No Early Mornings Here! (milkround.com)

Member Name: aljones

Product:	milkround.com
Date:	26/07/01 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plenty of jobs on offer

Disadvantages: Very long registration process, Quite often can't used registered information to apply for jobs with, Very slow

Milkround.co.uk is a careers web site specifically for graduates, or students about to graduate. I used it with the hope of finding the perfect job, but was sadly disappointed. I did find the perfect job, which I start in September, but I found that through other means.

I heard about Milkround via a mouse mat in my University at Swansea. In fact, all the computers had them so you couldn't fail to notice them. So I signed up. This is the first part that lets the site down. It is horrendously complicated. Not only do you have to fill in all the regular details as you would when you sign up to just about any web site, but a whole load of other stuff to. Let me elaborate.

After completing your regular info, you have to fill in an on-line CV questionnaire. This takes forever, which is in part down to a very bad design, which makes navigation a nightmare. Its also quite slow. I was using it on our University network, which is generally incredibly fast, but this site was so slow!

After completing the CV thing, you then have to write a covering letter. And this then has to be 'tailored' for each job you apply for through their site. It's not until you have done all this that you can actually go and search for jobs.

Now the fun really begins. You either get nothing, or far to much. And to make matters worse, for some of the jobs that come up, you have to apply on their own web site or by post, and so can't use any of the information that you spent hours entering when you registered with Milkround! OK, for me it did find a lot of jobs, but my industry area (Computing) has got a severe shortage of staff, so virtually every company is looking for staff. But not one of the companies that I wanted to apply for actually used the information that I had provided to Milkround. So I felt a bit cheated.

And then came the e-mails! If you do sign up, make sure you register an e-mail address that you can access quickly. The
y will send you tons of e-mail, most of which is a waste of time. They say they will tell you when a vacancy that matches you arises, but I never got any, just the rubbish circular e-mails that they send to everybody.

So do I recommend this site? Well, what do you think. It won't do anyone any harm to register, but what you get out of it may not be what you expect. I have heard good reports about the site, so maybe I got a bit unlucky this time round. My advice is forget about on-line agencies, and just go to companies web sites directly and apply on-line with them directly. It may take a bit longer in the long run, but is well worth the effort and you may well have to go along this route if use Milkround anyway, so cut out the middle-man as they say!

Summary: