What Should I Know About Online Job Listings?

Technological advances have drastically changed the human resources industry. Online job listings have made job hunts more efficient and faster, and they allow access to a much wider job pool. However, as with all new processes and systems, there is a learning curve for acquiring a job via online job listings.

Prior to the advent of the internet, job seekers perused newspaper classifieds and utilized networking as a main source to acquire a position. Though networking remains a viable option for seeking career contacts, newspapers have added online job listings, and many companies have created cyber job boards. Learning to navigate these online job listings and preparing resumes in the appropriate format are the keys to obtaining a job in this manner.

Before the internet, resumes were printed on high-quality paper and mailed to prospective employers via the postal system. Today, resume layouts may resemble the traditional "snail mail" styles, but they must be converted to a few different formats. One format should be created for email attachments, one for uploading a resume to a job board, and another to be printed on high quality paper just as the traditional resumes were. Several copies of the printed resumes should be placed in a portfolio for interviews.

The master resume used for email attachments must be created with popular business software such as Microsoft Word to ensure attachments can be easily opened by recipients. Pay attention to any format requests. Some companies request very specific formats, and they'll delete your resume if the format is off and they can't view it. Though many job seekers have a clear idea of the industry and career they’d like to focus on, it’s best to select at least three industries and prepare a resume version specifically for each.

Next, a copy of the master resumes should be converted to text. Some employers request resumes be emailed, some faxed, and others require job seekers to upload resumes to either their company site or to a job board they’re using to host the employment ads. The majority of the time, the upload function will not support formatting used in the various word processing programs. Creating a text version ahead of time will save the painstaking adjustments required to clean the resume up each time it is uploaded.

Customization is vital to obtaining jobs from online job postings. Thousands of job seekers may be viewing the same ads, so it’s important to tweak the cover letter by inserting a unique sentence or two in the opening paragraph that specifically ties to the job posting and the company advertising. Pull a few keywords for the employment ad as well. This is especially beneficial when uploading a resume to a job board, as a filtering program may automatically seek phrases and words included in your resume that fit the job description. The more skills associated with the keywords that are listed on a resume, the higher the resume jumps up on the list.

To be ultra efficient, select an email program that allows templates such as Microsoft Outlook. Paste the standard email verbiage in the body, attach a resume, and save as a template to the desktop. If an interesting job posting is spied, click the email template from the desktop, insert the address and any keywords or phrases that would be appropriate, then hit send. The email program never even has to be opened.