Looking for a Job Using the Internet to Win
A modern job hunting campaign is by nature pretty complicated. While the web has offered a variety of new channels, it also creates increased competition for choice jobs and potential challenges for job hunters.
Job search needs to be thought of as a personal, highly targeted marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of colleagues is your lead generating machine.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on Craigslist and got 600+ responses in a 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 having all that competition. How? By finding an employee 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 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 removed with a swift triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job posting. By passing over 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 job hunters 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 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 potential problem to be aware of is how quickly you can be checked on on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to rock 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!