They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.
John Stuart Mill
It is hard to look for a job if you don't know what you are looking
for, but it's even harder to obtain a job without a few essential
tools, most notably among them the resume. That's right-the one
piece of paper that sums up your worth for a prospective employer.
Don't worry if you haven't put your resume together yet or if
you need to update the one you have. Not only will you find some
sites on the Web to get you started (and finished), but if you
really want to put your resume on the Net, you'll also find sites
that will help you tailor your resume for use on the World Wide
Web.
If you have absolutely no idea of where to start, you might want
to read the Infoseek/Your Personal Net article called "Getting
a Job Online" (http://www.infoseek.com/Facts?pg=finding_a_job.html).
The article separates the different sections of searching for
a Job online into numbered sections and then includes a hypertext
link to over twenty sites to help you put together your resume
and to post it. It even includes online help for networking and
other facets of getting the online job, right down to the thank
you note.
Before you start sharpening your pencils and writing out your
employment history, you should think about what you will have
to work with. If you don't know what kind of job is right for
you, it might help you to know what kind of personality you have.
Personality, or self-assessment, tests can help you learn more
about yourself-your likes and dislikes. This can help you partially
determine the job for you. You can pay to take the test, but you
can find a few tests on the Web-and some of them are free! One
such exam is the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (http://sunsite.unc.edu/personality/keirsey.html).
Here you can take a 70 question, A and B answer test. Your results
are then sorted into four different personality types and you
can read a description of your type.
These tests can help you learn more about yourself, including
your strengths and weaknesses. Learning more about yourself is
essential to knowing what type of job will work for you. For example,
if you are a very shy (or introverted) person, choosing a job
that requires you to work with many people might not be the best
choice for you. By the same token, if you discover you have a
tendency to be fairly shy-and the test puts this on paper for
you-maybe you will decide to work on losing some of your shyness.
If you think another test is what you need, E-Span offers a link
to a "Match your Personality to a Career Path," (http://www.hawk.igs.net/careers/)
a site put together by James Sofia, a Canadian doctor, that will
help you match your personality traits to a career. If you look
at the online information and have more questions, you can e-mail
the doctor: Jim@hawk.igs.net.
The software that will help you to do this, however, costs about
$40. If you want to go the extra mile and you have the money to
spend, this might be the choice for you.
If you aren't as sure about spending money on a service like this,
try taking the Birkham Quiz (http://www.aboutwork.com/careerplanning/assessment.html)
offered on the About Work's Career Planning section. Made up of
24 questions, the Birkham Quiz matches your personality to career
fields. The quiz is actually a tease for the Birkham method, which
can provide you with much more information about your career tendency.
If you don't want to use the Birkham Method, you can still get
plenty of useful information through this quiz, which will match
you with interests and a style category. Your interests category
is separated into four different sections, or colors, and from
there you can find out what your color normally represents. Your
style represents how you like to act and can help you see if you
can actually work within a chosen field. Also broken down into
four colors, your style color can be different from your interest
color. The description that follows is interesting. And if you
think you want to learn more about the method or you would like
to go further with the method, you can connect with a form to
have more information sent to you.
If you've come this far and you're still not positive what job
you want or what your dream job entails, then you need to look
a little closer at the jobs available. The assessment tests you
took should help you pinpoint the type of jobs suited to your
personality, but they can't tell you what job will be the best
one for you and they can't make the final decision. You should
look at a few other factors before you write your resume. After
all, how can you write a resume if you don't know what job you
need to tailor it for?
Probably the easiest way to take a look at the jobs out there
and to get a handle on what a job actually entails is to look
at job profiles. A couple of places to find profiles include the
Occupational Outlook Handbook (http://www.espan.com/docs/oohand.html)
and the Exploring Occupations (http://www.umanitoba.ca/counseling/careers.html)
pages. The Handbook is a great source if you want to know a lot
about a specific job, but the actual reports aren't online-you
have to send in for them and they cost anywhere from $1.50 to
$2 each. You can buy the whole set for $24. Look on the page for
more information.
