A modern job hunting campaign is by nature pretty involved. While the web 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 personal, highly directed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network is your source for job leads.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job site and got over 600 applications in a week. For one opening. That’s increased competition for job openings.
Had a strong candidate called us before we ran the ad, they could have secured the job prior to having all that competition. How? By finding an employee at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew of the job for at least 7 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 removed with a swift triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By rejecting prospects whose cover letters gave us grounds 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 job hunters who didn’t trouble 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 positions 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 potential problem to be aware of is how easily you can be checked on on the net. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing insane, but enough to swing our thinking about who to hire.
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!
