Rigorism

A modern job search campaign is by nature quite complicated. 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 personal, extremely targeted marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of contacts is your source for information and opportunities.

So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on Craigslist and got 600 plus applications in a week. For a single position. That’s increased job hunting competition.

Had the right person gotten ahold of us before we posted the ad, they could have gotten the job prior to having all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows an employee at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew about 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 how you submit your application as well. 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. By passing over prospects whose cover letters gave us grounds not to engage them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating prospects whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by eliminating 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 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 issue to be aware of is how quickly you can be checked on on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to sway our thoughts about who to choose.

AA-Careers provides a broad 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!

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