by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
We frequently hear from job-seekers who are frustrated with job-hunting on the Internet. (See our article Are the Major Job Boards All They're Cracked Up to Be? Observers and Users Speak Out). They have posted their resume on the major job boards or searched for and responded to job postings -- but have heard nothing back from employers.
Let's face it -- the sheer volume of resumes and job postings on the major job boards like Monster.com (about 35,000 resumes a day for Monster) make it hard for the individual job-seeker to get an employer's attention. When the Internet began to be widely used in the mid-1990s, it seemed as though it would be a magic bullet for job-hunting. And, while the Internet makes many aspects of job-hunting a lot easier than they used to be, it also means that employers are being inundated with responses to their job postings. A single job ad can attract thousands of applicants. Add to the mix a souring economy, and you have a lot of job-seekers who are fed up with Internet job-hunting. The aim of this article is to help you get the most out of job-searching on the 'Net and to make you aware of Internet job-search techniques you may not have known about.
* Try one-stop shopping. If you want to leave no stone unturned and use as many online job boards as possible, you can save a lot of time by going to a site with links to large numbers of job boards. Naturally, we recommend Quintessential Careers with links to almost 900 job sites. Most of these sites boast both job postings and the opportunity to post your resume. Well-known career columnist Joyce Lain Kennedy recommends another one-stop site, the AIRS Job Boards Directory, a directory to more than 3,000 online job boards. Quintessential Careers provides a description of each job board it links to. AIRS offers a handy chart describing the main features of its links -- and here we offer a big caution. AIRS is primarily directed at employers and recruiters, so when the AIRS chart says that you have to pay to use one of the listed sites, they mean that employers have to pay to have their job postings listed; job-seekers do not necessarily have to pay. One of our readers described a good response after using another one-stop site, WorkTree.com (registration required). If you would like a print resource to help you navigate your way through the job boards, the CareerXroads 2002 Directory to Job, Resume, and Career Management Sites on the Web provides reviews of 2,500 sites. Go to the CareerXroads site for more information.
* Take advantage of the extra features of the major job boards. Many job boards, for example have a "search agent" feature that enables you to enter your job criteria and have lists of jobs (or links to lists of jobs) e-mailed to you regularly. Our readers' and our own experience with these agents have yielded mixed reviews. One reader said that the agents that work best use Boolean search terms. Named after British mathematician George Boole, Boolean refers to the logical relationship among search terms, a relationship usually characterized by the words AND, OR, and NOT. In Boolean searching, an "and" operator between two words or other values (for example, "pear AND apple") means one is searching for documents containing both of the words or values, , not just one of them. An "or" operator between two words or other values (for example, "pear OR apple") means one is searching for documents containing either of the words. Similarly, Kim Komando, writer for the Arizona Republic, recommends a Windows-based software research tool, BullsEye, that can search the job boards for the kind of job you want. Portions of the proceeds from purchases of BullsEye before Dec. 31, 2001, are going toward Sept. 11 relief efforts.
* Consider the niche boards. Monster.com announced this year that it had acquired its 11 millionth resume. As Kennedy notes, "That kind of heavy volume is onereason why recruiters and job seekers are turning their attention to specialty boutiques rather than big-box marketplaces." These "specialty boutiques" are the online job boards that cater to one particular occupation, industry, or type of job-seeker (such as new college grads, MBA grads, minority candidates, or freelancers). You can access lots of these niche boards though this section of Quintessential Careers. Another excellent source of niche job listings is professional organizations. Not only do they often have job ads for your specific field, but professional organizations were ranked as the No. 1 networking venue in the survey I did for my book, A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market. Access many professional organizations through this section of Quintessential Careers.
* Think local. A recent survey showed that 28 percent of Internet job-seekers are willing to look at job listings that require relocation -- but 48 percent aren't. If you want to stay put and still obtain a new job, it makes sense to use geographically specific job boards. It also makes sense to use them if you do want to relocate because you can find openings in the city you plan to move to. Link to geographically specific job boards through this section of Quintessential Careers.
* Go retro. A few years ago, when I instructed my students to submit a want ad with their cover-letter assignment, almost all the ads submitted were from newspapers. By 2000, students submitted barely one newspaper want ad with the assignment. Virtually all the submitted ads were from the Internet. While newspaper want ads might be considered an old-fashioned venue for job-hunting, they are actually every bit as current as the Internet because most major newspapers carry their want ads online. Searching online want ads from newspapers is another variation on sticking with local sources for your Internet job search. Access many newspaper want ad sections through this section of Quintessential Careers.
* Go straight to the source. A number of experts recommend the career sections of company Web sites as a better choice than the big job boards because job postings are more likely to be current, the job-seeker can obtain specific instructions for how to apply online, and the overall company Web site provides a feel for the company's culture. Experts say the best way to approach a job search is to research and target the companies you most want to work for. Visiting company career sites is a great way to do so. Applying through a company job site lets the employer know that you were interested enough in the company to come to its Web site. Quoted in an article by Josh Kovner in the Hartford Courant, Michael Dunne of Banker's Life and Casualty said that direct applicants to his company's Web site "are the hungriest; they've sought us out. When we talk to them, they are definitely interested in the job." In a recent search to hire 10 salespeople, Dunne hired all six of those who had applied directly to his company's site, but only four out of 100 that had applied through Monster.com. A recruiter quoted by Stephanie Armour in USA Today went as far as to say that many employers don't want job-board candidates because "they think they're too lazy to do a real job search."
