Vol. 1 Issue 6 - February 15, 2002 - Shocking Truths about Resume Databases on the Internet

In this issue..

  • Interpreting the Value of Resume Databases
  • How Many Candidates You Can Reach Online
  • Components of a Solid Recruitment Operation
SHOCKING TRUTHS ABOUT RESUME DATABASES on the INTERNET

Hey guess what? You want some reality about career websites? No holes barred? Here is the shocking truth:

According to The U.S. Bureau of the Census the total population of the world today is six billion and it is increasing by 15,000 people every hour. In the year 2050 there will be nine billion of us running amuck on this globe.

The Census reveals there are 285 million of us living in the U.S. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that, of those 285 million, seven million are unemployed and actively seeking work. There are 135.2 million people who are currently employed. Sadly, 1.3 million job seekers gave up looking for work in the last few weeks. There are 280,000 hopeless ones who believe there are no jobs for them in the future and so won't even bother looking. Add those up together and the amount of people who should be employable is just about 136 million.

America's Job Bank, an official Department of Labor Initiative, claims there are just over one million employment opportunities available in the U.S. That is one opening for every 136 employable people, but they are not all competing for it. Although the Census Bureau says 1.5 million quit looking there are still seven million actively seeking work and who hope to find employment. The problem lies in what this means...there are about eight unemployed job seekers competing for every single opening without including the 136 who are currently employed or no longer looking! That's quite an astounding number of folks who could work for your company!

Now let's look at the good old resume boards. If you add up the numbers of registered online job seekers claimed by each of a few larger resume boards like Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder and Headhunter, among others, there are only a paltry 16.7 million resumes available competing for AJB's (America's Job Bank's) one million job openings... or are there? How many of those resumes are duplicates? Are Monster's 6 million any different than HotJobs' 6 million? If so, how different?

Since it's free for me to post my resume, why not post it on as many places as possible to get the most exposure? I would. Wouldn't you? So do millions of others. It's a new thing called resume spam. Not only do thousands of unsolicited and unqualified resumes crowd your inbox, they also populate these resume databases. After all, it's about marketing and there are at least seven other people who want my job, right?

Resume databases are just one of many tools available to the savvy recruiter with jobs to fill. They are not under any circumstance a single solution to your hiring needs. The reality of our current employment marketplace is that there are seven million unemployed people looking for work and 135 million currently working. That adds up to 142 million potential candidates you can hire, period. But only a possible 16 million, and that's being very generous, on the major job boards? Assuming there are no duplicates among those, it means at least 126 million people in the U.S. do not use Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder, Headhunter or any other resume posting service. In other words, less than 12% of eligible U.S. job seekers use those sites.

Where are the other 88% of the potential candidates in the United States? To reach any part of that remaining potential pool of candidates who are online in the US (or 99% online globally) but who are not on the major career sites, you need to search through billions of Web pages. All the resume databases combined won't give you the coverage you need to really find the best available candidates.

Yes, the Internet is just a tool and since before the Internet Age so is the phone. However, 12% of the world is online compared to 16% on the phone so it won't be long now before Internet-enabled global citizens exceed telephone users.

While resume databases certainly have their place in recruitment, and have multiple uses besides that of simply providing resumes, their numbers are not impressive. Don't be fooled by major job boards' inflated claims offering access to millions of candidates. Less than 12% of U.S. jobseekers, or 1% of the global population are registered with a job board. The remainder you must find on your own.

The bottom line is that in order to reach the best candidates available we must use many different sources. Employee Referral programs, aggressively thorough Internet searching, internal and external candidate databases, cold calling, employment marketing and good old networking, are all components of a solid recruitment operation. No single source should demand all your attention, or your entire budget, because no single source can fulfill all your hiring needs.

Shally Steckerl
Chief CyberSleuth
JobMachine, Inc.