你的求職簡歷爲什麼會石沉大海?大綱

Dear Annie: What is going on in HR departments at big companies these days? The last time I looked for a job, which admittedly was quite a while ago, if you submitted a resume and cover letter to HR, you at least got some kind of response (even if it was a form letter saying "no thanks").

That seems to have changed. I've been looking for work for almost a year now, since I lost my job as a brand manager at a mid-sized company, and it is incredibly frustrating. I've sent dozens of carefully crafted resumes to HR people, usually in response to specific ads on job boards or company websites, and it's like sending things into a black hole. I just hear nothing.

Are your other readers having this experience? How can I get these gatekeepers to respond to me, or if that's asking too much, how do I get past them? -- Just Joan

親愛的安妮:

大公司的人力資源部最近都怎麼了？我承認，我上一次找工作已經是很久以前的事情了，但那會兒，只要你向人力資源部提交簡歷和求職信，總能得到回覆（哪怕只是一封羣發的拒信）。

現在情況似乎有些變化。我曾在一家中型公司擔任品牌經理，自失業以來，我已經找了差不多一年的工作，一直很不順利。通常，我是在招聘網站或公司網站上看到具體的招聘廣告，然後我會非常認真地準備好簡歷，發給公司的人力資源部。就這樣我投了幾十封求職信，結果卻石沉大海，杳無音信。

其他讀者是否也有遇到這種情況？我怎樣才能得到人力資源部的回覆呢？如果這個要求都太過分的話，我如何才能越過他們找到工作呢？——瓊

Dear J.J.: No doubt about it, what you're experiencing is awful. What's even worse (and, alas, quite common) is to have gotten as far as the interview stage, and had one meeting or even several that went swimmingly, so that your hopes are as high as can be, and then to ing.

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.

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.

親愛的瓊：

你的經歷的確糟糕，但更糟的是，你可能都到了面試的階段，也已經參加了一次甚至幾次面試，一切都非常順利，你的期望也非常高，結果……卻沒有消息了（事實上，這種情況也並不少見）。

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。

不過，我也得爲人力資源部說句話，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，而現在僅爲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.

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.

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.

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％的人認爲自己還得再花一年甚至更長的時間。

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纔能看完簡歷，還哪顧得上體諒每位應聘者的心情。

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，該公司名爲“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.

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."

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."

Here's hoping.

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。

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瞭解其想法，因爲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。”

人力資源部的職員通常做的，不過是試着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，而你的簡歷裏只有其中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。”

但願如此。