Finding a Job Using the Net to Succeed
A modern job search campaign is by nature fairly Byzantine. While the internet 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 highly personal, very directed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of contacts is your lead generating machine.
So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got 600 plus responses in a calendar week. For a single opening. That’s increased job hunting competition.
Had the right person contacted us before we ran the posting, they could have gotten the position before getting all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows someone at our office 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 how you submit your application as well. 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 speedy triage process. How? The same way any hiring manager would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our position description. By eliminating prospects whose cover letters gave us causes not to hire 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 job hunters who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the great news is that job sites give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. But once those positions 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 downside to be aware of is how easily you can be checked on on the net. 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 choose.
AA-Careers provides a broad 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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