The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several possible challenges. It also adds many complexities, and a lot more things to consider…and be careful of.

Job search needs to be thought of as a personalized, extremely targeted marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of associates is your lead generating machine.

So where does the internet fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job site and got over 650 applications in a calendar week. For one job. That’s increased competition for job openings.

Had a strong candidate gotten ahold of us ahead of our posting that ad, they could have landed the position prior to having all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows 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 swift triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job posting. By rejecting candidates whose cover letters gave us causes not to hire 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 eliminating job hunters who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the great news is that job boards give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. But once those positions are posted, the competition is intense. You can still try, 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 issue to be aware of is how quickly you can be checked out on the net. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing illegal, but enough to swing our thinking about who to employ.

AA-Careers provides a extensive 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!