ARC: Connections: ELMAR: Positions

Related ARContent: AMA Academic Placement

---

A Quick Summary

The mechanism by which jobs will be posted on ELMAR is going to change. Future ELMAR job Postings will be brief listings but each listing will include a URL pointing to the full Job Document. Departments will be able to change or delete the full Job Document at will.

The Reasons Behind the Change

The number of jobs posted on ELMAR has been steadily climbing since ELMAR’s creation by Peter Palij in 1994. During the 2008 calendar year there were 365 job-related postings making it the second largest category after tables of contents. My personal hope is that the ELMAR job service adds to market transparency, reduces search costs and generally contributes in some way to the efficiency of the labor market for our field. The growing numbers suggest that interpretation is plausible.

Job postings are one of the most time-consuming tasks of ELMAR moderation. Marketing departments are human organizations and as such they seem to make a lot of mistakes. I receive frequent and numerous requests to correct or modify postings, and even to correct the corrections. Confusion is often exacerbated by the fact that the ELMAR job posting task may be given to a secretary who has only a vague idea of what ELMAR is and how it functions.

Departments also want to update their documents, and to indicate that the job search is over. In other words, departments naturally wish to have control over their own documents. To summarize, the historical mechanism for job postings puts too much responsibility in my hands and not enough in the hands of the poster.

Different departments in the world face a variety of legal requirements for job notices. Given those requirements, it makes even more sense to minimize my involvement and to maximize employer control.

For these reasons and others, I need to shift to a procedure where ELMAR job postings will be minimal notices that point to a separate Job Document. The key content pertaining to the job will reside in that separate document under the posters’ control somewhere on the Web. If any poster does not have access to Web space, space will be provided.

Costs and Benefits

Employers – will now have to upload the Job Document to the Web, adding some time to the job advertising process. However employers will now have full control over their own Job Document, deciding at will if and when to change it.

Job Seekers – will have to make one additional click to read a Job Document. However seekers can be more confident that the Job Document will be fully up to date since employers have full control over it.

Full Instructions

A copy of these job posting instructions is maintained on the ARC under the "Connections: ELMAR" sub-menu item. The page is reproduced below:

An ELMAR job posting is a brief computer listing that will appear on ELMAR. This listing must include a URL pointing to the full job document.

 

1. The Job Document – Your job document must appear somewhere on the Web. If your department does not have access to any Web space, you can use the ELMAR "Files" tool (described below) to upload the document to ELMAR file space.
2. The ELMAR Posting – After the job document is on the Web, you fill out a brief online form that includes your contact email, and most importantly, the URL for the job document itself. This will generate the ELMAR posting and Community Update notice.

Details on each of these two components will now be provided:

1. The Job Document

The job document can contain anything you want it to contain or are required to include. It is the usual job description or advertisement that your department or institution would normally produce. You are responsible for its content. You can change it at any time. It can be in any format such as Word, PDF or video for that matter. You can take it down at any time. But it must exist and be reachable via a Web address at the time you create your ELMAR posting. If for some reason your department does not have the ability to store its own documents on the Web, you can use the ELMAR "Files" tool to upload it. The procedure for doing so is described next.

If your department does not have access to Web space, you can use the ELMAR "Files" facility to upload your job document. To do this –

• Go to the ELMAR Community (ama-academics.communityzero.com/elmar) and log in (for password help, email elmar@ama.org).
• Once logged in, click on the link for "Files" that appears in the left-hand navigation bar on all ELMAR community pages.
• Click the "Add" link that appears near the top of the page, on the horizontal grey navigation bar. On the Add page,
  • Choose the local file (job document) that you wish to upload.
  • Provide a name based on the name of your university.
  • Provide a brief description of the position.
  • Pick the Positions folder (Positions nnnn where nnnn is the year).
  • Click the Add button.
• On the page that comes up, note the URL, in white, at the bottom of the page. This URL will begin with http://ama-academics and end with a long number. This URL is the URL for your job document.

 

Note that you can return to the file at any time, and the "Edit" and "Delete" links will appear on the horizontal grey nav bar, allowing you to upload a new document, change the name and description, or even delete the entry.

 

2. The ELMAR Posting

To generate an ELMAR posting, go to

http://www.elmar-list.org/positions

and fill out the brief online form. This information will appear on the ELMAR posting. Interested job seekers will be able to click on the URL and go to your Job Document.

---