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Looking for a Job Using the Web to Your Advantage

December 22nd, 2009

The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several possible challenges. It also adds some complexities, and a lot more things to think about…and be wary of.

Job search needs to be thought of as a personal, extremely aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of colleagues is your source for job information.

So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job board and got over 600 applications in a calendar week. For a single job. That’s increased competition for job openings.

Had a strong candidate gotten ahold of us before we ran the posting, they could have secured the job before getting 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 12 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 eliminated with a fast-paced triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our position description. By passing over prospects whose cover letters gave us reasons 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 prospects 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 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 thing to be aware of is how easily you can be looked up on the net. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some personal web pages that were in questionable taste. Nothing insane, but enough to rock our thoughts 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!

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