Job search needs to be thought of as a personal, very aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of contacts 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 650 responses in a calendar week. For one opening. That’s increased competition.

Had the right person gotten ahold of us before we placed the ad, they could have landed the job before having all that competition. How? By knowing an employee at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware of the job for at least 7 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?

Be sure to check your application matierials 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 employer would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job posting. By passing over prospects whose cover letters gave us reasons 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 rejecting candidates who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the great news is that job sites give you a sense of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. But once those positions are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, if you have a well written 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 checked on on the net. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some MySpace comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing crazy, but enough to tilt our thinking about who to employ.

AA-Careers provides a broad 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!