By Shanna Kemp, CCM, CPRW
I recently began working under contract with a recruiting firm and had an opportunity to view candidate résumés from “the other side” of an online job board as an employer. Wow! Talk about an eye-opener
I learned so much about how job boards work (and don’t) and what employers see (and can’t) and how I could help my clients avoid some major pitfalls of posting, that it gave me some great insight and changed some of the advice I offer clients posting résumés online.
Now, before I begin offering advice, please understand that there are hundreds of job boards out there and I have had access to three of them: monster.com, headhunter.net and flipdog.com, so my range of experience in no way speaks to every board out there or even universally to all three of these, but I would like to point out some things that candidates (that’s you) can do to optimize their visibility online that should work pretty much across the net.
First and foremost – check your email daily. If you cannot access your email on a daily basis, then include a note on your online résumé, requesting employers call rather than email. This won’t always work, but it may help. I cannot count the number of potential candidates I contacted who simply never emailed or called back. As a recruiter, I assume that if the candidate doesn’t call or email in return, they are no longer interested in employment and put them on my “uninterested” list. Also, many recruiters are searching for candidates to fill a position that is currently open and being interviewed for… if you don’t respond quickly, someone else will and they will be hired while you are still pounding the pavement.. er..modem.
Second suggestion – update your résumé weekly. I know, I know, what a pain – but do you know how many people are posting their résumés on the Internet? I was trained to search only for candidates who had posted in the past 24 hours first (and I always found several) then work my way back to a week. I only had to go back farther than that once and it was for a very specialized, difficult to find, type of position. That sent me back two weeks. Keep track of where your résumé is and go remove and re-add or update it once a week. Takes a little time and dedication, but isn’t the perfect job worth the effort?
Third piece of advice – choose an appropriate title. Many job boards, including monster.com allow you to title your résumé. As an employer or recruiter on the search end, the initial information I see in the list of “found” résumés is name, salary requested and résumé title. I ignore all résumés that don’t seem relevant immediately – and if I find someone better first, never go back. Recruiters and HR professionals are not cold and heartless people who don’t care about you – they simply don’t have time to read every résumé titled “best employee in the world!” when they are looking for CPA with an MBA. If your choice was “best employee” or “Finance Guru – CPA, MBA” Who would you pick?
Fourth and final – check your email and return your phone calls. Oh, did I say that already? Well, it bears repeating. If you are using the Internet at work – which I certainly hope isn’t against company policy in your office – then get a free, online email address. Yahoo.com and Mail.com are two of my favorites (they send and receive attachments and are fairly reliable) and can be accessed from any location. Worst case scenario you have to drive to your local library to log on and check your email. Check your voice mail at least once during the day. I know more than one person who missed out on a great opportunity because they were “too busy” to call back right away. If you are that busy, then I suppose you don’t need the job anyway – right? Return your calls.
By following this advice when posting your résumé online, you can optimize your visibility, accessibility and employability fairly easily and increase your chances of finding employment on the Internet.