Face to Face and Old School Employers

I love my Internet.  Its so useful in several different ways.  But there is one way that different companies have moved to in using the Internet that I actually really don't like.  In fact, I don't just dislike it, I absolutely loath it!

I recently found myself looking for employment as the job that I had went south after near three years of working there.  Here is my problem:  I rarely walked out of the house to look for work.  In fact I think ninety five percent of the time Ive been looking for other work Ive been sitting behind a computer screen filling out online application!

Its super annoying and super inconvenient.  I know what your thinking: "how can that be that much of an inconvenience to you? I mean your getting an obscene amount of applications out there!  You're getting your name out there"

But that's the problem.  Where I'm getting my name out there...I'm not getting my face out there.  Its frustrating and I really hate not giving the prospective employer a face to the name when I turn in a paper application.

Guess what?  So do most employers.  Many of them are old school employers who want to see a face turning in an application, not a computer screen with raw data.  Yes, that indeed tells them the hard data of what they need to know, granted, but it doesn't tell them anything about the person applying.

What this  boils down to is the human element. Online applications may be great for getting many of them out in the shortest amount of time, but at the same time for the old school employers, and many people who own businesses today who are not so much from that era, online applications leave a bitter taste in their mouth because of that lack of human contact that tells so much more than what raw data ever can.

This is why I find it so refreshing when I find a business or corporation or whatever, that still primarily uses paper applications.  Don't get me wrong, I understand exactly why many companies have gone the route of online employment applications.  Its very noble and admittedly it saves them a huge amount of money, and it really helps on paper waste besides, because they can simply print out the ones they find interesting.  I don't agree with using it.  But I think that many good people are passed over for a position because the employer looked at the raw data, but didn't look at the person behind it.

The raw data, in my opinion, is not as telling as seeing the personality of the person typing in the fields and hitting send.  I much prefer talking to the hiring manager in person as I'm turning in my application.  I want my first impression to be in person, not in pixels.