November 25th, 2008
How to Harness the Web for Your Job Search
No shortage of job searching advice anywhere you look these days. The Wall Street Journal sorts through the online jobs sites today in an article called, “For the Jobless, Websites Offer More Options.”
I’m not sure that if you’re looking for a job you need more options. I know that when I start parsing websites, going so deep that I soon forget what it was that I started out looking for, I am procrastinating. I am putting off doing the real work by trying to find the one job site that will magically produce the greatest number of jobs that are perfect for me.
Job sites are only as useful as you allow them to be. What, you say? I upload my resume and bingo! Off it goes around the universe, like the astronaut’s toolbox that is now circling the globe, into the waiting inboxes of eager employers.
It’s simple: if you don’t know who you are and what your value is to potential employers before you hit “send” you might as well be raking leaves. It would be more productive, and probably more satisfying, too.
Yes, choices abound about how to get your credentials into circulation. That’s the easy part. What’s more difficult is deciding who you are and why an employer should talk to you. It’s not up to them to put the pieces together–it’s up to you.
You can keep on surfing, keep on hitting the “submit” button and feeling pleased with yourself. But if you haven’t packaged the product first, I suspect you will have few buyers.
