714Looking for a Job Using the Web to Win
posted on January 6th, 2010
A modern job hunting campaign is by nature quite involved. 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 hunting needs to be thought of as a personalized, extremely 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 net fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on a popular job site and got hundreds and hundreds applications in a week. For a single job. That’s increased competition for jobs.
Had a strong person gotten ahold of us before we placed the ad, they could have secured the position before running in to all that competition. How? By finding someone at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew 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 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 quick triage process. How? The same way any hiring manager would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By rejecting candidates whose cover letters gave us causes not to employ 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 passing over prospects who didn’t bother 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 positions. But once those positions 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 potential problem to be aware of is how quickly and easily you can be investigated on the net. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, 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!
