How To Apply For Jobs On The Internet

It wasn’t that many years ago that important data was saved on floppy discs, CRT monitors were the norm and hard drive capacity was measured in megabytes. How quickly times have changed. Not only has the technology changed, it has also transformed how companies and recruiters advertise for vacant positions and how they are applied to. As few as four years ago jobs advertised in papers were often very vague because of the cost of print advertising and applying to these positions required a stamp and envelop. Today, job boards allow more than enough space for employers and recruiters to describe the opportunity and qualifications in as much detail as required. Submitting a resume or application is now almost immediate, you can cut and paste into a predesigned form, attach your document to an email of if you are a member of a job board you can log in and submit your resume over the internet.

On the surface all this change may seem like a good thing and for the most part it is, however, there is a downside. Employers and recruiters can now be flooded with resumes of unqualified individuals hoping that their resume will get noticed. This means too many resumes and insufficient time to look at them all, resulting in possible good candidates being missed, recruiters not responding to applicants and applicants getting frustrated. So what can we do to minimize the downside? Here are some suggestions.

Visa Sponsorships Are Few And Far Between - Today most jobs can be filled adequately with Canadian and US candidates. There are exceptions in the health and information technology sectors but even that is changing today. Read the job description carefully, if the skills are fairly generic and the position doesn’t require travel or moving to foreign locations or the ability to speak in a foreign tongue then it’s a safe bet that sponsorship will probably not be offered.

Local Candidates Only - As in the above scenario, the recruiter or employer expects to find many qualified candidates that are local, so pass this one by.

Are You Qualified? - In most ads there are “must haves” and “desirables”. If you don’t meet the “must haves” in the experience, skills or education requirements then don’t apply. If some of the requirements are desirable and you meet all the other qualifications then give it a shot.

Follow The Instructions - As previously mentioned, resumes can be sent via email as an attachment, through job boards and/or via the recruiter’s website. Just be sure to follow the instructions to the letter. Failure to do this may send the message that you can’t follow directions.

Apply Once And Only Once - Recruiters will often use multiple job boards to post for positions. If you see the same job posted twice resist the urge to apply again. If you see another position with that recruiter, again, resist the urge to resubmit your resume. Bombarding an employer or recruiter with your resume says “I’m desperate”. A good resume will be considered and filed for future reference.

“Rich text” and “Plain text” - Have your resume ready to send in either format. Most job boards do not recognize the finer points of “Word”, so your bullets, bolding and underlines could look like early Greek when you paste your resume. So make one using the standard keyboard characters and you’ll save a lot of work later.

Follow these suggestions and make applying for a job on the internet better for everyone. Paradigm Employment Coaching can help you with your job search.


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