Employers and employees are matched by a job placement consultant. He or she accomplishes this task by posting advertisements for applicants, then reading their applications and scheduling interviews with those who appear qualified. The first interview may be conducted over the phone. Following that, the job placement consultant narrows the pool of candidates even more. Job placement consultants, who usually work for a for-profit employment agency or a government-funded program, may conduct in-person interviews with a small number of applicants for a specific position in order to select the best candidate.
Consultants may post job openings on job boards on the Internet or in classified sections of newspapers. Job placement consultants must write the ad to attract qualified applicants so that they don’t waste time sorting through applications that aren’t a good fit for the positions. The consultants receive information about the position, as well as the required education and experience, from their employer client, which they use to create the ad. To save time, the consultants may check the job applications themselves, or an assistant may pre-screen them by reading through resumes.
The consultant typically prepares a list of questions before contacting applicants who appear to be a good match for what a particular employer requires for a specific position. During a telephone interview, he or she will typically ask all of the applicants the same questions in order to compare their responses and weed out anyone who no longer appears to be a good fit for the position. To save time, a job placement consultant may send the interview questions via email, but he or she will almost certainly conduct a phone interview with each short-listed candidate.
Most job placement consultants will not schedule an in-person interview with applicants unless they are confident that the candidates who responded to the advertisement are a good fit. Applicants may be suitable for more than one employer’s request to fill a position, according to a job placement consultant. If this is the case, the consultant may conduct in-person interviews with these candidates for multiple jobs at the same time. One of the most fundamental responsibilities of an employment placement consultant is to maintain a database of qualified and experienced candidates. This way, before posting a job ad for the position, he or she can check the database for a possible employer-employee match.