Effective employment search strategies

Once you have undertaken some career planning, you will want to get a job in your preferred career field. This is a process that takes much effort. A successful job search might require 25 to 30 hours per week of your time. Effective search strategies follow

Assemble a Résumé
The Internet is a valuable resource for you in all aspects of career planning, including preparing a résumé. A résumé is a summary record of your education, training, experience, and other qualifications. It is often submitted with a job application. Your résumé, usually one or two pages in length, should be carefully written and contain zero errors or inconsistencies in message, content, and appearance.

Its primary function is to provide a basis for screening people out of contention for jobs. When you supply a résumé, you are providing documentation for some kind of subjective evaluation against unknown criteria. Large employers, recruiters, and local and national websites screen résumés, and computer software is frequently used to scan them instead of humans. Use key buzzwords from the job description such as “Microsoft Office” so the scanning process picks them up. When it is necessary to technically fulfill a requirement in the employment process, tailor a special edition of your résumé to fit that special set of circumstances. Résumés are usually presented in a chronological format (information in reverse order with most recent first), skills format (aptitudes and qualities), or functional format (career-related experiences). See Figures 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 for sample résumés. Colleges have career centers with sample résumés and professional staff who can offer personal advice. You can also find examples of résumés on the Internet. Monster.com has 500,000 online résumés and ResumeMailman .com forwards résumés to recruiters. Simply posting your résumé on an Internet site or sending out résumés is not conducting a significant job search. Realize, of course, that your currentemployer can view your résumé if it is posted on the Internet.

Identify Job Opportunities
The next step is to identify job opportunities that fit your skill set and provide opportunities for advancement in your career. Use  the following resources, and keep track of your job search progress using the Decision-Making Worksheet

Career Fairs 

Career fairs are university-, community-, and employer-sponsored opportunities for job seekers to meet with perhaps hundreds or even thousands of potential employers over one or more days. Here you can schedule brief screening interviews with a dozen or more employers in a single day. Career fairs are advertised in local newspapers, on television, and on the Internet. Searech “career fairs” on the Internet as well as at CareerBuilder.com and NationalCareerFairs.com.

Classified Advertisements 

Advertisements in newspapers and professional and trade publications as well as their Internet equivalents are an excellent starting place in the job search process. Larger newspapers, such as the Atlanta Constitution and Chicago Daily News advertise jobs in large geographic areas. Others such as the

Employment Agencies

  An employment agency is a firm specializing in locating employment positions for certain types of employees, such as secretaries, salespeople, engineers, managers, and computer personnel. Most employment agencies are paid fees by organizations that hire them to find new employees. Others charge the job hunter fees, sometimes very high amounts. Governments also have state or city employment offices that offer free services.

The Internet

 If you do not use the Internet in your job search, you are not likely to get the best job for your talents. You can use the Internet to obtain career advice, review job opportunities by industry and company, conduct specialized job searches, review résumés, create your résumé, create a cover letter, post your résumé, review salary information, calculate living costs in different communities, and research career fairs. Just about all your search information on the Web can be saved for your future use.

The Internet is robust with helpful resources for job seekers. Check out these websites
• ajb.dni.us
• careerbuilder.com
• careerjournal.com
• flipdog.com
• getthejob.com
• hotjobs.yahoo.com
• jobster.com
• monster.com
• nationjob.com
• resumemachine.com
• rileyguide.com

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