Wordscapes® 50 Tips For Online Job-Seekers

1. Start off right. The Internet has an abundance of job-related Web sites. Many of them offer great tools, tips, and resources that will start you off in the right direction with an overview of the job search. For instance, Yahoo! offers an employment guide that features industry guides, negotiating recommendations, advice for recent college graduates, links to recruiting agencies, and tools such as city comparison charts (http://employment.yahoo.com). The Wall Street Journal's Careers site (http://careers.wsj.com) is another useful resource, with articles on who is hiring, job agents, career management, and more. Other useful resources to check out are CareerWeb (http://www.cweb.com), Excite Career Planning (http://www.excite.com/ careers/career_planning), and (http://www.careermag.com). 2. Do your research. The Web is also home to sites that provide detailed company information. To identify a potential employer, take advantage of the wealth of independent business profiles online. One of the most useful sites is Hoover's Online (http://www.hoovers.com), which justifiably brags that it is "the ultimate source for company information" It offers a database that is searchable by company name, ticker symbol, keyword, or an executive's last name. Or, take a look at the vast array of company profiles available at WetFeet.com (http://www.wetfeet.com) or Yahoo!'s Employment guide (http://employment.yahoo.com/employment/company_research). 3. Don't judge that book by its cover. Many job-seekers make the mistake of concentrating their research on the big-name companies and overlooking lucrative opportunities at smaller and medium-sized organizations. Track down positions by using your favorite search engine to look for location or industry-related Web sites. Better yet, try a new search engine. Have you ever tried Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com) or MetaCrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com or http://www or http://www.go2net.com/search.html? 4. Uncover career fairs. Experienced job-hunters know that attending career fairs can put you in touch with hiring officials that you may never meet otherwise. Whether you're conducting your job search electronically or the old-fashioned way, find out about career fairs in your area. You'll not only learn more about a company, you'll also get a chance to find out who is hiring for positions relating to your educational background or work experience. Online, one effective way to do this is to visit CareerFairs.com (http://www.careerfairs.com), which features a listing of job fairs around the nation. 5. Go back to school. Literally, go back to school. Campuses hold periodic job fairs; check with your local college or university to find out about upcoming events. On the Web, school sites often advertise career fairs, complete with details about who will attend, what speakers are appearing, and what materials attendees should bring. On a related note, visit your alma mater's Web site. You may find contact information and job postings geared toward certain industries. 6. Know your neighbors. Along with industry and university sites, regional sites can display job opportunities, and you won't have to relocate for these. Thousands of San Francisco residents have already discovered this by using the List Foundation (http://www.listfoundation.org, also known as http://www.craigslist.org) to sniff out jobs in the fields of art, business, medicine, marketing, engineering, and writing. To see if there's a regional listing for your area, open your Web browser and use a familiar search engine to input keywords for your area and industry. 7. Scan online classifieds. Forget the days of getting newsprint ink all over your fingers - online classified listings can be a joy to use on the Internet. That's because you can input keywords and display only the listings that are appropriate for you. Some of the giants in the online classifieds business include AdQuest 3D (http://www.adquest3d.com), Classifieds2000 (http://www .classifieds2000.com), and Classified Warehouse (http://www.classifiedwarehouse .com). Online newspapers are also useful depositories of regional classified job listings. 8. Visit venture capitalists. Are you interested in new media companies? If so, try visiting the sites belonging to venture capitalist groups. (You can find a directory by using the keywords "venture capital" at the Yahoo! Web directory.) These sites often refer surfers to the hot clients that they invest in and the start-up companies are usually looking for investors. 9. Get by with a little help from your friends. Friends are good for more than just being companions at ball games and company dinner functions; they may be able to help you find your next job. Increasingly, companies are creating employee referral programs where everyone is a winner. If a colleague successfully recommends you for a position then you have a new job, your employer has a valuable new employee, and your friend us~ually receives a monetary reward. So send off an E-mail message or two to friends and let them know you're on the hunt for new work. 10. Make new friends. Internet newsgroups are chatty places, and they can be great breeding grounds for conversations on various industries, jobs in a specific region of the country, or even particular companies. Find out which Internet newsgroups are discussing what by visiting Deja News (http://www.dejanews.com). Then, after signing up for a newsgroup, scroll through the archives for transcripts of past conversations and pointers to new ones. Although some job-seekers post resumes to these groups, we don't recommend doing this because it's an open invitation to junk E-mailers. 11.Make new friends, part two. Mailing lists also spawn fruitful conversations about potential employment opportunities. To find an appropriate Internet mailing list for your interests, go to Liszt at http://www.liszt.com and conduct a search for your industry. Some lists devote themselves to employment issues, others are loyal to particular industries, and still others only discuss employment in a particular field. For instance, Magwrite, a mailing list for magazine writers, is chock-full of tips on employers, open employment opportunities, and helpful advice on work-related activities. Alumni mailing lists are also useful tools. 12. Make it private. A word of caution on the above two tips. The Internet is a fast-flowing, free-wheeling arena, where individuals can fire off opinions with a click. When discussing a specific company, however, what might start off as a simple exchange of information can turn into a potentially libelous situation. Use common sense and keep private conversations private; take them off the open list or newsgroup and keep them strictly between certain individuals. Otherwise, a fairly innocent comment can come back to haunt you. 13. Subscribe to an employment newsletter. You can use E-mail to your advantage in another way. Employment newsletters sent directly to your Inbox can be as broad in scope or as narrow in focus as you want; its your decision to subscribe to the ones you want. One must-see publication is the E-Insider, a monthly publication from WetFeet.com (http://www.wetfeet.com). Find out more about corporate Q&As, learn about three factors that minorities should consider when choosing a new job, and read profiles on featured employers. 