How to Avoid Useless Job Listings      

How many times have you applied for a job with all the enthusiasm you could 
muster because you were SURE your skills were perfect for it, only to never 
hear from anyone?

You tried calling the recruiter, but only got their voice mail. You tried 
emailing them with a "Read Response" attached, but it was never validated. 
You even went to the recruiter's website to apply directly through their own 
system in hopes it would somehow get more attention, but in the end, it was 
all for naught.

There are a lot of reasons why you might never get a response from a recruiter 
or employer. It may be that the sheer number of applicants that respond make 
it virtually impossible to send an acknowledgement. It might also be that the 
job is just old. Some jobs have been sitting out on job boards so long that 
veteran job hunters can recognize them immediately and know not to even bother 
applying. Even still, there's always that chance, that hope that they are still 
looking; so you apply again anyway right?

So how does one go about applying for "the right jobs?" First of all, I will 
acknowledge that when you are out of work, there are no "wrong jobs," just 
maybe jobs that your skills don't quite fit. Even so, a lot of job leads that 
appear on today's job boards are misleading at best, and sometimes they are 
just flat out nonexistent. But how can you tell?

There are many telltale signs associated with some of these job leads. Let's 
look at a few of them.

   1. The job has a date affixed to it from the weekend - Now while this may 
not be a sure sign of a bogus job, it is almost without question, NOT a new 
job. Very few recruiters work on the weekend, unless they are really HUNGRY 
and behind schedule. However, in this economy, that wouldn't appear to be an 
issue. So, if you see a job with a Saturday date, you can probably skip it, 
knowing that you've already covered it sometime in the past.

   2. The job board that you found the job on, has a link to another job 
board - While this isn't always indicative of a defunct job listing (because 
of the many "mega-search engines" available), it does tell you that the first 
job board has no exclusivity to the job. It also means that the original 
recruiter has pasted the job everywhere, thus narrowing your chances. Many 
times you will find what appears to be a job posting with a recent date, only 
to be redirected to another site that tells you the job no longer exists. A 
sure sign of a dead end.

   3. The job posting redirects you to one of the many "Consulting" websites - 
This is my new personal favorite "trick" being used by many job sites. With 
all of the layoffs, many people are turning to consulting or freelancing in 
hopes of bypassing the job boards and recruiters and going straight to the 
client needing work done. Because of this consulting boon, many new consulting 
boards have popped up, seemingly overnight. The only problem is they all want 
you to pay for the privilege of being able to "connect" to the projects and 
RFP's (Request for Proposals). So when you see what appears to be a great job,
 only to be directed to one of these consulting sites, be wary. There is no 
sense paying for access to the site, when you can't be sure the job really 
exists. Not to mention the fact that if you were paying to be able to view 
the projects, and they were still being offered publicly, that's a little 
shady.

   4. The job listing gives very few details - As anyone in the job market 
knows, today's employers want specific skills. You can't get by with a resume 
giving generic information about your background. They want to know what 
you've done, who you did it for, how you did it, what tools you did it with, 
and what was the final dollar number outcome. See - specifics. Therefore, jobs 
with requirements that are too generic or detail-lacking to be informative, 
you can pretty much bet it's nothing more than a resume-gathering tool for a 
recruiter or a new start up job board. Don't waste your time.

   5. Jobs that redirect you to a training company's website - This is also a 
growing trend. Many companies have come into existence whose sole purpose is 
to train you for a job in a particular industry. The more honest companies do 
put in the job listing that they are offering training. Others place legitimate 
looking job listings only to redirect you to their training site, or they will 
send you an e-mail about their training company only after you have spent time 
applying for the job. They typically make promises about guaranteed job 
training and tell you how great they are. But in the end, you still have to 
pay for the training. Most every college and university offers job placement 
upon graduation. The only difference is, you leave with a degree versus a 
"certificate of training" from a company that may or may not be well respected.

   6. You find the same job listed by several recruiters - This sort of falls 
under heading 3 above, but it is a little different. Many times you will see 
the same job, listed multiple times, by multiple recruiters. What does this 
tell you? It tells you that the employer sent a fax (or e-mail) to as many recruiters as they had in their database telling them to submit candidates. 
While the good news is that you have many different recruiters evaluating 
resumes from all sorts of places, the bad news is that now instead of being 
in competition with only a few hundred other candidates, you are now in 
competition with possibly thousands. But on the bright side, someone always 
wins the Lottery too. So hey, feel free to apply.

Keep in mind that not every job that falls into one of these categories is 
going to be a false lead. Who knows, maybe they are worth checking into. Just 
don't get your hopes up and then be crestfallen when nothing comes of it. 
There are enough job listings on the job boards placed by direct employers 
and recruiters with exclusivity to keep most of us pointing and clicking for 
an hour or two a day.

Be smart, use your head and stick to your qualifications and you will not only 
save time, but you won't pin your hopes on as many leads that may never pay off.

Good Luck!

-Chris Souther
Corporate Writer and Trainer in the Atlanta area.
Author of the free E-book on Job hunting at: http://learn.to/getajobonline