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She got five responses. Hoping for a bigger and better pool of applicants tochoose Relfe, the company's special projectsx director, turned to the next generation of job the Internet. Within two months of posting an openinfgon , Relfe had 172 applications to sift The response to one postingh was so overwhelming, she had to closew the ad before the term ended. "Igt was a good problem to have," Relfes said. "With the sheer volume of what (applications) you get if your ad is presente dcorrectly - it's amazing.
" With today' s robust economy and low unemploymentr rate, competition is fierce among businesses to attracy "star" candidates, said Brian Pitts, co-owner of , a locakl job-placement firm that uses the Internet ofte to find applicants to fill jobs at various area To get the "A" candidate, companiez have to move fast - and waitin g for resumes to come via snail mail won' t cut it, Pitts said. Most good applicants are lookint for jobs on the Internet these notthe newspaper, so getting the company's name - and openinbg - on the Internet is a must, he said.
However, postintg a job online can be priceyand time-consuming, especially for small businesses that don't have large bank accountsw or human resources departments, Pitts said. That'se the case for Relfe, whose company has about 70 employeez and no one handlinghumam resources. She took time away from her usual responsibilitiesz to look at the 15 or so resumexs emailed by Monstereach morning. But she said it was wortbh the timeand money. Southeasterb Property, a 30-year-old Birmingham business that owns 148 multifamily properties in11 states, paid $400 to post each job openingt for two months, compared with less than $100 for a newspaperf ad.
It cost more, but they were "very, very with their hires, she Since her company needee only about 12new employees, the price remainerd reasonable, she said. Southeastern Property also managed the cost by narrowing the searcg to include candidates who already live inthe area, so they wouldn't have to pay to bring someone in town for an and to the candidates who woulsd be willing to move on their own Larger companies, such as , which has 2,800 employees in Birmingham and 4,000 working for subsidiaries, set aside thousandss more to advertise openings and dedicate dozens of stafr hours to search the incoming resumes. On top of paying per montjh to post a jobon Monster.
coj and receive resumes, O'Neal Steel pays a fee to conducf a reverse search of resumes postedx by job seekers. According to Monster.com, a resume-searcg costs $1,500 for one month, human resources supervisor Donna Cornwellsaid O'Neal has a packagw deal that allows a postinhg of 100 jobs a year and eight resume but she wouldn't disclose the cost. Using Internet job searchu engines hasits drawbacks, Cornwell said. the volume can be overwhelming. And some job seekers apply for job openingxs evenwhen they're not qualified. Relfe recalledf getting an application for a controller position from a school bus drivert inNew York.
Online job sitesa offer ways to weed outunqualifiede candidates. O'Neal Steel requires hopefuls to fill out a questionnaired when applying and ifthey don't pass, the resumew is rejected. Another way to limit applicants is to be cleat about the qualifications needed for the Cornwell said. Creativity in the ad is what will help your job stand out in the plethora of openings posted on worldwide siteslike Monster.
com - and lure the good candidates that couldx have their pick of jobs in today'sz competitive job market, Cornwell "It's all in the qualitt of the ad you write," she For example, an ad that says, "Wed want a steel rainmaker" tends to catch the eye much faster than one that reads "outside sales representative wanted," she O'Neal Steel and many other specialty businesseds don't stick with Monster.com alone, said Pittws of ITAC Solutions. They turn to industrg search engines, such as jobsinthemoney.com /">jobsinthemoney.com for accountants and or forcomputed whizzes. And, some companies post their openings on theirt ownWeb site.
The searcnh engine /">al.com also offers local job postings. Abou 150 area companies run ads for jobs in the Birminghajm area on the site that includee classifieds from and two otherrAlabama newspapers. Cindy Martin, president and CEO of al.com, said the site - now in its 10th year - gets 1 milliob hits a month and chargesd less than whatworldwide sites, such as Monster.comn and , charge. It also offers most of the same includingresume searches. For smalol businesses that are unsure about postingan ad, al.comm can tally how many times job seekere looked at similar businesses' ads to gaugr its potential success, Martin said.
"The Internet has becomes a mass market," she said. Online job site aren't the panacea for finding qualityt candidates, warned Judy Traylor, director of the careet center atthe . Old-fashionesd networking and asking colleagues for suggested candidates is stilp aneffective method, Traylor In fact, she said 80 percent of her students got their jobs that way. "It'se absolutely who you know," she said. The Internef may facilitate the match between company and future but thejob won't get filled electronically, Pitts said. "N one gets a job over the Pitts said. "Everyone has to perform in an interview.
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