Posting... an Old Term That Perfectly Fits Modern Online Technology
You bought a classified ad. Or you placed it. You didn't post it.
The idea of posting goes much further back in time... and it doesn't involve payment. Posting merely means putting your message where people can see it. Think of the posters at the theater. Toulouse-Lautrec's lithos for the Moulin Rouge. American colonists' freedom tracts on fence posts. Luther's paper nailed to the church door.
Internet employment site entrepreneurs needed a narrow and neutral word meaning merely "to put your message where people can see it"... a word that didn't specify whether or not you had to pay to do so. The venerable term post was dusted off to provide it.
Fast-Forward to Posting on an Internet Site
Most Internet sites make employers and recruiting firms pay to post their needs where potential employees can see them... just as if they were buying an ad in the paper. The same is true of flashing banners and-curse of curses-the "pop-up" ads that invade your screen.
But remember, publishing ads on the Internet costs the site's owners a small fraction of what it would cost to operate a newspaper.
Therefore, the Internet employment sites have been able to bring back a form of advertising that, although frequently tried in pre-Internet times, never succeeded commercially... ads placed by individuals looking for work. Called "positions wanted"-in contrast to "help wanted" - those ads had been around since the earliest days of newspaper classifieds. However, "positions wanted" never brought in the vast ad revenues that "help wanted" did.
Why?
Not because of any lack of job seekers willing to run such ads. The problem was economic. The newspapers had to charge enough to cover costs and make a profit. Employers could afford those rates. Employees could not. And, because few employees were advertising, employers didn't bother reading the "positions wanted" ads. A vicious circle of unaffordable cost and few employer eyeballs doomed "position wanted" newspaper ads.
But now, on the Internet where operating costs are miniscule, employee self advertising flourishes. The Internet sites can easily afford to run these ads- entire resumes posted free of charge-because the cost of doing so is virtually nil. And, because on almost every job site individuals pay nothing to post their resume, hundreds of millions are doing so all around the world. Now that vast numbers are posting, employers and recruiters are casting their eyeballs on the resumes conveniently available and indexed on the various Internet employment sites. Again there's a vicious circle. But now it's based on advertising by individuals.
Findability"... the Digital Advantage
Your resume zapped into a database-any database-often won't be as eye-catching as it is on paper (more about this later). You'll still want an impressive on-paper version to hand to an important decision-maker.
But as words in a computer-hopefully with a "profile" of sorting criteria and plenty of "keywords" included-your resume's digital version will be far more findable. When in a database and properly classified, it will come up without fail whenever the computer is asked for someone exactly like you. Through modem technology you can make yourself unforgettable and unoverlookable.
Does every employer with an open position that would be an ideal next step in your career know about you? Does every recruiter filling such an opening know about you?
Of course not. But you wish they did!
If your resume were posted where every one of these people would be sure to look... and if they did look... and if your resume were properly persuasive... then you could be sure your career would fulfill its finest destiny.
Sadly, there's no way to achieve that utopian dream. But through modem Internet technology you can edge closer to it. You can post your resume where many-though obviously not all-of the right people are likely to look for it.
In effect, you can use posting on the Internet as a substitute-and in certain circumstances even a superior substitute-for direct mail.
Posting might work with high-powered decision-makers.
As we all know about direct mail, you can't make a favorable impression on CEOs and other top decision-making officers by spamming your resume into their e-mail... even if you could get its address. That would be obnoxious and likely to backfire. The only proper way to reach out to those people is by a letter and resume as we discussed.
On the other hand, if you put yourself on record-conveniently indexed and downloadable-where they might voluntarily choose to browse, there's nothing impolite or too pushy about that. They could discover you and maybe even be amused to do themselves what their HR people and outside recruiters were failing to do. Unfortunately, not many top decision-makers will ever take this do-it-yourself approach to staffing (except, perhaps, CEOs of startups, who'll hand you pre-IPO stock). But a rare few sometimes will. Do you feel lucky?
