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PUBLICATION
| Title: | Job Searching on the Internet |
| Source: | Chicago Hospital News |
| Publish Date: | 04/01/2006 |
| Author: | Craig Eberts |
There is a vast amount of information that is available on the Internet. You can buy tickets, locate old friends, get medical information, buy and sell anything, weather any where in the world, live sports results, and recently, instructions for cooking lobsters (instructions were not in the box, and the lobsters were getting anxious). For researching information use the Internet, there is no better source.
Unfortunately the majority of people in job transition think that the Internet is the best source for finding their next job, only to find that it can be one of the worst.
It looks easy; there are thousands of job boards and web sites, not to mention the individual company sites. All containing numerous jobs that appear to be a perfect fit. They send in a great resume, a focused cover letter, met the qualifications, yet nothing. Why? Why doesn’t the phone ring off the hook? Consider the odds of being noticed.
Job Boards
The book The Weddle’s Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet indicates that there are currently over 40,000 different web site job boards. Monster and Careerbuilder, the two largest, each report receiving over 1.5 million individual hits daily and have over 41,000,000 resumes in their databases.
Odds of success
A single job posting can receive hundreds of resume responses daily. That is a lot of competition. How is your resume even going to get noticed? You’re dealing with lottery size odds, and an exceptionally poor rate of return for your time.
Job searching is all about making effective personal contacts. To do this you need to manage your time and set an effective daily agenda. Would you spend 50% or more of your time on something that yields less than 10% success? That is the Internet trap. Yet it can be effective if managed well.
Great for research
The Internet is the best source for research. Sites like Hoovers, Google, Yahoo, ReferenceUSA, and Invita, have exceptional information for learning about companies and people. Want to know something about the person who will be interviewing you? Try putting their names into the search engines like Google and Yahoo. Invita and advanced Hoovers require a paid subscription, but are typically free at most libraries.
Manage your time wisely
Don’t waste valuable business hours on the Internet. If it has a 10% success rate, spend 10% of your time, not 70%. Those 15 minutes you were going to check e-mails can often turn into 4 hours of "lost" time. Let it work for you at night, it is always open. Set up search engines. Allocate your Internet time to searching in the evenings when you can’t be calling network contacts and going to meetings.
Check it quickly in the morning, set a timer so you don’t get trapped and find you have just spent hours surfing. When it rings, move on to a more productive process.
Success
Remember to use your time based on the long proven percent of success. The success of people finding their next job by sending in resume information on the Internet is only 8-15% based on your industry. Higher successes tend to be in the technical, IT and administrative areas. Success can be exceptionally low for senior level positions, such as Directors, Senior Managers, VP’s, and C level positions. These jobs are typically filled by direct referrals or executive search firms.
Post resumes cautiously
If you feel a need to post your resume, be cautious and choose sites that are focused on your career direction and industry. Weddle’s lists their top 350 sites, and their top 30 elite sites. Industry profile information is provided for each site. Each job board does have areas where they specialize.
Once posted, you are now public. Be aware that you may start receiving unwanted calls and emails. Insurance companies, and bogus companies looking for personal information are just a few that will start to contact you. You’ll need to be very discerning. Never give out social security numbers, or agree to pay any fee. These are typically scams.
Useful Site Links
Weddles.com, Rileyguide.com, and job-hunt.org, offer endless information and internal links to job boards. Hoovers, CareerJournal, Invita, ReferenceUSA, are great reference sources. HotJobs, CareerBuilder Monster, FlipDog, are major job boards. Use every method to finding a job. Networking is still the king, a success rate near 70%. So spend 10% of your time on the Internet, and 70% on good networking opportunities.
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