The Exploring Occupation's page is a great resource for getting
in touch with a job. Here you can look up career information in
a variety of fields, from Business and Management to Sport an
recreations. You can also look at Occupational profiles, which
are professionals' personal take on their profession. The page
also locates for you descriptions of carious occupations, including
Anthropology and English, an even Environmental Careers. Many
different occupations are listed, so this could be a great resource
if you just want to look up your dream job or if you want an idea
of several occupations.
Now that you have come this far, you have one more thing to look
at before you start on your resume. You need to think through
your strengths and weaknesses so that you know the best way to
present yourself on your resume and in your interview, should
you be lucky enough to obtain one.
"The best advice overall is to know thyself," says Richard
Miles, vice president for communications and technology at E-Span
(http://www.espan.com). "Unfortunately
not everybody pays attention to that advice." It's "prudent,"
he says, to examine your strengths and weaknesses. With the average
person staying with one job three to five years, maybe seven at
the most, Miles says it becomes more important to know yourself
so you will remain competitive when you compete with the rest
of the world for that elusive job. "Keeping in touch with
your own talents and skills will obviously help you," Miles
says.
One of the first things you should do is analyze your strengths.
You should think generally at first. In general: are you always
on time? Are you a consistently hard worker? Are you a real people
person? Now it's time to think a little more specifically. Without
listing every single program and job-related skill you have, highlight
the programs or skills you currently use the most or have consistently
used the most throughout your career.
Next you need to list your weaknesses. While it's not quite as
much fun as listing your strengths, finding your weaknesses is
just as important. Employers want to know that you realize you
aren't perfect and they want to know that you are working on your
weak points. Think honestly about your attitude, work ethic, and
personality. This is the perfect place to pinpoint your shyness
as something to work on. Don't just think about the weaknesses
that you can turn into good things (let's face it, workaholics
do their job and do it pretty well if they are doing it all the
time, don't they?). Think about any episodes that former employers
might mention to the company you want to work for.
For folks wanting to find their strengths and weaknesses "by
the book," E-Span offers a lot of help in the way of tests
and articles that will help you determine them. Just look on their
Important Career Information page (http://www/espan.com/docs/).
This E-Span extra includes articles on resumes and interviewing,
personal support information for you, reference articles, book
links, and even salary guides. This is definitely a site to check
out if you want reading material.
If you can't remember all of your strengths and weaknesses, take
a deep breath and start looking for any old resumes you have stored
away. And if you can't find any, jump-start your memory by thinking
about each job you have held. Write down if you received any awards
(Like employee of the month) or if anything happened that would
reflect poorly on you. If nothing stands out, try and remember
the things you would do during an average workday there. This
should lead you to your strengths and weaknesses.
Whether you are still listing strengths and weaknesses for yourself,
including some on your resume or you are preparing for an interview,
don't make the mistake of going too far. You don't have to track
down every single bad day and know what you did wrong every week
while you were employed somewhere. And you don't have to qualify
yourself to be president (in most cases, anyway), so don't try
and list every strength you've ever acquired. Remember that in
some cases this can even reflect poorly on you.
The before-mentioned E-Span Career Companion and Career Briefcase
sections provide a lot of useful information, but there are other
services out there too. JobSource (http://www.jobsource.com/index.html),
among other things, can help you put together past work experiences
and pull out your strengths and weaknesses,. Career Magazine (http://www.careermag.com/)
can help you as well with related articles. You will find long-standing
articles as well as new information posted every day. CareerMagazine
also offers an online discussion area where you can ask questions
and talk with other job seekers. And the magazine provides links
to other Career-Related sites on the web. Another resource you
should check out is the Online Career Center (http://www.occ.com),
which includes for reference several articles that can help the
online job searcher. Many of the major career-related sites will
also include some information, so look in the Directory in the
back of this book and check out the employment section for additional
sites to look at.
Now that you've done your first round of homework, it is time
to start all over again. Get comfortable, pull out a pen or pencil
and a notebook and get ready to start on your resume. Finding
online resume assistance is pretty easy, but whether someone does
all the work for you or you use an automatic resume site, you
still have to know the information.
