Job Search Using the Net to Your Advantage
A modern job hunting campaign is by nature fairly intricate. While the web has offered a variety of new channels, it also creates increased competition for choice jobs and possible challenges for job hunters.
Job search needs to be thought of as a personal, extremely targeted marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of associates is your source for job information.
So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got 600 plus applications in a week. For a single job. That’s increased competition for job openings.
Had a strong candidate called us before we ran the ad, they could have secured the position before having 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 7 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 taken out with a fast-paced triage process. How? The same way any HR professional would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By passing over candidates whose cover letters gave us causes not to engage 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 passing over job hunters who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good 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 try, 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 you can be looked up on the web. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some personal web pages that were in questionable taste. Nothing crazy, but enough to rock our thinking about who to employ.
AA-Careers provides a encompassing 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!
