A modern job search campaign is by nature fairly complex. 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, highly aimed marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network of associates is your source for job leads.

So where does the internet fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on a popular job board and got more than 650 responses in a calendar week. For one job. That’s increased competition for jobs.

Had a strong person called us before we posted the ad, they could have landed the position before running in to all that competition. How? By finding someone who knows an employee at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew of the job for at least 14 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?

Be careful to check your application materials thoroughly before submitting them. When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily eliminated with a speedy triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By rejecting resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By rejecting candidates whose cover letters gave us grounds 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 bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the great news is that job boards give you a feel of who is hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. 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 potential problem to be aware of is how quickly and 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 insane, but enough to tilt our thoughts about who to choose.

AA-Careers provides a encompassing 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!