Looking for a Job Using the Web to Your Advantage
The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several possible challenges. It also adds many complexities, and a lot more matters to think about…and be mindful of.
Job hunting needs to be thought of as a highly personal, extremely aimed marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network is your lead generating machine.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got 600+ applications in a calendar week. For one position. That’s increased competition.
Had a suitable candidate contacted us before we placed the ad, they could have landed the job before getting 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 13 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 quick triage process. How? The same way any hiring manager would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By rejecting prospects whose cover letters gave us grounds not to employ 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 candidates who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the great news is that job boards 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 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 and easily you can be checked on on the web. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some personal web pages that were in questionable taste. Nothing illegal, but enough to sway our thinking about who to hire.
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!