Way back in 1997, nearly a lifetime ago, 1.2 million job openings were posted to 3500 employment sites online. 66% of HR professionals used the internet as a recruitment tool. Today, there are 1.6 million listings on one job site alone and job search engines number in the tens of thousands. Searching for jobs online has become the norm for anyone with internet access. It’s convenient, it’s easy and it saves you having to trawl through page upon on page of tiny print in an infinite number of newspaper classifieds.
As with all online trends, the online job search industry has spawned a number of experts, all of whom offer essential advice and top tips to ensure that you land the job of your dreams. There are specialists who will help you to spice up your CV, to make it shiny and attractive and get prospective employers so excited that an interview is guaranteed. Others teach you to market yourself so expertly that employers come looking for you rather than the other way round.
There are even widgets and tools available to expedite your search. Job alerts, for example, bring new openings to your attention without you having to look for them. All you have to do is enter a few keywords, specify a category and location, and bingo, new listings are sent to your inbox daily.
Social media networks are another important tool in online job searches. Niche sites mean that your focus is automatically narrowed to include only that which interests you. Networking and building contacts can prove invaluable in the long run. The manner in which you conduct yourself online will leave a lasting impression with your contacts, and can ensure that they think immediately of you when positions open up. You want to make sure that the impression you leave is favourable and doesn’t make them think, “Whatever we do, don’t let’s hire that moron”.
The appeal is that job searching online is convenient and it does save time. It’s also more impersonal somehow and makes it easy to take chances and apply for anything that strikes your fancy, even if you aren’t entirely qualified for it. After all, it costs nothing to send an email, and rejection via email is (usually) easier to handle than rejection over the phone. In much the same way that e-books don’t herald the end of the paperback, online job searches don’t herald the end of the classifieds; they just broaden our horizons, and that’s always a good thing.
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