"One of the basic first steps is to sit down and write or
rewrite your resume," says E-span Marketing manager Barbara
Ruess. This helps you define what you want in a position. "It's
real easy to just start looking in want ads without knowing what
you're looking for," Ruess says.
"One of the basic first steps is to sit down and write or rewrite your resume. It's real easy to just start looking in want ads without knowing what you're looking for."
Some components of a resume are pretty obvious, such as your name,
address, and telephone number, and an e-mail address if you have
one. You also should include job objectives.
Basics aside, you can start plugging in the real information.
This includes work experience, including date and years as well
as locations of all related experience. You also need to include
your education, again with a name and address and the years you
attended. You should also consider skills section so your knowledge
of equipment and any special awards, along with any foreign languages
you might know. You always need to have a References section,
which can be typed on a separate page or at the bottom of your
resume. Make sure to include your reference's name, address, telephone
number and job title.
E-Span offers articles detailing the different types on resume
formats you can use in its documents section (http://www.espan.com/docs/).
One article, called "Resume Formats: Which One Works?"
helps introduce the two basic resume formats: Chronological and
Functional. The main differences between the two formats is that
in a Chronological resume you go in order, including all your
experience in the same order you held the positions. In a Functional
Resume, you are usually trying to show that you have skills that
work for a different job even while you might not have the experience.
The name of the game changes just a little bit if you decide to
post your resume online. Joyce Lain Kennedy, author of the books
Electronic Job Search Revolution and Electronic Resume
Revolution, and a syndicated columnist, includes several tips
for the electronic resume writer in her Tips on Writing an Electronic
Resume article in the E-Span documents section (http://www.espan.com/docs/jklresu.html).
The first tip she addresses is that you have to think in terms
of nouns, not verbs with an electronic resume. These nouns lead
to, in part, your keywords, according to the Infoseek and Your
Personal Net article. When you put your resume online a potential
employer has to have a way to separate your resume from everyone
else's. What they use are known as keywords-words that can be
applications or programs (such as Lotus 1-2-3, Adobe Photoshop,
and so on) you have used or other skills you have (typing speed,
proficiency in languages) that pertain to the job you want.
Keywords words that can be applications or programs (such as Lotus 1-2-3, Adobe Photoshop, and so on) you have used or other skills you have (typing speed, proficiency in languages) that pertain to the job you want.
Ruess calls keywords "buzz words for your industry,"
and says they are extremely important for the person wanting to
post their resume online. "At the beginning you really have
to target what you want to do," she says.
Several career sites on the Web have articles that deal with key
words. One such article that does a good job of explaining their
importance is Career Magazine (http://www.careermag.com/careermag/newsarts/resume/1046.html).
As with your strengths and weaknesses, you also don't want to
go overboard when you're listing your experience or when you are
including keywords in your resume. As Ruess already pointed out,
you have to target your resume toward one profession or career
when you're posting online.
"A lot of people have the tendency to either not provide
enough information or provide too much information," says
Alok Singhania, a vice president for Intellimatch (http://www.intellimatch.com/).
"You have to make sure you don't type in everything. You
just want to have what is relevant information." And relevant
information is information that is pertinent to the job you are
applying for, not every job you have ever held.
"A lot of people have the tendency to either not provide enough information or provide too much information. You have to make sure you don't type in everything. You just want to have what is relevant information."
The Intellimatch site (http://www.intellimatch.com/)
offers a different approach for the job candidate and the employer:
the structured approach. It's different than a keyword search
in that it's more sophisticated and allows far more information
to be included about a candidate. An example of a structured resume
as compared to the regular keyword resume can be drawn between
one word: Pagemaker. With a keyword search, the employer would
just type in the one word: Pagemaker. In a structured approach,
the job seeker would not only enter Pagemaker, but would include
how many years and months they worked with the program, and then
they would go one step further and specify whether they used the
program or created it, among other possibilities. This enables
an employer to look for someone with a specific skill level for
certain programs.
Intellimatch offers the structured approach through their PowerResume,
which enables you to choose to type in programs and other skills
you have or have used. After you chose the programs that apply
to you, another form comes up for you to specify the years you
used the skill or program, and then you can choose exactly how
you used, or created the program, or whether you're an expert.
