When I first started job hunting on
Internet, I would spend countless hours searching for anything and everything. I would search one site, then jump to another, and search some more. One of most frustrating things about job searching on Internet is that most of same job postings are duplicated across hundreds of job search sites! It's like having three hundred Houston Chronicles from same day on your desk!--- Why so many? ---
Monster.com (http://www.monster.com) and Headhunter.net (http://www.headhunter.net) contain numerous newly posted job opportunities. Out of those opportunities, webmasters of a hundred or so telecommuting sites search for work-at-home jobs and post those jobs on their sites. Out of those jobs, numerous career-specific site webmasters extract work-at-home jobs in their career categories. In a matter of minutes, one job is duplicated hundreds of times on various sites.
Another place to search for opportunities is in USENET newsgroups. The newsgroups have hundreds of jobs posted from various recruiters and employers. But, many of smaller posting sites go to USENET and post those jobs on their sites as well. Again, same job posting is duplicated numerous times.
You could spend an entire week hunting for jobs and see same job posted 60 times on 100 sites!
--- I'm over here! ---
Numerous companies don't post their jobs because they don't want to be inundated by unqualified resume posters. Instead, these companies search for resumes on various sites. To make sure that you're seen, post your resume on several job sites and update it often!
The easiest way to do this is to create a text version of your resume as follows:
1. Create your professional resume in your favorite word processor. Make sure it's correct and all spelling and grammatical errors are resolved.
2. Export resume to a text file.
3. Edit text file and, for each "paragraph," remove all internal carriage-returns. If you look at it in Notepad with word-wrap turned off, each paragraph should be on a single, long line. Since many sites automatically word-wrap your text, this will prepare resume for proper formatting.
4. When you post resume, simply paste it into resume site's entry form.
It's a good idea to keep resume's length to about two or three pages since many sites don't accept anything more than 8,000 to 12,000 characters. If you're concerned about leaving out important job-related talents, add a short section at top of resume that lists information (e.g., ASP, ODBC, CORBA, etc.) This will provide needed keywords for search while minimizing length of resume.
Some of better posting sites include:
* Monster.com - http://www.monster.com/ * Headhunter.net - http://www.headhunter.net * Guru.com - http://www.guru.com * Ants.com - http://www.ants.com/ants/ * CareerShop - http://www.careershop.com/ * Employment911 - http://www.employment911.com/ * Net-Temps - http://www.net-temps.com/
Don't be surprised if you're already posted on some of sites. Believe it or not, many of larger search sites also own and operate some of smaller sites. This way, they have various front-ends to attract individuals while using same core data. The important point here is: don't waste time posting to every site you find---target your postings for greatest exposure.
Once you have it posted, make sure that you update resume at least once a month. I noticed that when I edit my resume and update it, I get a few hits from various companies and recruiters. This happens because resume is raised to top of stack again. If you notice that your hits are decreasing after an update, delete old account and start a new one on target sites. This will give recruiters and potential employers fresh meat to go after when they search for candidates to fill their positions.
It's also a good idea to post a resume on your Web site. It doesn't have to be promoted to any search engines, but you can send URL to prospective employers so they can see your experience. I broke my resume up into several pieces (i.e., Education, Experience, Skills, etc.) and created an e-book style presentation. I also added some of my work in a Samples section for their review. This way, potential employers can see my resume without having to download a lengthy document.
