This is a guest blog post by job hunter Sally Lawton.
Career Websites make it seem as if all you have to do is post your resume, and abracadabra, the phone will be ringing off the hook with glamorous job offers. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Checking the count of employers viewing my resume on Monster makes it very clear that job seekers must dust off their offline job skills in order to make the internet job search work for them.
For all of the pizazz that career websites offer, it is ultimately the tried and true methods of pounding the pavement, networking, and polishing your resume that will guarantee success. Indeed, those who maintain these skills will have the most success with all aspects of their job search, both online and off. I was reminded of this quite unexpectedly during my most recent, and successful, job search.
As any self-respecting Internet nerd would, I began my job search online. I posted my resume to several career Websites, both traditional and 2.0 types, I made sure that those searching for me on Google would find me at my professional best, and I faithfully trolled the job boards each day and applied to even the most remotely interesting positions. With the Internet at my command, it was easy to ignore offline job search techniques, but on one lazy Sunday morning, I read the newspaper classifieds, and methodically circled, with a red pen, the ads of interest. To accentuate this almost anachronistic job search, I responded to the ads with paper copies of my resume. I even went to the trouble of using a good weight resume paper, something that would never occur to me in an Internet job search. Much to my surprise, it was not my well-distributed online profile that landed me my soon-to-start position, but it was my offline Sunday classified browsing that brought me success.
Finding my job in such a low-tech manner made it very clear to me that an Internet job search is ultimately much the same as the traditional job search. While you can cover more ground on the Web, at the heart of the internet job search are tried and true job search principals. While the Internet might help you package yourself more accessibly, a fancy online profile will not make up for a poorly written resume and a lazy job search.
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