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

Job hunting needs to be thought of as a highly personal, very aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of contacts is your lead generating machine.

So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on Craigslist and got more than 650 applications in a calendar week. For a single opening. That’s increased competition for jobs.

Had the right person gotten ahold of us before we placed the ad, they could have secured the job before getting all that competition. How? By knowing an employee at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew 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 taken out with a speedy triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our position description. By rejecting prospects whose cover letters gave us causes not to engage them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating candidates whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by rejecting prospects who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the good news is that job boards give you a sense of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still try, if you have a well honed 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 potential problem to be aware of is how easily you can be investigated on the net. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some personal web pages that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to tilt our thoughts about who to hire.

AA-Careers provides a comprehensive 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!