Job Hunting Using the Web to Succeed
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job hunter, but also presents several potential challenges. It also adds many complexities, and a lot more matters to consider…and be wary of.
Job search needs to be thought of as a highly personal, highly directed marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network is your source for information and opportunities.
So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job board and got over 600 responses in a calendar week. For a single position. That’s increased job hunting competition.
Had a strong person contacted us before we ran the ad, they could have landed the job before running in to all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows someone at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew about of the job for at least 9 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?
Be sure to check your application matierials carefully! When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily eliminated with a quick triage process. How? The same way any HR professional would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job posting. By eliminating candidates whose cover letters gave us grounds 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 sites give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. 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 and easily you can be checked out on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing insane, but enough to swing our thinking about who to choose.
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!