With an online resume, you have to be more concerned with just
getting the information out there. You don't have to be as concerned
about how your resume looks-that's a tool for print resumes. Instead,
says Ruess, you should be more concerned about the words that
are in the resume-your keywords. And, she says, it is extremely
important for you to include your e-mail address if you are posting
your resume on the Web.
Joyce Kennedy writes, in her Tips on Writing an Electronic Resume,
that you should keep it simple, in design and fonts, as well in
you choice of paper. She writes that you don't necessarily have
to keep to a one-page resume format either. For more details you
can read the article at the address (http://www.espan.com/docs/jlkresu,.html).
A Word to the Wise
You have to decide what is more important to you: allowing people to have access to your address, phone number, and other personal information or your privacy. Remember that anyone can read the information you post on your Web page, and on some of the resume databases, anyone can read your information as well. Some resume services have a privacy option where you can keep your personal information personal. On some of them, you can elect to be connected with a potential employer only after the resume service contacts you and you grant approval.
Some online companies that have resume services only offer help
with the resume itself. Others include posting services, and most
offer a variety of career-related services, including additional
articles. E-Span, mentioned earlier, offers a wide variety of
online services. Other companies, such as About Work (http://www.aboutwork.com),
offer resume services as well. About Work's Resume 1 2 3 actually
enables you to try the chronological and functional resumes so
that you can decide which one works for you. Another site to try
if you want to experiment with resume formats is IGuide (http://www.iguide.com).
IGuide offers three different formats for you to try, all taken
from the two basic formats which were talked about earlier. You
can either print a resume after you use IGuide's Resume Maker
or you put on your home page. Still other organizations have great
services available as well. You need to check with the companies
yourself and find the one (or ones) that is right for you.
If you did your homework and put together all the information
you need for your resume, the only difficulties you should have
with this next step should be with your fingers-from typing so
much. Many of the resume services have their own generic resume
forms. All you have to do is plug in the information.
If you want to use one of the best resources for actually putting
together your resume, try the before-mentioned Intellimatch's
PowerResume (http://www/intellimatch.com/).
Not only can you actually plug in your own information, this powerful
resume service also enables you to choose skills from career areas
(for example, you can choose word processing under Computer-related).
If you weren't sure which keywords to use when you began, don't
worry anymore because by using this service you are, in effect,
choosing the major keywords your resume will have. Intellimatch
is a little different than many of the other resume services and
posting sites in that it enables job seekers and employers use
a structured rather than Keyword search. As mentioned before,
the structured approach allows for more versatility and possibly
a better match between a job seeker and an employer. Intellimatch
doesn't include the only resume service on the Web, but it is
one of the best. Find some other ones to help you compare and
decide for yourself.
Other sites offer resume services as well, including the Online
Career Center, Jobsource, and CareerMagazine. Other sites that
can help you with your resume are E-Span and the Monster Board's
Resume City (http://www.monster.com)
and career-related articles.
The next step after you actually create your resume is to post
it online. You should have already chosen the career site(s) you
wanted to use when you created your resume. Usually, posting is
automatic. If you use an online form for creating your resume,
you "submit" your resume and it is automatically incorporated
in the database. Sometimes, however, you might want to create
your resume offline.
If this is the case, all you have to do is use a word processing
file and create your resume and then either upload or copy it
into the space provided on a page. For example, Intellimatch's
Two Minute Resume is mostly comprised of the resume information
that you copy into the box provided on the page. Intellimatch
then saves the text and allows that text to be searched in its
database.
Okay, you've finished creating and posting your resume, or you
have decided you want to look through job listings to get an idea
of what is out there. Now the real fun begins-the job search itself.
You can go about the big event one of a couple of ways: you can
look for a job through certain lists or pages that list jobs available
in a certain field, such as business. Or you can go all the way
and scroll down the all-encompassing lists. How you want to do
it is up to you. You can even do both if you prefer.
Many of the sites that will display your resume also include job
databases. You can look through these to find possible positions.
All you have to do is connect to the database through that site's
home page. Intellimatch, CareerMagazine, the Online Career Center,
Jobcenter, and About Work all have databases you can search. The
Online Career Center includes posted jobs from thousands of major
companies, including Kraft, AT&T and the CIA, among others.
