If I wanted to hire you, could I find you?
If I looked on Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs, perhaps I could; but what if I did not look there, or on any other job board for that matter?
Here is an ugly little truth that jobseekers do not think about.
When a company posts a job description on Monster or searches its database for resumes, it costs money. So, you know what happens? Large companies look for free resumes on the web to save the money they would have spent on job boards and smaller companies that do not have accounts with these job boards, look on the web to find free resumes.
The bottom line is that if your resume is not online, you are doing yourself a disservice.
If you search the web for “free web hosting,” I dare say that you will find plenty of resources for posting your resume (or any other content) online for free.
To be sure, positioning your resume where all recruiters will have free access to it is imperative, yet that is only part of a winning strategy.
Recruiters look for resumes using a series of specialized searches called “searchstrings.” Searchstrings are based on keywords that the Recruiter thinks would be on your resume. For example, a Recruiter looking for a Programmer in Atlanta might visit Google and enter the following searchstring:
intitle:resume programmer education atlanta | GA 678 | 770 | 404 -submit -apply ext:doc | ext:pdf
To explain the searchstring above,
I am looking for documents formatted in Word or PDF that have “resume” as a title with the keywords “programmer” and “education” mentioned in the document. I am also looking for the words Atlanta or GA as that is the preferred location. Furthermore, I added area codes specific to the Atlanta area as well. Why? Candidates often list their phone numbers on their resumes. To see the results of the search above, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/6b23h4 and you will be redirected to a Google search results page.
Now that you know how Recruiters search the web for resumes, why not make it easy for them to find you?
I suggest that you create a Resume Profile page in lieu of a cover letter. What is that? A Resume Profile page is a keyword list a Recruiter can scan to get a quick understanding of what you have to offer. When I was looking for work in 2002, I created an HTML version of my Resume Profile page and placed it online. Today, I am still being contacted by Recruiters who have found my Resume Profile from a Google search.
(See it for yourself: http://jimstroud.com/resume.htm )
The moral of the story is simply this, if you position yourself to be “found,” you will not have look so much. (Smile)
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