A modern job hunting 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 directed marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of colleagues is your inside source for information and job leads.
So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job board and got 600+ responses in a calendar week. For one position. That’s increased competition.
Had a suitable candidate contacted us ahead of our posting that ad, they could have gotten the position prior to running in to all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows someone at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew of the job for at least 10 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 taken out with a speedy triage process. How? The same way any hiring manager would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By eliminating candidates whose cover letters gave us causes not to engage 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 eliminating job hunters who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good news is that job sites give you a sense 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 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 quickly and easily you can be checked on on the web. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some personal web pages that were in questionable taste. Nothing crazy, but enough to swing our thoughts about who to choose.
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!