Journo

Craigslist Etiquette in the New Economy

Job search etiquette, or lack thereof, in 2009

There's a power struggle going on in today's flooded job market--a struggle between those without jobs and those in the position to give you one.

Interview Mistake #1: Be on time.

Interview Mistake #2: Have the right equipment.

Interview Mistake #3: Never threaten.

Interview Mistake #4: Have realistic expectations.

Interview Mistake #5: But sometimes it doesn't matter.

 This is not news, you may say; the managers who hire and fire have always held their power, whether subtly or not so subtly, over eager applicants. Sometimes job searchers are greeted by friendly receptionists, asked intelligent questions by the people in charge, and get responses in record time; sometimes they receive no call backs, no confirmations, are subjected to humiliating or condescending interviews and then never hear another word. And anyone with a modicum of self-confidence knows that it's a coin toss; just because you've put on a suit, printed out a resume, and shown up on time does not mean your potential employer has any intention of reciprocating with professionalism and courtesy.

Job search etiquette used to be a frequent topic of conversation: wear a tie or just a sweater? Jeans or no jeans? CV or resume? Is an e-mail sufficient, or does it require a follow-up phone call? And what about those old rules, like sending follow-up thank you notes to potential employers after an interview?

Relaxing the rules is not a bad thing. In Rhode Island, where the unmployment rate hovers around 10%, cutting through the endless charade of politesse and asking real, human questions (of real humans) helps employers narrow down their list of applicants. No one in today's economy (or, the "New Economy") wants to be treated like a peon- but everyone knows that jobs are few and applicants are many. The stakes are high. Treating applicants like human beings to begin with (instead of job-seeking automatons) doesn't imply a lack of respect, but rather a healthy appreciation for what everyone is up against. Because the desperation goes both ways: if jobs are scarce and an employer needs a position filled, they're going to have a harder time finding those who are truly qualified in the sea of swarming applicants.

And while personal relationships and networking are more important than ever, on a grand scale the New Economy is not embracing the human element, but removing it. If you're in search of an entry-level retail or food service job, the best way to gain employment is still to pound the pavement, poking your head in every shop and restaurant and introducing yourself to the manager. Remove the face-to-face (or phone-to-phone) factor from the hunt, and job seekers are faced with a pathetic prospect: spending the day hitting the REFRESH button on the computer screen on the local Craigslist Web site.

That's where the jobs are; good, bad, legit, scam; entry-level and corporate level; from temporary house-sitting to running a company. Employers don't have to pay to post their ads, so naturally Craigslist is the way to go for these local jobs. But it seems few employers know how to handle this new technology, and what results, most of the time, is a mess of incompetence and rudeness that leaves job applicants banging their heads against their keyboards and employers looking blankly at a computer screen that tells them they have 2,045 new unread e-mails.

Using my own experiences as well as commonly held internet truths, here's a guide to the newest job search rituals.

Getting a job , by the numbers:

Step 1. Check Craigslist. New ads are posted daily, hourly. Often, employers cannot figure out which category jobs fit in--is a waitress a Food/Bev/Hospitality job or a Customer Service job?--and so you should plan on dedicating roughly twenty minutes to sifting through each job category. That awesome communications job could be hiding somewhere in the Art section.

Step 2. Eliminate ads. Some ads are plainly scams; discard. Others may seem legitimate but are lacking basic information, like where the restaurant is located and what it is called. You can't necessarily discard those ads, since most businesses today seem to think this information is best kept a secret (although a waitress looking to work at Stanley's Burgers is probably a different sort of waitress than you'd want applying to the Capital Grille, and vice versa--this doesn't seem to matter). Some try to be sneaky, but have the name of the company in the reply e-mail address or provide applicants with the street name; a quick Google will figure those out.

Step 3. Sort ads. The ads that provide addresses and times to apply are obviously winners; at least you'll get some face time. Often, however, there are strict instructions not to call or visit; e-mail resumes only. From a managerial standpoint, this makes sense; you can sort through those with experience and without experience without wasting time on interviews and avoid awkward personal chats with clearly unqualified applicants. From a job-seeking standpoint, however, this is Bad News Bears.

Step 4. E-mail resumes. A brief, polite cover e-mail and an attachment generally suffice, although there is no guarantee that the manager on the other end knows how to open a .doc file.

For most job ads, this is the last step. No matter how qualified, how well-written your e-mail, or how professional your resume, you will never hear from the employer. No confirmation e-mail will be sent to let you know your resume has been received; you will receive no timetable in which to anticipate a response.

I once received a phone call in response to an e-mail from a popular local bar. They wanted me to come over right away. I had no idea who they were, where they were located, or how they had found me; it took ten minutes of confused conversation for both parties to figure out how they had obtained my resume and telephone number. I worked there for one day.

Another company, this time a non-profit looking for part-time help, replied to my e-mail after more than three weeks. A successful interview followed, and I was assured of the job. However, I was the told the position was not yet vacant, and so I waited. Another phone call from the same company followed, letting me know there was yet another opening. The interview that followed was a mess; my resume had not been looked over a second time, the interviewers had no idea who I was or what my skills were, and the responses I had given during the previous interview had been forgotten. The job description in no way resembled the job they were actually offering me. I was told I'd receive a phone call the following week; I received a letter of rejection instead, nearly two weeks later.

I am not upset I didn't get the job; there was plenty to dislike and mistrust about the hiring company after that second, shoddy interview. But where did the once de rigueur politeness go in this process? It's one thing to be treated shabbily by an overworked restaurant chef or general manager; that's a dog-eat-dog business, and you have to be aggressive to get hired and expect a certain amount of incompetence (especially when it comes to technology and HR) from the generally useless "management" staff. But a sweet little non-profit with less than a dozen applicants for a part-time, nonessential position? They couldn't be bothered to follow up with phone calls or to properly review resumes.

This overall lack of manners indicates two things: a poorly run company and a failure on an individual, managerial level to handle new technologies. It's simple and easy to send confirmation e-mails in response to resumes. It takes seconds. But when navigating Hotmail is as foreign as navigating the South Seas, solid human resources strategies are thrown out the window and what's left is a pool of frustrated job applicants and befuddled managers who undoubtedly hire the first remotely qualified applicant they meet. When the new hire proves to be a bad hire, the process starts all over again.

 Applicants feel powerless and dismissed before they've even spoken to a human. But Craigslist is often the only viable resource; even the Providence Journal's classified pages are flooded with spam, and newspapers often print the same old ads from the same old recruitment agencies. Ads are weeks, maybe months, old.

Craigslist proves a great resource, but its mishandling creates bad blood on both sides of the hiring process. The power struggle leaves smart job seekers with a bad impression of local businesses, and managers are left with a reputation for rudeness and incompetence. Employers see only a fraction of the job market, and that fraction may not be the best representation of the qualified applicants out there. One positive side effect, of course, is that job seekers are nearly guaranteed that employers who do call back at least know how to work a computer; that is, I suppose, good news.

The implications of this struggle may shape the way we go about the ritual of the job search in the days and years ahead. We need to reintroduce the human element into the business of hiring, and make sure we are making these new technologies work for us--not letting a classified ad Web site run our reputations into the ground because we can't figure out how to send an e-mail to more than one person at a time.

And, folks, please: spell check.