Another site to check out it you want to look at high profile
companies is America's Employers (http://www.americasemployers.com/),
a company originating from the offline company Career Relocation
Corporation of America. Employers is one of the only companies
on the Web made up of professionals from the offline world of
job searching and relocation services. The company includes a
section of Advertised positions for jobs listed by companies.
They also have company databases so that you can search for companies
by industry location or name. You can even send your resume to
recruiting firms. The site has a guided tour that can get you
started.
The Monster Board is another site that includes a lot of information.
But one of its biggest draws is its jobs database of over 48,
000 job listings.
You should also look through newspaper listings. You can look
nationally and locally by checking the Employment Classifieds
by state (http://www.ypn.com/topic/880.html),
which can connect you to most newspapers within any given state.
You can also look in the online newspapers (http://hindin.co.nz/hcl/pridepnt/e-papers.htm)
for links to newspapers in every state. America's Job bank (http://www.ajb.dni.us/)
holds more than 250,000 national listings. The Best Jobs in the
USA Today database (http://bestjobsusa.com) can help you locate jobs. You can also try the JobSmart NewspaperAds
(http://jobsmart.org/adjobs/newspap/htm)
section for links to other major newspapers across the nation.
If you would like to concentrate your search by looking in areas
specific to your future profession, there are several sites out
there that cater to the specialized job searcher. This sometimes
is the best route to go if you are in a highly competitive market
or if your profession has significantly different hiring or employment
practices than the average worker. The business world, for example,
is very competitive, so posting your resume or spending hours
searching through other databases that don't focus on business-related
jobs won't be of much use to you.
If you don't want to spend as much time going through job databases
or if you would like to add more to your job search, you could
try another route to getting the job. You might send your resume
through the mail to a company's human resource department. Or
you could send a copy of your e-mail electronically to a company
you're interested in. If you are unsure of where to send your
resume, you can look up many companies online, either through
their own Web site or through a company database, like Hoover's
Company Capsule (http://www.aboutwork.com/hoovers/top).
Another extra of the About Work site is that Hoover's capsule
includes a company's address, phone number, fax number, Web site
address, and names of the folks you need to get hold of if you
want to apply for a job. Other sites include Company profile information,
including America's Employers and Jobsource.
You can easily find many companies on the Internet by looking
in the Big Yellow Book (http://s11.bigyellow.com/home_infobutton.html),
which is located on many of the search engines. Another site you
should look at is Infoseek's Company Profiles and Company Homepages.
Located on the Infoseek home page, these resources enables you
to type in a company name and location and Infoseek will look
up the company and either find a profile or its Web page for you.
The first thing you should consider if you're going to send your
resume to a company electronically is a cover letter to go along
with your resume. If you haven't already written a cover letter
or you're not sure if yours is written correctly, you should check
out some sites online to give your letter a boost. One site to
look at first should be CareerCity's cover letter link (http://www.careercity.com).
At this point, the interview is probably the most stressful part
of your job search left. But you can find online help to get you
through the big event. One article that should help you is another
of E-Span's articles, called "Different Type of Interviews
Require Different Strategies." The article summarizes the
three basic interview techniques (screening, employment decision,
and confirmation) and provides helpful hints about making through
each type of interview. For example, the article points out that
during a screening interview and throughout the interviewing process,
you should reflect enthusiasm, regardless of the position of the
person interviewing you. "Even if you are speaking to an
entry level human resources clerk, this person has the power to
stop the interview process, or continue your candidacy to the
next step," states the article. You might also consider asking
for an overview of the position and what it entails. Another point-refrain
from speaking about any salary or benefit questions.
After you complete an interview, you should not only send a thank
you note, you should keep looking until you're offered a position.
If you want some help on writing a thank you letter, look at the
Student Center's "How to Write a Thank You Letter (http://studentcenter.com/brief/thank/thank.html).
No matter where your job search leads, you don't ever have to worry about finding the information you need if you look on the Web. The sites listed in this article are a great place to start; however, many more sites await you in your quest for a career.
