As if job searching weren’t enough of a pain to begin with, it seems new wrinkles are added all too often. And they’re basically never designed to make your life as a job seeker easier. Companies seem to do their best to put distance between themselves and the great talent they say they need to hire.

This means that something already considered painful or unpleasant just got harder. You’re forced to stumble around trying to find the path to your desired goal–a new job that gets you to a better place in your life and career.

Who or What is Standing in Your Way?

Theoretically a lot of things could stand in the way of conducting a successful job search. However, one that keeps rearing its ugly head in one way or another is “service providers” that insert themselves into the recruitment process between the hiring company and you as the job candidate. It’s one more hoop for you to jump through, and sometimes there’s more than one such hoop.

I recently read a blog post by Nick Corcodillos (of Ask The Headhunter) that comes down hard on this aggravating situation, and I strongly urge you to read the entire post, which is too long to quote here in a meaningful way. You can find the post at “HR’s Submission to ZipRecruiter.”

What are some of the disturbing complications being introduced into the employment process by ZipRecruiter? According to Corcodillos and the job seekers who’ve been contacting him, these include:
 

• Making it easy for companies to post to more than 100 job boards with a single click. Hordes of applicants are likely to respond to the job board posting, potentially burying your submission in the avalanche.  Not exactly a warm, fuzzy feeling, is it?
• Streamlining the process for HR by eliminating the human-contact elements. This method seems designed to enable HR to whip through a “directory-type” candidate list and decide almost instantly whether or not they want to look at you a bit more. They don’t need to see resumes, application forms, emails, etc.–and forget about talking to them on the phone!
• Placing apparently illegal employment ads to help circumvent regulations governing certain hiring practices, such as placing a job posting that specifies “H1-B Only.” That would mean if you’re a natural-born US citizen, you’d be automatically excluded, and the company could hire a non-citizen who would work for a lower salary.

What Can You Do to Improve Your Job Search Odds?

It would almost seem as if you’re out of luck when faced with a behemoth like ZipRecruiter blocking the path of your job search. You’re told to “be prepared – be confident – be yourself – and get the job,” right? Possibly well-intended advice but vague on practical steps.

In the first place, it’s probably going to place more stress on you because you become frustrated at not being able to get through to employers, if you can even figure out who they are. Worse, it means you have fewer options than you used to for getting attention.

You’re most likely going to need to “work smarter AND harder” at finding a way to showcase your value to employers. An active plan to make connections with employers and identify opportunities early-on becomes more important now than ever.

Are you up for the challenge? You’ll need to be, if you hope to achieve your job search goal by tilting the odds in your favor. Scope-out the problem, determine the steps you need to take to “fix” it–and get started!