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| Job Searching on the Web “a novice approach” by Jim Dreesen Introduction If you are new to online recruiting, you should find the following information useful. It is important to note that searching the Internet is only one component of your marketing plan. In 1999 only 1 of 8 positions were filled over the Internet and although it’s a growing trend 63% of open positions were never posted anywhere. The Internet will not replace your main goal of networking your way to an appointment with a targeted business you want to work for. View this as a critical piece to marketing yourself, but don’t let it replace the basic networking process. This tutorial has been put together for the novice user of the Internet. It will give you web sites to use, show you how to post your resume, clear up some misconceptions about which sites cost money and talk about strategies. Most of my web education has come from pointing and clicking on different web sites, taking a class on job surfing the web and talking to many recruiters/job searchers that have “been there and done that” over the last 12 months. I have sent about 20 resumes per week from jobs listed on the web over the last 3 months. This has produced 30 calls from recruiters, two interviews and an ongoing negotiation for a position that should be finalized shortly. Most of these sites have resources to help you with your job search, chat rooms where you can talk to other job searchers and helpful newsletters targeting your education in the confusing world of job sourcing. I suggest you sign up with a few of the major sites and drill down into the links they provide. Have fun with your transition and remember in this period of change “do something for yourself” that you would never do if you were working (sign up for tennis lessons, take the family to Disney World or lower your golf handicap) you deserve it! CHOOSING A STRATEGY My philosophy as I entered the search was to distribute my resume to as many sources as possible, very simply because I view this as a “numbers game”. I sent 700 resumes to national and local recruiters. The Directory of Executive Recruiters lists about 3000 recruiters you can target. It is important to let all appropriated firms become aware of you, as quickly as possible. I started to aggressively search the web, which I will describe below in more detail. I read a book about recruiters called Rites of Passage at $100,000 and I would strongly recommend this book. I also made it a point to search the Wall Street Journal each Tuesday for openings (this is the day they list jobs) and I was told by many friends to sign up with Exec U Net (a web site for executive jobs). This web site is the only one I paid for while searching the web (I paid $149 for a six-month subscription). Job Searching Sites Most places allow you to search at no charge. They make their money by charging recruiters to post jobs. The drawbacks are that not all premium jobs are posted and there are literally hundreds of sites for you to search. On most sites you will be able to recognize what companies are posting there (from frequency) and what slant the site has from an industry perspective. So what you learn is where the companies you are interested in are posting and what sites focus on your industry. There are a lot of IT sites like dice.com but there are also executive search sites like execunet.com. Here are the main sites that I used in my job search. Exec U Net.com Monster.com Headhunter.net CareerMosaic.com Careers.wsj.com Hotjob.com CareerPath.com Resume Posting Sites Most places allow you to post your resume at no charge. The drawbacks? There are hundreds of places to post and not all recruiters will be able to find you. Also, it is expensive for recruiters to gain access to more than a few databases and confidential information is exposed to anyone with access. I posted on Monster and Headhunter only. My posted resume on Monster.com was looked at 185 times in 90 days and put me in an interview process with an offer pending…it works! Targeted Resume Distribution For the proactive job seeker that earns between 50k – 250k and wants an intelligent connection to the executive recruiters that serve their industry and profession, this is the best answer. This service focuses solely on the distribution of your resume to 1000+ executive recruiters. Here are two established firms that will “open 1000 doors of opportunity, targeted to your background. These are fee-based services to you and I did not go this direction because of my 700-resume direct mail campaign early in my search. RecruiterConnection.com Xpostit.com Navigation I have attached examples of 5 sites that I use frequently to give you a sense of how easy it is to target your search. Most sites will give you geographic choices, job segment sorting, industry categories and date ranges so you can make sure you check all the postings since the last time you checked this site. I saved all of these in my favorite places section of my browser so I had easy access. Please review that attached and then point and click your way around. Posting your Resume After you have chosen the sites that you are going to post with you will need to have a few things ready to go. Make sure you have a resume in word format and one in text format. If you have one or the other format it is easy to save it to the other format. Just click on file, save as, save as type and then click on the arrow and in the drop down box you will find text as a format or word document as a format you can choose and then click save and you are in business. Some sites will have you post your resume in text format, but most will use word as the standard format. You will find that most sites will ask you many questions to help assist their clients’ source the right candidate, so be generic in you answers. For example even though I wanted to stay in Indianapolis I would always say I was relocatable. If I was a match for the job they were trying to fill I wanted to be the one to disqualify myself not some recruiter. You never know the company might be flexible if you are the right person! Please review the attached detailed instructions on the finer points of how to post your resume if you are having trouble. Correspondence I found it easiest to have a word document of my resume and a cover letter that I am comfortable with saved on my hard drive under “Internet correspondence”. I would then go to the web site and do my targeted search, source the jobs, review the position characteristics and then modify the cover letter to reflect my skill sets and their needs. Once you have a customized cover letter I would e-mail it with the resume to the address on the job posting. I would then save the cover letter in my Internet file under the job reference number and site initials (example 940976 eun for execunet). My resume output per week was about 20. Sometimes you will not be able to find enough information for the heading of a formal business letter, so I just used what they gave me and most often listed their e-mail address as the heading with ‘Dear Sirs’ to start it off. Researching almost anything on the web For a long time I struggled with what reference sites to go to when researching a company until I found this one site. It is called ceoexpress.com and it will give you almost every link you need to find out information on the web. It was the best time saver I have found...use it! Summary In summary I had a 5 step process: 1) National and Local Recruiters direct mail campaign, Every 30 days I would take my posted resume off Monster and Headhunter and change a few key areas and then repost. This process brings your resume up as a new listing once again to the potential employer or recruiter that is searching that site and you will get them to view it one more time. Be sure to check out many web sites early in your search looking for companies in your targeted industry and for site bias’ on your industry preferences, then save these to your favorite places for easy recall, set a schedule to visit these sites and execute your strategy. Most of all don’t become so reliant on searching the web that you forget how to pick up the phone and call an owner or manager of a business where you think you could make an impact. Good Luck! | ||||||||||
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