Job Search Using the Net to Your Advantage
A modern job search campaign is by nature very intricate. While the web has offered a variety of new channels, it also creates increased competition for choice jobs and potential challenges for job hunters.
Job hunting needs to be thought of as a personalized, extremely directed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of colleagues is your source for information.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got 600+ responses in a week. For a single position. That’s increased competition.
Had a great candidiate called us before we posted the ad, they could have landed the position prior to getting all that competition. How? By finding someone at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew 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 removed with a swift triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job posting. By rejecting prospects whose cover letters gave us reasons not to hire them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating job hunters whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by rejecting job hunters who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the great news is that job sites 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 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 potential problem to be aware of is how quickly and easily you can be looked up on the internet. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to tilt our thoughts about who to hire.
AA-Careers provides a comprehensive 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!