Umazon Blog

A modern job search campaign is by nature fairly intricate. While the internet 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, extremely aimed marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of colleagues is your source for job information.

So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on a popular job site and got 600 plus responses in a week. For a single opening. That’s increased job hunting competition.

Had a great candidiate gotten ahold of us before we ran the ad, they could have secured 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 was aware of the job for at least 9 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?

Be sure to check your cover letter and resume 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 speedy triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job description. By rejecting prospects whose cover letters gave us grounds not to hire 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 passing over job hunters who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the great news is that job sites give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of positions. But once those jobs 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 downside to be aware of is how quickly you can be checked on on the web. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some MySpace comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing insane, but enough to swing our thoughts about who to employ.

AA-Careers provides a comprehensive 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!