The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several possible challenges. It also adds great complexities, and a lot more things to think about…and be careful of.
Job search needs to be thought of as a highly personal, very directed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network is your lead generating machine.
So where does the internet fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got over 650 responses in a week. For one job. That’s increased competition for jobs.
Had a suitable candidate contacted us ahead of our posting that ad, they could have landed the job before having all that competition. How? By finding an employee at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew of the job for at least 9 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 eliminated with a fast-paced triage process. How? The same way any hiring manager would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our position description. By eliminating prospects whose cover letters gave us grounds not to hire 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 eliminating candidates who didn’t trouble 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 positions are posted, the competition is intense. You can still try, if you have a well written 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 thing to be aware of is how easily you can be looked up on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing illegal, but enough to tilt our thinking about who to choose.
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!