Job Hunting Basics for the 21st Century

First: Get the Interview -Do Not confuse this with the Interview – a very distinct difference.

Your Friend and Protagonist
Meet the “HR Specialist”. He or she has 500 jobs to fill. And another 500 competitors trying to fill the same job first.
This is the person at the Gate – guarding the door to The Interview – a totally different step yet it is the GOAL of this preliminary step

They have a databases of millions of job candidates like yourself, and they have sophisticated search tools. But their job is still overwhelming – this gives you, The Candidate, an opportunity, an Edge: If you can make their job easier, you can get past rhem to The Interview.

First, remove OBVIOUS Disqualifiers:

• Misspellings: especially keywords and jargon.
• Gaps and Overlaps in your Job History.
• Not working? OK if recent, better yet to have current detailed experience that can be verified with appreciative coworkers.
• Prison Time: If you worked on the “site’s” fire department, show this as a job entry – do not hide it.
• Run on sentences – repetitions – glaring errors

• Learn the Jargon
  • Job Requirement, Job Posting, Job Requisition – all synonyms for what the employer wants: The Job Details
  • Work Culture, Fit – dress code, pecking order, unwritten rules
  • Stop by – we’d like to meet you
    • - before a phone screen a ploy to see your age, identifying scars, scary tattoos, or just to show their boss they’re doing busywork
    • - after the phone screen – go ahead – it’s a good first step
  • Process
    • Fishing, Found your resume, Read your resume, you’re a great fit,
    • Phone screen, “screen”,
    • face-to-face, in-person

  The Tools

  • Dice, Monster, Careerbuilders
    • Keeping one or more resumes current on Dice and/or Monster and LinkedIn kept my phone ringing many times a day and my email queue very full.
    • They didn’t really read your resume – or forgot
      If not eager to relocate, mention it in your profile – still you may want to hide behind voice mail and use email to filter out many desperate recruiters from around the country, until you sure of the location and “fit” of the job.
    • Dice.com and Monster have many interviewing tips and practice tools.
    • Update Frequency
      Even if you don’t change your resume, still re-save it at least weekly on these job boards, So you will stay at the top their list.
  • Linkedin
    • has the additional benefit of networking and sharing professional recommendations. This “prequalifies” a candidate and grabs the attention of the HR person more easily.
      Use them all.

• Search Agents
  The three have “Search Agents” that will automatically email you with new job openings that you can customize. So you can have one for each of your three resumes, location, or other combination.
• Local Business Job Boards:
  These include Qualcomm (or Broadcomm, or Motorola). Each have their own job board that are worth watching. Here is Qualcomm‘s. They have teams of people trying to fill hundreds of job openings in San Diego.

• Communicate quickly with emailed “cover letters”
  • Have a couple stock emails to reply to job opening with. In clude just a few bullet points from your resume.
  • Modify these to best match a few of the particular job requirements to which you respond.

• Next Steps – for another future post, covering

• Interview
  • On time not good enough
  • Tie or not – it’s ridiculous, but go ahead, make ‘em happy
  • Listening speaking, hearing, waiting, timing, verbal ‘catch ball’
  • Starting – First Day and First 90 Days

• for a future post