A modern job search campaign is by nature fairly involved. While the net has offered a variety of new channels, it also creates increased competition for choice jobs and potential challenges for job hunters.

Job search needs to be thought of as a highly personal, highly directed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network 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 a popular job board and got more than 650 responses in a week. For a single opening. That’s increased competition.

Had a strong person contacted us before we ran the posting, they could have secured the position prior to running in to all that competition. How? By knowing someone at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew of the job for at least 13 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?

Be sure to check your cover letter and resume carefully! When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily taken out with a fast triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By rejecting prospects whose cover letters gave us reasons not to engage them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating prospects whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by passing over job hunters who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the good news is that job sites give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of positions. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, if you have a well thought out 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 downside to be aware of is how quickly you can be looked up on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some personal web pages that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to swing our thinking about who to hire.

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!