Mystic Toad Press Blog

A modern job search campaign is by nature quite Byzantine. 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 personalized, very aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network is your inside source for information and job leads.

So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on Craigslist and got over 650 responses in a week. For one position. That’s increased job hunting competition.

Had the right person contacted us before we placed the ad, they could have gotten the position before having all that competition. How? By knowing someone at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware of the job for at least 10 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 quick triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our position description. By passing over candidates whose cover letters gave us grounds not to hire 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 passing over candidates who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the good news is that job boards give you a feel of who is hiring, and for what kinds of positions. But once those positions are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, 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 and easily you can be investigated on the internet. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some MySpace comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to tilt our thinking about who to choose.

AA-Careers provides a encompassing 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!