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Monique I. Cuvelier
Cyber-Sleuthing Boosts Online Job Hunting
Job-hunting two years ago was like fishing in a fishbowl. Nobody could miss. The most many people had to do was open their inbox and wait for the fat salary offers to start rolling in. The Internet was simply the best way to reel in the maximum number of opportunities with minimum effort.
Sadly, those days are over now. This is especially sore news to anyone who knows it’s easier to conduct an online job hunt than to wait for recruiters to call, hunt through the Sunday papers, and mail off laboriously typed resumes, only to receive a "no thanks" form letter weeks later.
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The truth is the market has tightened up since the days when the low-effort Web-based tactic worked. The Department of Labor recently announced the national unemployment rate has jumped to 4.9 percent, its highest level in nearly four years.
The bad news is job hunters still have to pull out their ties and polish their wingtips for face-to-face combat just as in pre-Internet days. And they’ll have to blow the dust off that pack of linen stock for hard copies of the resume.
That’s no excuse to lay off using the Web for finding work, however. A survey of HR professionals from the Society of Human Resource Management says two-thirds placed ads in Sunday newspapers while nearly 40 percent relied on Internet job postings as well. Plus, Forrester Research says online recruitment will grow to $7.1 billion by 2005.
The good news is that anyone who uses the Net to bolster the job search still has an edge over those who don’t. In fact, the average job seeker can’t risk looking for work without a little help from the Web.
"The Internet has gone way past merely posting a resume to a job site and waiting for a call," says Pat Mooney, who has given seminars in Los Angeles on how to use the Web to find a job since the early days of the tech revolution. He says that while people who detest traditional career searches can no longer use the Web as a crutch, it is still a powerful resource for building contacts, spreading the word about themselves, and researching potential companies.
"An applicant is dead in the water if he or she asks during an interview, ‘What is that you guys do here?’" Mooney says. That person would have died in vain, he says, considering how much information job seekers can cull from the Web. Everything from key contacts at companies to insider news to capturing a feel for company culture is simply a matter of sleuthing.
He recommends digging up contacts and job listings at company home pages and business directories such as Hoover's Online. Potential employees can also flaunt details from stock reports and other financial data pulled from such sites as 411 Stocks and Market Guide.
For more in-depth information about a company and its leaders, he says to take advantage of some of the same tools members of the media use, such as PR Newswire and BusinessWire. Both of these services provide searchable databases of press releases from companies, in which company bigwigs are listed along with their contact information.
"The local chamber of commerce Web site is often overlooked," adds Sandra Grabczynski, director of employer development for Ann Arbor, Mich.-based CareerSite and author of "A Corporate Guide To College Recruiting." She recommends using this site for a list of local companies that may be hiring, plus meaty news about layoffs and job shifts. Change within a company often signifies new opportunities for outsiders.
Using the Web for digging up news on potential employers not only gives job seekers an idea of where to work, but also lends them valuable background on the company. Anyone who has done their homework before writing a cover letter puts them at the top of the stack.
"If I can personalize the cover letter when I get to the interview, the manager and I already have a dialogue," says Mooney. "Who do you think they are going to remember after the interview?"
Ana Burkhart agrees. As an American living in Hong Kong and looking for English-speaking public relations jobs, she uses the Web to snake around the human resources departments that traditionally filter through resumes and target key contacts. She says she thinks her online research "shows perseverance and cleverness."
"When I moved to Hong Kong, I looked up all the agencies I wanted to work for and sent e-mails to influential people who were key decision makers---forget human resources," she says. "I asked to meet them to learn more about the company and to see what kind of opportunities were available."
Her technique was also a sneaky way of building up golden contacts without actually knowing influential people. With a few names in hand, she was in a better position to land a job through a referral, widely considered the best way to move into a company. Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, for example, recently found that the recruitment method most likely to produce long-term employees was "inside sources." The reason being employees don't want to refer someone who will make them look bad, so this compels employers to pay special attention to their personal recommendations.
Starting from scratch, Burkhart created a network of people who were in a position to help her find work. "I asked my contacts to refer my resume to their contacts," she says. "Once the introduction has been made, I e-mail the referral, a person I never met." In the end, she got to know people from every single company she contacted.
Just making contacts and learning about businesses won’t land anyone a position. The tough job of actually getting through the company’s doors requires charm, qualifications, and personal interaction. But there are more than 33,000 career-specific sites on the Internet today. With their help, anyone can boost their chances of getting the perfect gig with a little directed cyber-sleuthing.
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