Why is the gcaptain jobs section so underutilized?

Why is the gcaptain jobs section so underutilized?

Companies do not appear to post many job listings on it. Why not? Is it too expensive? Why not offer it for free until it reaches critical mass?

Mariners do not appear to post their resumes on it. Why, because employers don’t use it?

Is this a chicken and egg kind of thing?

Given the overall quality and success of gcaptain, I don’t understand why the gcaptain jobs section is such a poor performer. It should be doing well.

I for one do not want to take the slightest chance my employer discovers I am job hunting

I mainly meant: Why aren’t employers posting the vacancies that they need to fill in the jobs section? Obviously, employers are making some use of the forums for recruiting.

I understand the point about some mariners wanting to keep it a secret that they are job hunting. On the other hand they do plenty of talking about job hunting in the forums. Didn’t gcaptain set up the resume section so that the people who post can keep their identities a secret? Anyway, I think most employers assume that most of their employees are always looking for greener pastures.

I believe it is ignorance on their part. The larger companies have an HR department filled with people who have never sailed before. The ones that have heard of it probably think its like Facebook for sailors. They think we post pictures of someone shitting in the captains coffee cup or drunken nights at the jiggly hut. I do not believe they realize the amount of networking or info sharing that goes on here. I’ll bet they also think they are slick by acting like they don’t know so they can spy on us. I don’t think they realize the reach of this site.

I’ve always thought that some of the smaller companies personnel guys get kickbacks from maritime headhunters.

[QUOTE=capjim;72276]I’ve always thought that some of the smaller companies personnel guys get kickbacks from maritime headhunters.[/QUOTE]

Hey Now! That’s a pretty good idea!! Work a bribe on the HR guys…damm that’s much better than my, looking around bars , meet the mariners, find out who they work for and buying a shit load of booze for the relief crew, hoping one won’t make it in on time… lol.

[QUOTE=tugsailor;72268]I mainly meant: Why aren’t employers posting the vacancies that they need to fill in the jobs section? Obviously, employers are making some use of the forums for recruiting.

I understand the point about some mariners wanting to keep it a secret that they are job hunting. On the other hand they do plenty of talking about job hunting in the forums. Didn’t gcaptain set up the resume section so that the people who post can keep their identities a secret? Anyway, I think most employers assume that most of their employees are always looking for greener pastures.[/QUOTE]

If you post a resume on a public forum, your present employer should not need a college degree to figure out who you are. All they have to do is look at the license, time in the biz, past experience etc. and even without names you can put 2 and 2 together. This is not so true with deck hands but with officers most employers spend a large amount of money on you. I know I have a brief case that weighs about 12 pounds because it is full of cards, certificates, and so on from all the classes, schools, and training sesions they have paid for. So when you tell them you are leaving they are out that money twice. Once because of you and one more time because they have to hire some one to take your place and go to the same training. So they do get mad, heck how many times has a girlfriend took it well when you tell them you found someone you like better. At the same time if you man up tell them what the problem is, and the reason you are not happy, either they fix it, try to meet you in the middle some where, or they really can’t say to much after that if you leave for greener pastures.

You make excellent points about why mariners need to be careful about what they post in online resumes.

Rigzone certainly seems to work for both employers and job hunters.

Primarily, I an wondering why employers do not use gcaptain in a similar way to how they use the career section of Rigzone. I think everyone would benefit if they did.

I’m not so sure that it is important whether mariners post resumes or not.

Most employers don’t want to read more than a one page resume, especially an online resume.

I agree that a typical “resume” posted in an online forum should not be too specific ---- probably be along the lines of, for example:

“USCG license — Master 1600 Oceans with DP. Currently employed, but open to new opportunities. Details upon request.” (there could be check boxes on the online form for all of this).

Then if an employer, or headhunter, is searching for a 1600 ton master or mate with DP (and probably using those search terms in the data base), and sees the posted “resume”; he could then reply with the name of the employer and a description of the job with an invitation to submit a detailed resume, if the mariner is interested in that job. If it turns out to be one’s own employer, just say no thanks or ignore it.

Also, if a lot of mariners kept their resumes posted all the time, then having a resume up would not necessarily mean that a guy was actively looking, but it would keep him in the loop.

Jiggly Hut!

[QUOTE=Jolly Tar;72315]Jiggly Hut![/QUOTE]

I am guessing a politically correct down the bayou term for strip club

Either that or Pizza hut and Hooters merged

Haha jiggly hut is surely the merger

I got my job at Pacific Drilling by an add on gCaptain, but if not here, it would have been somewhere else. You should use all resources, besides being a recent grad and asking C-Captain for advice.

[QUOTE=Fraqrat;72271]I believe it is ignorance on their part. … I’ll bet they also think they are slick by acting like they don’t know so they can spy on us.

I don’t think they realize the reach of this site.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely the best insight as to why and how the offices’ use and what they think of this site.

