Looking for a Job Using the Web to Your Advantage
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several possible challenges. It also adds many complexities, and a lot more things to think about…and be mindful of.
Job search needs to be thought of as a personalized, highly targeted marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of contacts is your inside source for information and job leads.
So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got 600 plus responses in a calendar week. For a single opening. That’s increased competition for jobs.
Had a great candidiate called us before we ran the ad, they could have landed the position before running in to all that competition. How? By knowing an employee at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware of the job for at least 11 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?
Be careful how you submit your application as well. When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily taken out with a quick triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By rejecting candidates whose cover letters gave us causes not to employ them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating prospects whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by eliminating prospects who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good news is that job boards give you a feel of who is hiring, and for what kinds of positions. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, if you have a well thought out resume, designed to appeal directly and clearly to the recruiter. And if you have practiced interviewing – so you don’t stumble at a critical point.
Another potential problem to be aware of is how quickly you can be investigated on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing crazy, but enough to swing our thoughts about who to employ.
AA-Careers provides a extensive set of services for Bay Area job seekers, providing our clients a personal career consultant, a managed job hunting campaign, modern tools like a personal website, video, highly targeted resume, and much more. Let us know if we can help you.
Be careful out there, and good hunting!