14. Sign up for a job alert service. Have you ever used an E-mail alert service to have messages sent to you about airfare deals or anniversary reminders? If so, then you know how useful they are. The information simply comes to you, without the struggle of hunting it down. A number of employment sites feature job alert services, such as Job Alert from JobOptions (http://www.joboptions.com/esp/plsql/espan_enter.espanhome). Just input the relevant information to subscribe, and a listing of jobs that matches your criteria arrives conveniently in your E-mail Inbox. 15. Post your resume. If you have Internet access through an Internet service provider (ISP), then you probably have some storage space on your ISP's server. Consider posting your resume there. It's generally free, and you can direct potential employers to it. At the same time, be aware that it's a public document. If you don't want your current boss to know you're looking for work, don't make yourself vulnerable and let him or her stumble across it. 16. Use industry buzzwords. In the electronic age, online keyword searches are becoming as common as, well, the phrase "dotcom." Write your resume so that when an employer does a keyword search, your resume is more likely to appear. Database administrators, for example, should include both "DBA" and "database administrator" somewhere on the resume. 17. Tailor your resumes. That's right, resumes, as in the plural sense of the word. You can no longer use the excuse that it's too much work to create two or more resumes because with computers, you merely cut and paste various sections and edit a few words to tailor resumes for the companies and industries that interest you. In addition, if you use resume posting sites, you can post customized versions in the appropriate places. 18. Find resume posting sites. Get the word out by publishing your resume or curriculum vitae on a resume posting site. Employers flock to the major sites looking for the expertise that you have to offer. There are hundreds of these sites on the Web, but be sure to pay special attention to Monster.com (http://www.monster.com) CareerWeb (http://www.cweb.com), HeadHunter.Net (http://www.headhunter.net or http:// www.headhunter.com) and JobOptions (http://www.joboptions.com). 19. Know the site's demographics. With hundreds of resume posting services out there, it's inevitable that you're going to come across some not-so-useful ones. Any Joe Schmoe can publish a Web site and try to make money, so take a close look at a site's demographics before you decide to participate. Legitimate sites almost always display information about their users, from industry experience to current levels of employment to population demographics. 20. Be discriminating. Resume posting sites can contain treasure chests of job listings, but you don't want to dig up buried treasure only to uncover outdated and useless currency. Some resume services stockpile jobs, so don't be fooled by an enormous database of listings. Instead, search the site for policy information about how often the site administrators update job listings. Also, find out when a particular job was posted. 21. Be more discriminating. Imagine you're a high-tech administrator and you post your resume to a technology-related site. A headhunter comes along, does a search using a keyword in your field, and your resume pops to the top. Now you're getting dozens of calls on a daily basis regarding possible job opportunities. The only problem? You know what sort of job you·re looking for, and you don't need a headhunter's help. The solution? Post your resume only to sites that let you to publish it anonymously. Then, when a company sees your experience and approaches the resume posting service, the service, in turn, lets you know about the interested prospect. If the interest is mutual, you simply respond. As a result, you're the one to start the association instead of some third party. 22. Be even more discriminating. Another way resume posting sites vary is by the amount of control they give you over your own information. When choosing a site, be sure to read the policy about pulling resumes. Some unscrupulous sites want to impress employers with their high number of applicants, so they keep your resume online as long as possible. Find a site that lets you remove your resume when you want, not when it wants. 23 Consider upgrading on a site. Most of the big-name resume-posting sites are free to job-hunters because the employers are the ones who pay to post positions. Nevertheless, many of these sites still offer extra services, sometimes hidden extras, for a fee. Some, for instance, let you "upgrade your resume for greater visibility. To do this, you pay a small charge, and when your resume appears in an employer search, it displays, high on the list of potential applicants. There's little data, however, to show whether this service actually increases your chances of landing a job, so be wary of this option. 24. Be cautious of junk mail. As we mentioned earlier, companies mine ~nternet newsgroups looking to target marketing mailings toward certain job-seekers. The ~ same is true with online resume publishing. Publishing your resume on a personal Web site or a resume posting service can increase the amount of unwanted junk E-mail spamming your Inbox. Often-times, the trade-off in potential job information is worth the hassle, but it's still a good idea to prepare yourself for such events. 25. The fast word on resumes. All job-seekers, both online and offline, rely heavily on a solid resume to present themselves in their best light. The traditional way of creating a resume - sorting through resume samples for an attractive format and paging through a thesaurus to come up with the strongest verbs, etc.works well, but if you ever need a little help, you can find it electronically, or use the services of a professional resume writer. 26. Take an inventory. Finally you you know what you want out of a new job position and how committed you are at finding a new job. That's where a personal inventory checklist can come in handy. It can show you where your skills are and what you can improve upon. CareerWeb offers an online checklist designed to do just that at http://www.cweb.com/inventory. Just fill out the questionnaire, let the computers tabulate the results, and then view the score and suggestions for improvement. 27. Find the right person. You've done your homework and identified open positions and possible opportunities. Now you're ready to put your best foot forward and prepare yourself to apply for a particular job. Unfortunately, so are hundreds of other applicants, and with all those resumes routed to one person's desk, you'll need a way to distinguish yourself. One method is to find and the appropriate person in a company and establish contact. You can do so by reading about the company online and/or asking current employees.