Comment These sites are brutal (Score 2, Informative) 538
I was laid off from my Sys. Admin. job early last May. These online job sites are absolutely brutal for looking for work, you need to think, for every job that is posted on them, they are probably literally thousands of people applying, it's almost inpossible to stand out. They make applying to a positions to easy, anyone with 1/10th the necessary qualifications/experience can apply at a mouseclick. After 7 months of unemployment, I eventually got picked out of one for my online resume, and am now in a position I am much happier with. But I think I picked up a few tips during my ordeal:
i) Since there are so many applicant's out there, most resume's are likely OCR'ed before a pair of real human eyes ever gazes upon them, they're looking for acronyms, so styff it with everything you know (PHP, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Apache, etc.).
ii) Brute force is the way to go, you really need to fire tons of them out to increase your chances, so apply to anything that even looks remotely interesting, everyone else does, you will drown in numbers if you don't.
iii) Don't let online job boards be your only method of searching, networking is still way better, by that I mean contacts you've made in past positions and meeting with recruiters. Recruiters may seem like a waste of time, but I do think the one that set me up here was definately worth my time, they spent time getting to know me, and are valuable contacts now should I or someone I know be looking for a new position.
i) Since there are so many applicant's out there, most resume's are likely OCR'ed before a pair of real human eyes ever gazes upon them, they're looking for acronyms, so styff it with everything you know (PHP, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Apache, etc.).
ii) Brute force is the way to go, you really need to fire tons of them out to increase your chances, so apply to anything that even looks remotely interesting, everyone else does, you will drown in numbers if you don't.
iii) Don't let online job boards be your only method of searching, networking is still way better, by that I mean contacts you've made in past positions and meeting with recruiters. Recruiters may seem like a waste of time, but I do think the one that set me up here was definately worth my time, they spent time getting to know me, and are valuable contacts now should I or someone I know be looking for a new position.
