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"I would like to thank the ResumeEdge service because you have truly done a tremendous job with my resume. The service fixed the areas where my resume lacked content and places where it just did not sound correct. Thank you thank you thank you. I will continue to use ResumeEdge because it has shown me great service and the critique was excellent! I am certain it has helped improve my chance of finding a job." |
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Using the Internet
Beware the hype. Although some of the larger companies do a passable job monitoring their homepages and fixing links, What Color is Your Parachute 2002 reports that only four percent of people who use the Internet exclusively to job hunt have any success. Some forty percent are never able to get past actually finding a place to post a resume, because of broken links.
For career changers, the problem is even more serious. A resume posted online to a faceless company doesn't give your contacts in the industry room to work on your behalf, and the staff recruiters assigned to monitor the big sites might use a keyword search that will fail to turn up your application, should you have an unusual background. If they're looking exclusively for candidates with a certain degree or number of years experience, you lose the opportunity to make a case for yourself. Almost all Internet job search sites will require that you make a profile that will reveal this sort of information immediately.
Literally thousands of applications and resumes are posted online everyday, simply because it is the easiest way to cast a wide net. Remember, though, that it takes time for an employer to post to a classified list, even one located online. Some of the best job openings are filled by people who inadvertently walk into an office shortly after a position has been vacated and before the job can be posted anywhere else. With only one applicant, your chances of getting the position are, well, at least fighting. Using the Internet will inevitably limit your search to companies that have gotten around to dredging for people to fill the job.
And not all web job searches are created equal. For sheer technical complexity and name recognition, Monster.com more than takes the prize. They offer those who sign up for a free account a chance to craft a resume, subscribe to more than a dozen different magazines targeted to specific categories of job seekers, and even post up to five cover letters. The actual service works by having the applicant create an "agent" based on location and type of job sought. The agent then searches for all the jobs posted during the course of a day, and returns the list and the accompanying links to your Monster.com mailbox. An additional seven dollars a month will entitle you to a service meant to visually enhance your resume and the Harvard ManageMentor, which provides tips on career management.
A somewhat less complicated but more user friendly option is FlipDog.com, an online job posting and searching service that offers most of Monster's features (minus the diversified career newsletters) and less advertising. A less finely targeted option is BlastMyResume.com, which claims to send the name of each customer to a series of recruiters in the field selected. This particular boast is trumped by ResumeZapper.com, which advertises a specific number: 10,000 recruiters will see your resume.
A simple empirical test revealed the winner, at least for career changers, to be FlipDog. I posted a resume that indicated that my background was as a museum curator, but that I wanted to pursue a career in business management. Within a few hours, I was contacted by three firms in New York that specialized in art brokerage. Monster netted the same number of responses, often from the same companies, but over a period of a week. One of the greatest advantages of FlipDog and Monster over their competitors, however, is the fact that one can search for jobs independently of posting a resume. If nothing promising turns up in your area and chosen field, there's no need to go through the somewhat time-consuming process of converting a Microsoft Word or Claris Works document to a reasonably attractive text format.
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