Job Hunting Using the Net to Win
A modern job search campaign is by nature fairly 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 hunting needs to be thought of as a personalized, extremely aimed marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of associates is your source for job information.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on Craigslist and got 650 applications in a week. For a single position. That’s increased competition.
Had a strong person called us before we posted the ad, they could have secured the job before having all that competition. How? By finding someone at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware 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 sure to check your cover letter and resume carefully! 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 triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our job posting. By eliminating candidates whose cover letters gave us reasons not to hire them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating job hunters whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by rejecting 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 who is hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still try, if you have a well honed 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 quickly you can be checked on on the internet. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some MySpace comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing insane, but enough to rock our thinking about who to choose.
AA-Careers provides a extensive 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!
