Small details can help job seekers and recruiters

It is sometimes the little details -- not just the large ones -- that help job candidates land a job, a U.S. employment firm said Thursday. In an online survey that included 5,518 job seekers and 2,775 hiring managers in the United States and Canada, employment firm CareerBuilder said job candidates need to be prepared for some of the quirks of the hiring process. For example, it helped for a job seeker to understand that hiring could involve a face-to-face talk with the company's top brass, as almost 40 percent of job candidates are interviewed by C-level executives, CareerBuilder found. Fitting in with a company's culture and keeping compensation demands in the correct range can help too, CareerBuilder said. Among the small details, CareerBuilder said "proper etiquette is required." Almost 60 percent of hiring managers indicated that a thank-you note went a long way for job candidates. A potentially large detail -- watch out for a trail of disappointing character traits employers can find on the Internet. Employers use Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp.com and other Web sites to learn about a job candidates online personality, the survey found. But that doesn't mean a job hunter should avoid social media entirely. "If you're not mobile, you're not truly accessible," CareerBuilder said, a hint to job recruiters having trouble filling positions and who are not taking advantage of the accelerating use of mobile devices by job seekers. The survey found 65 percent of job seekers indicated they would leave a company Web site if it was not user-friendly for mobile devices -- useful to know if your candidate pools seem a little thin. CareerBuilder said candidates were more likely than not to stop using the company's products after a job interview if the company did not inform those who did not get the job where they stood. Fifty-six percent of employers indicated they did not respond to all candidates or acknowledge receipt of their application, CareerBuilder found. In addition, 33 percent indicated they did not inform all interviewed candidates whether or not they got the job. CareerBuilder said the survey was concluded in July by Inavero and the results of the survey, it can be said with 95 percent certainty, include a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points.