Mon 28 Dec 2009
A modern job hunting campaign is by nature very Byzantine. While the net has offered a variety of new channels, it also creates increased competition for choice jobs and possible challenges for job hunters.
Job search needs to be thought of as a personalized, very 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 internet fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job site and got 650 applications in a calendar week. For one opening. That’s increased job hunting competition.
Had a strong person called us before we placed the ad, they could have gotten the job prior to getting all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows someone at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew about of the job for at least 11 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?
Be sure to check your application matierials 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 quick triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By passing over prospects 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 rejecting candidates who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good news is that job boards 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 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 and easily you can be looked up on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some MySpace comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing crazy, but enough to sway our thinking about who to hire.
AA-Careers provides a encompassing 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!
