January 7, 2010
Job Hunting Using the Net to Win
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several potential challenges. It also adds some complexities, and a lot more matters to consider…and be wary of.
Job hunting needs to be thought of as a personal, extremely directed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of colleagues is your lead generating machine.
So where does the internet fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job board and got hundreds and hundreds applications in a calendar week. For one position. That’s increased competition for jobs.
Had a strong candidate called us before we posted the ad, they could have gotten the job prior to having all that competition. How? By knowing someone at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew about of the job for at least 10 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 fast triage process. How? The same way any HR professional would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our position description. By eliminating 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 candidates 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 sense 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 honed 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 you can be checked on on the internet. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing illegal, but enough to swing 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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