Job Search Using the Web to Succeed
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 personal, very aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of associates is your source for job leads.
So where does the internet fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job site and got over 600 applications in a calendar week. For a single opening. That’s increased competition for jobs.
Had a great candidiate gotten ahold of us before we ran the ad, they could have secured the position before getting all that competition. How? By knowing an employee at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware of the job for at least 8 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 eliminated with a speedy triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By eliminating 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 rejecting prospects 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 jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, 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 easily you can be checked out on the internet. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing crazy, but enough to tilt our thoughts about who to employ.
AA-Careers provides a all-inclusive 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!
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