It's not just the big companies that have Web pages and career centers; many smaller companies do, too. Some of our readers have said that they are more likely to have their resume submissions at least acknowledged by employers when applying directly through the company's site than when they apply through the major job boards. For one-stop shopping at nearly 500 company career sites, visit The Quintessential Directory of Company Career Centers.
* Don't submit your resume indiscriminately. Adding to the overwhelming volume of resumes employers receive online is a plethora of resumes sent for jobs the job-seeker is not remotely qualified for. If you think you're covering all bases by responding to zillions of job postings, think again. You do yourself no favors by adding to the clutter that employers must weed through. Managing the information glut that results from the bombardment of resumes is a major headache for employers. Some job-seekers think that even if they're not qualified, the employer will realize how much they have to offer and match them up with other company job openings. Given the sheer volume of resumes and the speed of the screening process, the chances of such a match occurring are beyond remote, so don't waste the employer's time or your own.
Be sure also to pay close attention to employers'/recruiters' instructions for submitting your resume in response to their ads. Do they want you to send it via e-mail as a Word attachment? Via e-mail with your resume in text form in the body of the e-mail? Faxed? Mailed? Make sure you know how to do what the employer is asking. If you frequently send your resume as an e-mail attachment, experiment with sending it to several friends' computers to make sure it looks consistent and nicely formatted. Many employers ask you to include a position code so they can easily identify the job you're applying for. And be sure your resume contains those all-important keywords that will get your resume noticed.
* Publish your resume on your own Web page. Posting your own resume -- your way -- out there in cyberspace can be a terrific supplement to posting your resume -- their way -- on major and niche job boards. Since many employers now require resumes to be submitted in an unattractive and unadorned text/scannable format, publishing your resume on the Web gives employers 24/7 access to a more graphically pleasing version of your resume. Learn how to publish your resume on the Web here.
Rebecca M. Smith, author and guru of the eResumes & Resources Web site, points out that while many recruiters rely on the searchable databases they subscribe to, such as Monster.com or databases within their own companies, they "still also surf the Web for [Web-based] resumes." Smith notes that Web-based resumes can be tools for job-seekers to showcase successful projects. Go here for an excellent example of a Web-based portfolio. Note that the page's author, Alex Bischoff, offers employers the opportunity to download his resume in four formats: PDF (Portable Document Format), MS Word, HTML, and ASCII text.
Of course, if you want to publish your Web-based resume, you need to have Web space in which to publish it. Check with your Internet Service Provider. Many providers offer users space on their Web-servers. A number of portal sites on the Internet, such as Yahoo! Geocities, will host Web pages. For a search engine that enables you to find Web sites with free Web space hosting, go to FreeWebspace.Net. Once you've found a host for your Web page and resume, a key technique for getting employers to notice it is registering it with search engines. Read our article Resume Found: Keys to Successful Search Engine Registration.
* One other resume option is to use a resume distribution -- a resume "blasting" -- service. These services typically send your resume to a select group of recruiters and/or employers. Rather than the passive posting or publishing of your resume, these services specialize in sending your resume to recruiters and employers who subscribe to their services. You can get more information by checking out this section of Quintessential Careers.
* Don't spend all your job-hunting time in cyberspace. Integrate your Internet job search into a comprehensive job-search campaign that devotes plenty of time to traditional job-hunting techniques, such as cold-calling , developing a great resume and especially, networking. When quantifying the number of people who actually obtain their jobs through the Internet, one survey has placed the number as high as 20 percent, but most surveys say the number is between 4 and 6 percent, except for fields such as information technology, where the numbers are much higher. Almost half of job-seekers still get their jobs through networking (see chart), and one survey by the workplace consulting firm Drake Beam Morin indicated that 61 percent of executives found their positions through networking.
About five years ago, the conventional wisdom was that you should spend about 25 percent of your job-hunting time on Internet job-searching, and the rest on more conventional methods. Today, however, using the Internet, whether for job-searching or a myriad of other uses, is a valuable skill in itself, so Internet job-hunting need not be subject to arbitrary time limits. "Communicating online, including the ability to apply for jobs online, is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception as the Internet grows as a mainstay of business today," says Rebecca Smith. "In other words, the Internet is not just a job search tool, but a business communications tool. And to say that a job seeker should only spend 1/4 of his/her time on the Internet for job-seeking purposes is not realistic." Still, job-seekers should integrate the 'Net sensibly into their job-search campaigns. We've heard from job-seekers who spend eight or more hours a day sitting at their computers. Internet job-hunting can be effective, but you've also got to get out there and actually talk to people.
* Finally, don't hesitate to use the Internet for all the ancillary functions that enhance your job search, such as career assessment, company research, relocation, salary negotiation, and networking. For an easy tour of these functions, check out our tutorial about Jobhunting on the Internet.
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