By Heather Stone, President of
myjobsearch.com
The Fortune 500- it sounds more like a car race than a list of the biggest
and the best of business. For the job seeker, it is very much a race to
become employed by one of the ranked companies.
Landing a job with a name-brand company does have its advantages.
Compensation tends to be more competitive. Benefit and bonus packages can be
more attractive. Career paths are more sharply defined and it does not hurt
to list a Fortune 500 company on a resume.
Yet finding a job with a Fortune 500 company can require much more job
seeking expertise. The Fortune 500 are the big leagues of the job hunt. The
college graduate or individual seeking to make a jump to a Fortune 500
company would be advised do some research and polish every aspect of their
job seeking skills in preparation.
The Fortune 500 Embrace The Internet
In early 1993, about 90,000 Americans had access to the Internet. That
number has exploded to about 81 million in early 1999- an increase of about
900 percent. As the rush to the Internet unfolds, companies large and small
are using it not only to make money but also to save money. Online
recruiting is but one money-saving way the Internet serves business.
Recruiting within even a small organization requires careful planning. The
considerations of budget, time, and available resources are complex. Within
a large corporation, the job of finding adequate staff is massive- and
expensive.
The Internet has provided Fortune 500 companies another method to recruit to
their needs and reduce the cost in so doing. According to a recent report by
Creative Good, a policy of online recruitment can help save a company up to
$8,000 in total costs per person hired. This figure is broken down into
$5,000 per hire in advertising costs and $6,000 in time spent looking for a
new hire. Recruiting online can potentially save a company such as Proctor &
Gamble that hires more than 4,000 per year up to $3 million in costs.
Companies Struggle To Figure Out How To Make It Work
These breathless days of surging technology has everyone grasping for ways
to make the use of the Internet more efficient and more effective. As
individuals, use of online resources like email and web pages requires a
learning curve. Companies have to go through this learning curve too- even
large companies.
Unfortunately, their mistakes are much more public. According to the
Creative Good report, the online job application process of six major
companies from various industries found that only 26 percent of attempts
were successful when utilizing company online application processes.
That can be partly the reason why online recruiting has some maturing to do.
Even as paying customers at e-commerce sites abandon online purchases due to
technical frustrations, the online job seeker gives up on the application
process that cannot handle accepting a resume.
These kinds of technical difficulties are impacting the hopes that abound
for online recruiting. In spite of the phenomenal growth of Internet users,
a study by the Olsten Center reveals that 43 percent of new-hires will come
from classified advertising compared to just 5 percent from online
recruitment centers.
Online Strategy To Get A Fortune 500 Job
The mistaken assumption of the power of the Internet is that it makes things
faster, cheaper and more convenient. That may be true in some cases but in
all things the true power of the Internet is in information. Recognizing the
trends in employment is important for the job seeker.
That is the first rule of job seeking: to keep eyes open and act upon
information received. The fact that a company has a web site that is
difficult to work through does not necessarily mean it is a company to
avoid. In fact, it may spell opportunity for the heads-up job seeker.
As the job seeker searches the web sites of the Fortune 500 the attitude
needs to be one of seeking information- not jobs. Every company has a web
site loaded with information about everything from what the company does to
how much revenue the company generates. This information is a gift to the
job seeker.
Finding a specific company to research can be something of a challenge. The
Fortune 500 can be accessed through myjobsearch.com where each company is
linked according to their ranking. Independent corporate profiles are also
accessible along side links to current job openings presented by the
company.
If the company you want to research is not quite a Fortune 500 or does not
use an obvious URL, you may find a link to a corporate web site through
www.companiesonline.com. This is a Lycos search site partnered with Dun &
Bradstreet. Over 100,000 companies are referenced with their web address and
link to reports available for purchase from Dun & Bradstreet.
The online research about a company will likely serve as just a starting
step in finding a Fortune 500 job. The specific jobs within a Fortune 500
company can change daily. The race for a desired job is one of perseverance.
It will take knowing more about the company and who to talk to there than it
will take knowing what jobs they have to offer.
Do not assume the job you are looking for is posted online. The job-seeking
adage that 80% of all jobs are filled before they are advertised remains
true, even in an online world. In a study conducted by myjobsearch.com,
nearly all of the top job boards online posted jobs from the Fortune 500.
But clicking on those links in a majority of cases directs the job seeker
right back to a company site.
Resist the temptation to email a resume into the job application pit of HR
departments with large corporations. The Olsten survey revealed that
companies receive on the average of 133 resumes a month in this manner.
Unless a job seeker has information of a specific job or a particular
contact within an organization to target, the emailed resume may prove
futile. The greater effort of networking within the organization would get a
resume an opportunity to rise above the sea of others transmitted
electronically.
Fortune 500 jobs are amongst the most desired in the world. The Internet has
made finding and obtaining those jobs easier by providing the job seeker
with information. The hustle of networking and the rules of business
etiquette still dominate approaching these organizations for work. The savvy
job seeker recognizing and using these resources will win the race for a
Fortune 500 job.
-- Heather Stone is president of
myjobsearch.com, the largest career
resources directory on the Internet with links to over 100,000 sites
intelligently organized and easy to use.
Myjobsearch.com is also the leading
provider of news and statistics concerning the impact of the Internet on
employment practices.
(c) 2000
myjobsearch.com
