Job Search Using the Internet to Win
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job hunter, but also presents several possible challenges. It also adds several complexities, and a lot more things to consider…and be mindful of.
Job hunting needs to be thought of as a highly personal, extremely aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of contacts is your inside source for information and 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 650 applications in a calendar week. For a single position. That’s increased competition.
Had the right person gotten ahold of us before we ran the posting, they could have secured the position before 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 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 taken out 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 candidates 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 sense 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 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 crazy, but enough to swing our thinking about who to employ.
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!