Over the years the way we search for jobs in our career has changed. In order to succeed at job searching one must master the art of job searching on line by capitalizing on technology and innovative thought. With that said, the ability to fill out online applications fast, deliver great content on your resume, be a polished interviewee and interviewer, and support your claims one must be innovative and willing to adapt to change.
This begins by organizing yourself. Make sure you have pdf and or jpeg files of all of your degrees and certifications. A Word document resume that conveys a brand with support to back up your statements and accomplishments. In addition, have a standard cover letter that can be quickly augmented for a specific position. Also, have a career summary which highlights accomplishments, personality traits and a value proposition; this should not look like your resume, but shorter and similar to an elevator speech. Next, make sure you have a few letters of recommendation, a demographic listing of all of your education, employers, and references in a Word document that includes names, addresses, dates and contact information. With these files and tools open while you are online applying for a position you can easily copy and paste the appropriate information into the applicable parts of the online application form, this will decrease your time to complete the application.
LinkedIn profiles are a great way to showcase your career. Your LinkedIn profile should be more than your resume. Profiles on Linked in should have examples of work, career summaries, and letters of recommendation, endorsements, and online references and yes even written and published posts. Posts that you publish should be related to your field, designed in such a way to convey your knowledge, a political and objective; this can drive traffic to your profile. An online profile should contain all of your favorite stuff including your degree itself. I suggest also placing pictures of examples of the product, service and or theme with each company you have worked for; along with examples of your work; this will add to the visual experience of your profile.
After you have interviewed for the position, consider the appropriate strategy and time to add the people you interviewed with as connections; this will help grow your network. I cannot tell you how many times I have interviewed with a company years after my first interview because of this type of strategy, and received multiple offers from the same company. Maintain a database of notes and outlook contacts for all places you have interviewed. Do not rely on your profile in a passive fashion. Make sure you always respond to job postings; it is a numbers game. Although I would advise applying to positions in your field that you are qualified for. Have a strategy that positions yourself maximum flexibility. My personal experience is that my rate of securing an interview from answering posts online applying for a position has ranged from ten to fifty percent.
Often times I have been able to maintain interviewing with companies two to three times a week for months on end. This has allowed me to grow my network. Use your face time in the interview to make a connection during the interview and after, which is what Linked in is for. This strategy has helped me to save time and money while expanding my network in the most productive and visible fashion. I do not attend networking events any longer; because of the strategy I explained and implemented has a greater success rate for me. Most people tell me they send a hundred resumes out before they get one phone call. I have a 25% average success rate as explained above, never been out of work, and learned to be extremely polished at interviewing; and receive lots of offers all the time. One can use recruiters, I do suggest doing so, however recruiters should not be relied on. Recruiters do not provide the same opportunity that you can provide yourself. I have held over 75 jobs as an employee, contract worker, or consultant over the years by marketing myself. In the end your search, online presence, attitude, applications, recruiters, staffing agencies and networking combine to enable the success rate of career moves. I have been able to do this simply from my home computer, telephone and face to face interviews.
If you would like to learn more about how to brand yourself, save time and money, and increase your rate of success on your job search without spending an enormous amount of time please feel free to contact me on my LinkedIn profile, email or cell phone. I have access to all the tools and the ability to teach you how to succeed without wasting time and money.