REPLYING to Job Posting with Questions

[Marc]

Over the years, a situation has come up several times (recurring defect) that I want to address. Those of you who are Moderators know this is a topic of discussion right now. I have decided to post this in the public forum and comment as I am because many of you are regular visitors and do not know what is taking place.

I checked around a bit and I have not been able to find a place where people are posting job openings (companies or recruiters) and then fielding questions about the job opening in a public forum such as this. I also know that recruiters and HR folks are used to 1 on 1 situations in a confidential scenario, whether it be email or telephone. A forum (discussion) type of scenario is possibly a good idea, depending upon one's overall view, but the bottom line is I think everyone knows the standard scenario is for someone to post a job opening and those who are interested contact that person directly by email or by telephone (or, these days, I guess text messaging might be a 'confidential' channel).

So - We know recruiters and Human Resource folks are quite a bit less interested in answering questions in a public forum environment than they are in a 1 on 1 communication. And I can fully understand why. If I was hiring someone I *might* be interested in discussing a few details in a forum environment, but I'm so forum oriented I have to be significantly biased. I can say I'd want to talk with the person on the telephone (or by Skype or other voice medium), at some time.

Anyway, as of 8 November 2007 when anyone posts a question to a posted job opening the post will be placed in a Moderation Queue. That means it will not show in the thread until a moderator has looked at it. We may, or may not, release the question to public viewing (and thus, if the job poster is comfortable answering, *might* reply to). When any job is posted, or when any reply is posted, the software will email me and I or Wes will attend to the New Thread or to any Reply within 24 hours, if not sooner. Please - DO NOT EXPECT YOUR REPLY TO BE APPROVED AND RELEASED. It may be, but as I have explained, your questions really should be between you and the person posting the job opening job posting threads will be CLOSED to Replies in the thread

That said, I HIGHLY encourage anyone who is if you are interested in a position that is posted, please contact the person who has posted the opening rather than to try to negotiate a position in posts in the forum. A simple telephone call will yield a heck of a lot more information in large part because every scenario if different. Maybe they say no relocation. It may be that through that phone call they are so impressed and want you so much that they offer you a relocation package. Maybe I call the same person for the same job and they tell me something else. It depends upon where in the conversation the issue came up and what had been discussed to that point, etc.

Part of this is a legal issue for a recruiter and Human Resources person as well. What ever is said here could come back to haunt them later in a lawsuit. I know that sounds a bit far fetched, but check the papers.