know the name of the posting company and most of the time will not end up with a contact name either. All they can do is submit the resume and wait by the phone.

Just like a slot machine. Drop it in, press the button and pray.