Online job search becoming difficult in challenging times
In good times, searching for a job online is moderately difficult. For the unemployed in today’s lingering recession, it’s ten times harder.
The likelihood of getting interviews through online job search is less than one in a hundred, unless your skills are in great demand. If you’re unemployed, many companies today won’t even consider you for open positions.
And if your occupation (say, a nuclear scientist) is rare, you’re unlikely to find jobs online at all. Retained recruiters find people with specialized knowledge or skills for companies. They don’t place ads on the job boards.
They’re always exceptions to the rule, of course. If you’re unemployed, walk on water and the job description directly matches your background, online job search becomes easier. However, career counselors advise all job hunters to avoid the online trap and use multiple methods to return to the workforce.
We’ve discussed some of the effective steps already on this blog: find people who can help you, use social media, like Twitter, Facebook and others, create a tracking system and identify keywords that relate to your knowledge, skills and interests. Targeting 25-30 well-researched companies also helps. (All of these strategies are described in the 16 Step career guide.)
If your job search strategy includes researching companies, networking with people and identifying decision-makers at companies of interest, you’re on the right track. Other useful ideas include using social media, calling hiring managers on the phone, sending well-written emails to influencers, launching direct mail campaigns and faxing well-written letters.
Whether employed or unemployed, learning as much as possible about a company’s needs, problems, operations and goals helps distinguish the top candidates. And that’s where online job search helps the most. With the boom in social media and transparency, it’s virtually impossible for employers and would-be employees to hide behind a digital shield. Everyone is tweeting, launching blogs and websites, wiki’s, Flickr photo sites and Facebook pages. For many, especially the unemployed, we live in an ideal time for finding careers and jobs with the help of the Internet.
