A new concept in employment sites is cropping up in Canada and the USA that demands that job seekers pay fees to access the
job listings. At first glance I was appalled at the very idea of paying to search for jobs! While stewing on how angry I was at this concept, the simple elegance of it began to sink in.
http://www.HigherBracket.ca is a Canadian site that features thousands of career
opportunities that all pay at least $100,000 per annum. The touted benefits are that they have the most career opportunities in that bracket in Canada and that they raise the profile of your resume in the eyes of the
recruiter or HR Director by the very virtue of the application coming from them. I called a great friend of mine who works with one of the most prestigious retained search firms in the Canada to seek her approval of my negative feelings toward this concept and to my astonishment I was completely shut down by her! To add insult to injury, she stated that they use HigherBracket.ca on every six figure search they do, and they post the jobs there before advertising them anywhere else!
The simple elegance of the equation is thus: The more senior the position, the harder it is to advertise to targeted job seekers. My recruiter friend enlightened me to a truly scary fact that a VP Sales position advertised on workopolis in Toronto would garner over 3000 resumes! The majority of these resumes are garbage, and thus a huge waste of time for the recruiter. I guess this is why there are so few six figure jobs on workopolis. I guess it is just too easy to apply for jobs on the internet, there is no barrier stopping unqualified job seekers from spamming HR professionals. If you ask those same unqualified job seekers to pay 25 bucks to apply to the jobs there is no way they would do it! In essence, these sites are like private clubs for six figure earners.
I decided to try this site out to assess the validity of the claims made by my recruiter friend and the company. Once I was "in the club" by paying my 25 bucks the first thing that took me by surprise was how many job opportunities they have! They have over 5 times the number I could find on workopolis or monster. I was skeptical whether these jobs were real or not, but the response I got from the recruiters and HR professionals when I applied left me no question that they are real!
I applied to 7 jobs over a period of about 6 weeks, and I have landed a position in Calgary that pays $23,000 more than I was making at the job I am quitting. Needless to say, I am a convert.
In my jubilation I decided to call the company to thank them for their resource and to my utter shock Anthony Kaul the CEO called me back himself (albeit from an airport). It seems the concept although new is catching on well in Canada and the company is expanding its size to launch a fully bilingual version for the francophone market. I asked him what fields the site does best at, and he stated that; executive jobs, VP jobs, Director jobs in accounting finance, engineering, sales and operations make up about 50% of their content. At Anthony's suggestion I will keep my subscription running to keep my eye on the white hot market in Calgary and practice being a good "passive" job seeker.
Although it may take a minute or two to wrap your brain around the concept of paying for access to job ads, I have found it to be a great way to elevate my resume and get me my dream job.