Pure ignorance. And the comment that the office thinks they have the ‘greenest pasture’ is pretty true. The office just can’t understand why someone would NOT like working for peanuts, on a moments notice, with little respect. I am happy the paycheck is DD every month.

Interesting thread, thanks Tugsailor for posting the question…

Do you think employers are afraid of the maritime industry turning into an ultra competitive job scene, like the oil and gas industry is on Rigzone, if they posted their open positions? Or, do you think HR/corporate recruiters just have no idea how many people actually visit gCaptain?

Good point about posting resumes online too…

The maritime scene is quite different from the oil and gas scene, like you say, it’s a lot easer to do-the-math and figure out who is who depending on their qualifications etc. Keeping it confidential is tough. I suppose employers in our industry just need to realize that recruiting takes effort and damn good job postings in order to be effective and doing a resume search is probably not the best option.

gCaptain reaches about 300,000 visitors every month from around the world. If someone posts a job on our site and it doesn’t get traction, well, it might be due to the fact the job posting needs to be re-written in a way that might motivate someone to apply to it.

I stand by my earlier statement I don’t believe they understand the reach of the site. The companies have their websites set up and believe all the info a prospective employee needs is there. I just don’t think the companies give social media that much thought. I mean if a company posted a job fair date on here I bet they would have a higher turn out than they ever expected. Most of us use this site via smartphone or tablet app. We still keep our Luddite shipmates up to date with info from here. Most of them eventually use a regular computer to peruse the site on their own. It’s a very handy site when people actually search through the old posts. By word of mouth it reaches more people than actually visit the site. Employers could definitely use it to their advantage.

HR folks have no idea what social media is. That’s true but the last time I went to ‘the office’ facebook was minimized on more than one screen.

So they get the value of rigzone and they understand how facebook ‘likes’ work. Right? What I can’t figure out is how they see gCapt’s facebook page has 10 times more ‘likes’ than rigzone and fail to realize that 2+2=4.

Or is it [U][I]my[/I][/U] math that’s screwed up?

Rob

I think the work boat HR people mostly have been able to meet their hiring goals by just taking whoever walks through the door. They have never had to try very hard.

Rigzone is for companies that are searching for the best talent they can find, and companies that cannot meet their hiring goals by just taking whoever walks through the door.

But conditions have changed. The work boat industry is now growing faster with bigger boats and new regulations and requirements like STCW and DP. Also, for the first time the drilling companies are now poaching the work boat companies’ top people.

I also suspect that gcaptain has not promoted its job posting service to companies very well.

As for posting resumes, I think a searchable form could easily be developed that would not identify mariners. If mariners are identified its because they are giving away too many personal details in the forums.

You’re right, we could definitely do a better job I suppose in approaching more companies, but when it comes to this sorta thing, you can only lead a horse to water…

The best spokespeople are the gCaptain followers.

You all work for the companies who are hiring, and you know the type of people who visit our site. If you know your company is hiring, do us a huge favor and talk to your recruiters and give them the scoop on gCaptain, or have them give me a call.

I don;t know what happened but there used to be a lot more jobs posted here before gcaptain changed thier format. Now, it seems pretty much the only employer posting is MSC. I’ve pretty much stopped even looking at the jobs section here.
I agree that companies probably don;t know how much traffic there is here but I also have a feeling they almost want to make it difficult for us when we are looking for work.
Why do they continue posting they are hiring when they are not? If they are, can;t they simply say that and then answer a couple of simple questions before someone spends a lot of time and money to come to thier office or even to fill out thier online application? All I really need to know is: are they hiring? for what position? schedule? when does it start? pay? can;t they post that information with their ad? It will save both the applicant AND the company a lot of time and aggrevation. I know they have other things to do but it seems to me, if they want to get and keep good employees, they should treat prospective employees with some respect, and yes, OUR time IS worth some consideration too!
Why do they all insist on using basically the same application form but they all want you to come in to thier office to fill it out? Forcing us to come and spend hours or days of wasted time doing the same paperwork over and over (most of the stuff we fill out they couldn;t care less about anyway). Why can;t they do the simple and easy thing and post the application ONCE online asking everything they ALL want to know and then each company could throw out the information they don;t want. So much simpler and easier for all involved!
Why do the companies that DO have online applications make the process so damn difficult??? Why do they insist on having us fill out pages of information that is already all on our resumes? Can’t they just have us upload our resume and read it off there? Or is it really all about seeing how much we want the job and how much of thier jumping through hoops we will put up with before we tire of the stupidity of it?
I think rigzone has a much better process for all involved. Upload your resume and when a company is interesed, you get contacted. They also have a listing of companies with direct links to thier job postings and online applications.

Rigzone does a great job. Its job section model is very worthy of emulation.

I don’t know what gcaptain’s business model or strategy is, but I have no doubt that a good job section could be grown into a very significant source of revenue.