Job hunt

When I read articles published on how corporates are aiming at using the net resources to pool in candidates I did believe that probably they are finding it too difficult or that they are trying to make the most of the resources available. Moving from job sites like Naukri or Monster companies were trying to source people from Orkut!!! I don't have an account in Orkut and for a moment I felt bad for not being a big fan of online social networking. For the first time, I decided to do little bit more than a glance at Hindu opportunities. I registered myself in few well known job sites and vigorously put in applications. Response - almost nil except for a few auto response. After waiting for about three to four weeks I decided to call those whose numbers were published on either the job posting or on their website. Invariably, all of them asked me to forward my Resume again and to a different email id. Why on earth do they post online then. I was also surprised to see that there can be as many as 1250 applicants for a particular posting.

Mistake can be at either sides. Applicants hardly see the relevance of jobs and go for "easy apply" options the moment they see an opening. This might mean that out of 100 resumes that a company might receive only 2 or 3 might be kinda relevant. This having been the trend, posting a vacany on the job site might have become just a ritual for the employers with no actual effort taken to reap its benefits.

On the other side I came across few job posts ( from reputed institutions and big names in the industry) that were quite funny. One asked for candidates who have " experience in all call center training activities including ACTION TRAINING" I didn't know that Call centers needed stunt masters in addition to accent trainers for their employees

If this is the case with job sites, here is my experience when I attended an interview through a consultant for a reputed BPO in town. After filling all information thats available in my Resume once again in a form that was given by the Interviewer, I sat for the first round with an HR Executive. I had applied for a position in Quality and probably it was the company norm that the HR executive ask some questions relevant to the role. " What Matrix have you used in the previous organization" was one question that was thrown after the conventional " tell me something about yourself " type of questions. The only Matrices that I was aware of were the ones that I learned about arrays and structures in my 8th standard math and another one which is the famous movie . At that point, I felt there might have been some method to measure Quality using a Matrix or that such a structure is deployed in the process. I accepted my ignorance. I saw the smile on her face - satisfaction coupled with sarcasm and also a proud look that implied she knew much better than me and probably I am not fit enough for the role or worse,a conclusion that the experience that I have claimed to have in quality isn't reliable. Further questions from her revealed that she had meant " Metrics" and not "Matrix". Well, I am to be blamed. Having applied for a position in call center I must have had good listening skills and an open mind that will help me see variations on account of pronunciation accent and jargons.
who is the loser? First I felt it was me however later I convinced myself that my job would have been really difficult at such places. Still, Shouldn't corporates focus on what impression they want to create on candidates during Interviews and be a bit careful about it.