For the past couple of months, I’ve been looking into getting a second job. I’ve found that by using some of the strategies I’ve mentioned (yes, I drink my own Kool Aid), I’ve had more time to devote to other pursuits. But unfortunately, my applications weren’t getting me where I wanted to be.
I noticed that several positions I was interested in were only posted on one website (let’s-call-it-JobAgents) that offered a Premium Membership plan. For the Low, Low Price of $10 Per Month (introductory price – $8 for the first month), I would get a personalized page with a Myers-Briggs-type personality metric, a program that matches competencies from my old positions to help me find the ones best suited for me and an extensive diagram that showed what I could do in snazzy graph form. Additionally, any submissions I made would include a recommendation from JobAgents to employers that they should really look into hiring me. And there would be updates on new jobs I was compatible with, status updates on applications I’d sent in, and a tracker that shows me who’s been looking at my page.
I cancelled my membership after about three weeks.
JobAgents sounded great, but there were too many holes in the site’s code to accurately do all that it said it would – most of my matches were not in the field I had specified, the personality test had no bearing on my search results, status updates on applications consisted of being told that the application had been sent (I couldn’t send a personalized cover letter or resume or anything either, by the way), and the page was visited only twice, through searches on Yandex, the Russian Google (according to the site’s literature, anyway).
One of the chief problems with JobAgents, besides the fact that I couldn’t search for a job beyond the positions they suggested I applied for (unless I found the posting through a secondary site and copied the link over) was that the matching software wasn’t very good. I was very limited in responses (“click a maximum of three choices” was the instruction, when I could have clicked all twelve listed), and certain logic chains in the program would not let me down the path to select skills that would have matched me with other jobs that I’m actually qualified for.
Of course, the blame could be shifted to the user – maybe I should have chosen my options more carefully and made sure that my answers all reflected the work I was looking for. But since this was done through an explanation of what I’d already done, it seemed silly to go about doing it that way. For example:
One of the jobs that I’ve been looking into is as an advertising copywriter. I have copywriting experience, and have written other things (press releases, promotional materials, speeches, articles, newsletters, etc.), all of which I had told the JobAgents program. I specified my field of interest as Marketing/Advertising/PR. I also mentioned that I have experience with training and seminars. So obviously, the program decided to not show me any copywriting positions (I had to find them through external links) and instead recommended I try out for real estate and financial training.
One of the other problems I had was a lack of follow-through when I did send in an application. JobAgents never told me if the application was read, who received it, if the position was filled, or anything. All it said was that I had submitted it and a secondary notice came out when the position was no longer available. So what was the message that JobAgents sent to the employers? How do I know that there was any accountability?
In fact, the only proof that I had upgraded my membership (besides the user page and the charge on my credit card) was that emails regarding their $400 resume review service mentioned that I had upgraded my account.
I’m not saying that recruiters, placement services and job site memberships are all bad – many of them can lead to work, or at least professional connections that one might not have made otherwise. But if I’m paying for your service, regardless of if it’s $8 per month or $800 per week, make sure that you deliver on your promises and prove that you’re doing your work.
After all, isn’t that your job?
