How to Best Leverage Your Job Resume
Online and Offline Job Search Strategies
A job resume is only good when it’s being used to leverage your career advancement—essentially win you a good job.
Nicely formatted on your computer or printed out in a stack of pretty hard-copy documents—your resume is useless unless it’s getting in front of potential employers’ eyeballs.
Get Your Resume Seen Online
The Internet is a perfect tool for job seekers. You have instant access to employers and jobs all over the country, other job seekers just like you, and free tools and resources for making a job search successful.
Popular Online Job Search Sites
- Monster.com
- CareerBuilder.com
- Sologig.com
Job search sites like those listed above are valuable tools when looking for work. You can look for part-time work, full-time permanent, contract work, and project work.
Features common to most online job search sites:
- upload one or more resumes or create one online
- upload or create a variety of cover letters
- build a partial or complete user/job seeker profile that includes salary requirements, job expectations, and skills
- apply for jobs with the click of a button
- create a job search filter that delivers daily job openings to your email inbox specifically targeted to your preferences.
Monster and CareerBuilder are solid choices for a wide range of business and industry professionals and are useful for you whether you are entry-level or CEO. Sologig is a bit more targeted to the IT market.
Getting Your Resume Seen Offline
Job seeking should not be exclusive to online. In fact some employers prefer applicants willing to connect in person. Learn how to shake a hand the right way, how to make effective eye contact, and learn the dos and don’ts of a successful job interview. Get your resume into the hands of head-hunters in your area, temporary employment agencies and even former colleagues and friends with connections.
Enthusiastically pursue job leads that appeal to your needs and skillset. Any time you have the opportunity to participate in a job interview that fits you, do so. Make sure you have a dozen fresh hard-copy resumes and offer one to every interview participant. This way you have visual representation for yourself even after you’ve left the interview. Interviewers may make notes on your resume and chances are better that you’ll be remembered afterward.
Follow-up your interviews with a thank you note to the primary interviewer. If you have time, a hand-written version can be extremely effective.
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