Finding a Job Using the Web to Your Advantage
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several potential challenges. It also adds great complexities, and a lot more things to consider…and be careful of.
Job search needs to be thought of as a personal, highly targeted marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of associates is your source for information.
So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on a popular job board and got hundreds and hundreds applications in a week. For one job. That’s increased competition for job openings.
Had a strong person contacted us before we ran the posting, they could have secured the position prior to getting all that competition. How? By knowing an employee at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew about of the job for at least 14 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?
Be sure to check your cover letter and resume carefully! When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily removed with a quick triage process. How? The same way any hiring manager would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By passing over 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 candidates whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by passing over candidates who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good news is that job boards give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. But once those positions are posted, the competition is intense. You can still try, if you have a well written 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 downside to be aware of is how quickly and easily 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 larcenous, but enough to tilt our thoughts 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!
