Looking for a Job Using the Web to Win
Sunday, January 10th, 2010A modern job search campaign is by nature pretty complex. While the net 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 personalized, highly targeted marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of associates is your source for information.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job board and got 600+ applications in a calendar week. For a single position. That’s increased job hunting competition.
Had a suitable candidate contacted us ahead of our posting that ad, they could have gotten the position prior to getting all that competition. How? By knowing someone at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew about 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 triage process. How? The same way any HR professional would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By eliminating candidates whose cover letters gave us reasons not to employ 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 passing over prospects who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good news is that job sites give you a feel of who is 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 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 and 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 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!
