Tips and Advice for the Millions of Job Searchers
Launching your job search
For millions, being out of work is a real shock, especially if you were one who never really thought about it and never thought it would happen to you. It is sort of like the death thing. We all know, regardless of age, we will die, yet, at the same time, this "thing" happens to others and not me or you because, well, too young, too healthy? Yet it does, and when it does, the shock permeates into your soul (that is, losing a job).
There are zillions pieces of advice gurus out there about what is cool or not cool to do when searching for a job.
1. Don not send your generic resume to all jobs without making it special for the gig you are going for. Customize and target its contents to some degree with keywords that are on their requirements list.
2. Create specilized cover letters of not more than a paragraph that go along with that specialized resume. This may be harder if the what you normally do and the job applying for are 180 degrees different, find some common ground between them and promote it.
3. Send your resume within 48 hrs, max., of the job posting. Forget it, if it is more than that time. Soone the better. With federal government jobs, you must send your transcripts and other "proofs" at the same time via their system or you are just wasting your time.
4. Search the companies website and look for someone you can contact internally that might be useful to you in your job search or sending in your resume. Try to get someone in the HR department. It will have more weight if your resume is sent internally, say from the HR manager to HR technician slogging through the tons of resumes.
5. Call to confirm receipt of the resume and ask to speak with the person looking at it.
6. Have a friend who works at the target company to submit your resume to the hiring manager. If your friend is in good standing, the hiring manager just may call you in for an interview.
7. Settle for a temp position until your dream job arrives. Something IS better than nothing.
8. Use specialty job boards for a narrower focused search. If you are in IT, look at Dice.com, that handles nothing but those kinds of employment.
- Robert Half International - Professional Staffing and Consulting Services
Robert Half International is the world's first and largest specialized staffing firm. RHI is a recognized leader in professional staffing and consulting services, and is the parent company of Protiviti, a leading independent internal audit and busine