New Delhi: The number of websites that help people find jobs may be multiplying, but the most successful online job-hunting strategy for applicants remains the same: Flood the Internet with copies of your curriculum vitae, and hope something sticks.
That’s what project manager Ahsan Zahir did when he turned to Naukri.com, Monster.com and JobsAhead.com in May this year to help him find a new employer. It was more of a cover-all-bases strategy than a necessary one, though. Every website had the same resume builder, the same employment categories, the same alert feature, and basically the same jobs, he says. “Five-six from each,” Zahir says, referring to the number of emails he was getting daily, “but they were duplicates often. Only one or two unique ones in a period of one-two days.”
The Internet has become one of the main tools for anyone looking for a professional makeover. In addition to the three websites that Zahir used, Indian jobseekers log on to the likes of TimesJobs.com, Jobstreet.com, and other more specialized sites like CoolAvenues.com in search of a new workplace. But for most people on the hunt for a new job, the similarities across the sites outweigh the differences. The more important strategy, they say, is how to use all the portals to complement a search through your network.
Experiences among jobseekers can vary quite a bit. Zahir says the websites he turned to sent him multiple, relevant job postings and led him to three job offers within a few weeks. (He landed at one that came to him through Monster.com.) But Aman Sharma, a New Delhi-based quality engineer, posted his resume on four sites, tweaked it daily to keep it visible, and narrowed his search by experience and location, but none of it really helped him. “I say Noida, quality assurance and testing,” Sharma says, referring to her experience searching for jobs on Monster.com, “and it will list all jobs in Noida.”
Public relations consultant Rashika Jindal had an experience that fell somewhere in the middle when she moved to Bangalore two years ago and looked for a new job. She cast a wide net, from corporate communications to marketing and branding, but it led to mixed results online. “Sometimes these portals help people, sometimes they don’t,” says Jindal, who used five different sites in her search for the perfect job. “If you are searching for a keyword, you won’t get it,” she says. Only two or three out of every 10 job alert emails she received were relevant, Jindal adds.
The latest entrant in the job search market is Shine.com, a portal that is trying to sidestep the keyword problems with a different kind of technology to match jobs and candidates (Shine.com is owned by HT Media Ltd, which publishes Mint.)