Looking for a Job Using the Web to Your Advantage
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job hunter, but also presents several potential challenges. It also adds great complexities, and a lot more things to consider…and be mindful of.
Job hunting needs to be thought of as a highly personal, extremely directed marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of contacts is your source for information and opportunities.
So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got over 600 responses in a calendar week. For one job. That’s increased competition for job openings.
Had the right person gotten ahold of us ahead of our posting that ad, they could have landed the position before having all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows an employee at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew 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 careful to check your application materials thoroughly before submitting them. 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 fast triage process. How? The same way any hiring manager would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By eliminating prospects whose cover letters gave us causes not to engage 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 passing over job hunters who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the great news is that job sites give you a sense 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 issue to be aware of is how easily you can be investigated on the web. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to sway our thoughts about who to choose.
AA-Careers provides a broad 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!
