你的求職簡歷為什麼會石沉大海?（雙語）

(2011-11-23 13:12:03)

It"s hard to believe that people in a position to tell you yea or nay about a job are so insanely busy that they really don"t have 30 seconds to dash off an e-mail telling you whether you"ve got a shot at it or not -- and small comfort to reflect that, if they"re this rude to candidates, you wouldn"t want to work there anyway.

我們很難相信，人力資源部門的那些人真的就那麼忙，甚至都抽不出30秒鐘，給你發封電子郵件，告之你是否有戲。不過，退一步想，如果這些人對待求職者如此無禮，你肯定也不會想與他們共事。

But in defense of HR people, consider: They are overwhelmed. For one thing, at many companies, HR departments have suffered cutbacks right along with every other function: The average HR staff now numbers 9.2 employees, down from 13 in 2007, according to a recent poll by the Society for Human Resource Management. Any time headcount takes a 30% hit, you know the survivors are struggling.

不過，我也得為人力資源部說句話，他們也的確招架不住了。首先，在很多公司，與其他部門一樣，人力資源部裁員也很嚴重。人力資源管理協會（Society for Human Resource Management）最近的調查顯示， 2007年，人力資源部的平均僱員數是13人，而現在僅為9.2人。而一旦裁員達到30％，剩下的員工肯定是在苦苦掙扎。

Moreover, it"s not that HR folks are unsympathetic to your plight. Plenty of them know firsthand what it"s like to be unemployed for a painfully long time. SHRM did another survey, this time of HR professionals who"d been out of work (85% due to layoffs) in 2009, and found that of those who recently found a new job, 47% had been job hunting for six to 12 months, and another 27% had been looking for longer than a year. Among those who were still unemployed when SHRM conducted its poll, only 18% expected to find work within six months; 43% thought they"d have to search for a year or more.

而且，並非是人力資源部的職員不同情你的遭遇。他們很多人都嘗過很長一段時間沒有工作的滋味。人力資源管理協會進行了另一項調查，調查的對象是在2009年失業的人力資源部職員（其中85％是被裁員）。該調查發現，在新近找到工作的受訪者中，有47％的人用了6－12個月的時間，另外27％的人則花了一年多的時間，而在那些受訪時仍未找到工作的人中，只有18％的人預期將在6個月內找到工作，43％的人認為自己還得再花一年甚至更長的時間。

The really disheartening part: Among those hired in 2009 after a lengthy search, almost half (49%) said they liked their new jobs less than the ones they had lost. The survey didn"t ask why, but my guess would be overwork. HR departments are inundated with resumes, sometimes getting hundreds or even thousands for every available opening. Your carefully crafted resumes are buried somewhere in an ever-mounting pile, and HR staffers are hard-pressed to keep up, let alone give each candidate the kind of individual consideration that he or she deserves.

最令人沮喪的是：在那些花了很長時間，終於在2009年找到工作的人中，有近一半（49％）的人表示更喜歡之前的工作。這份調查並沒有問及原因，但我猜應該是勞累過度的原因。人力資源部堆滿了簡歷，可能應聘一個職位的簡歷就多達幾百甚至數千份。你精心撰寫的簡歷說不定就被埋在堆積如山的簡歷中。人力資源部的僱員們好不容易才能看完簡歷，還哪顧得上體諒每位應聘者的心情。

So how do you get around this? Vicki Barnett, head of a Denver career coaching firm called Make It Happen, says that, instead of sending resumes to HR, you should send them -- either on paper, electronically, or both -- to an executive at the company one or two levels above the hiring manager for the position you want. Granted, that person is likely to be extremely busy too, so he or she will delegate you to the person one or two steps down -- i.e. the one doing the actual hiring.

那麼，你應該如何應對這種情況呢？薇姿?巴奈特（Vicki Barnett）是一家位於丹佛的職業指導公司的負責人，該公司名為「夢想成真」（Make It Happen）。巴奈特表示，你不應該將簡歷發給人力資源部，而是應該把簡歷的電子版、紙質或是兩種版本同時發給公司中比負責你所應聘職位的招聘經理高一兩級的主管。當然了，這種人肯定非常繁忙，所以他/她會把你的簡歷轉給比自己低一兩級的人，也就是真正負責招聘的人。

"Resumes travel down the food chain more easily than up," Barnett says. If the boss forwards your resume, a hiring manager is likely to give it a more thorough read than the 10 seconds HR may spend on it. After you"ve sent your resume, wait a few days, then follow up with a phone call to find out who has it and ask if you can schedule a meeting.

巴奈特說：「簡歷通過這種自上而下的方式，會更容易到達招聘經理手中。」假如是老闆轉發的你的簡歷，那麼招聘經理在看簡歷時，肯定會比人力資源部的十秒掃過式仔細認真得多。發送簡歷之後幾天，你就可以打個電話問一下簡歷目前在誰手中，再問一下是否可以預約一次會面。

Obviously, there are still no guarantees you"ll get hired, but bypassing HR gives you one big advantage, Barnett says: "Hiring managers have their "wish lists," but HR doesn"t know what"s on them, because what hiring managers really hope to find is often a combination of ineffable qualities that can be hard to spell out on paper."

顯然，這並不能保證你會被錄取。但繞過人力資源部會給你帶來一個很大的優勢。巴奈特說道：「招聘經理都有自己的『願望清單』，但是人力資源部的僱員並不了解其想法，因為招聘經理真正希望在應聘者身上看到的，往往是一些只可意會、難以言傳的特質。」

HR people are usually just trying to match up keywords between your resume and the job description, Barnett adds -- and if you only have 12 out of the 15 keywords, you won"t make it past that hurdle. Hiring managers, on the other hand, can look at a resume and read between the lines: "Even if your keywords don"t match up precisely, you may have other experience or qualifications that would catch their eye."

人力資源部的職員通常做的，不過是試著把你簡歷上和職位描述中的關鍵詞一一對應。巴奈特還說，如果職位描述中有15個關鍵詞，而你的簡歷里只有其中12個，你很可能就過不了簡歷關。然而，招聘經理卻能看到簡歷中暗含的信息，巴奈特說道：「就算你簡歷中的關鍵詞與職位描述不完全吻合，你其它的經驗和資質也可能會引起他們的注意。」

Here"s hoping.

但願如此。
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