Last week we wrote about Simplyhired.com, a search firm whose mission is to simplify online job searches. Cue the US Government with a new rule that could make the whole process of looking for work online a whole lot hairier.
Fortune’s Anne Fisher writes in her CNN column that, starting today, companies doing contract business with the government must adhere to new guidelines concerning how they keep track of job applicants. The rule is meant to make it easier for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to audit companies and make sure they are using non-discriminatory hiring policies. A similar rule for all US companies having over 50 employees will go into effect later this year.
However you slice it, the experts agree: this is going to make life more difficult for somebody; whether that somebody is an employer or a job seeker is still up for debate. Gary Crispin of CareerXRoads thinks that potential employees will have to be a lot more careful, since the bookkeeping required by the rule will encourage employers to keep candidate pools small and “random.” Each job could require its own resume, written to the exact specifications in the company’s listing. Crispin also warns that a resume even two weeks old could be axed from consideration, and urges job hunters to target websites of preferred employers early and often; firms who get a couple dozen qualified hopefuls from their own sites might not even bother throwing up a listing on Careerbuilder.
Peter Pollack at Ars Technica begs to differ with Crispin. He points out that keeping your resume relevant is simple common sense. He also writes that whittling down applicants is nothing new to human resources departments, and that the difference between getting called in and sitting by a silent phone has often been a matter of “luck or nitpicking.” He adds:
“It seems to me…that the real onus has been placed on employers, who will now need to make sure that the simple listing they decided to put up on an Internet job site is now compliant with federal regulations and auditing procedures.”
If Pollack’s right, maybe the bother this rule creates will lead to a wave of openings in HR. And that could be just what a lot of frustrated applicants want to hear.
