The Online Job Search Checklist

You know it is critical that you maximize your use of online job sites to speed up the potential for finding a job. Simply putting up your resume and not utilizing any of the site's other features might not be good enough in this competitive job climate. Taking advantage of all the free assistance a top quality online job search site offers is smart.

• If you are not yet signed up with one of several high quality job sites, the first step is to set up a free job search account.
  
  
• After signing up for your account, set up your profile filling in all the fields, including and especially current and past job history, skills and qualifications, education, and desired salary, location and job type (e.g., contract, part-time, full-time). Note that in most cases you can set your current job information to private to reveal when you are ready. Also, you will be able to keep your name and address private to be disclosed at your discretion.
  
  
• The good online job sites will offer free resume and cover letter templates, allowing you to customize a number of resumes for each type of job you apply for. All of this information gets saved in your profile for easy follow-up and continuous use, so be sure to set your resumes up. If you need resume assistance, these sites will offer resume writing services for a fee. Alternatively, you could contact EditNY and get a resume edited for as little as $10.
  
  
• After uploading your resume, it is time to start searching for a job in your chosen geographic location. Your search will be saved in your profile for easy access the next time you log in. Another important feature to utilize in order to get the most out of the time you spend on these job search sites is their ability to track the jobs you apply to, including saving the customized cover letter you sent along. So be sure to consistently revisit this information when applying to future job applications.
  
  
• Peruse the job site's career advice in your particular field. This is useful especially when keeping on top of trends and for learning about a new field you are interested in.
  
  
• Career tools should be plentiful on these sites and will include information on expected salary in your chosen field, other benchmarking reports, profiles on specific careers to give a good picture of what the job is like, and much more.
  
  
• Equally important to visit on these sites is their career advice ranging from resumes to cover letters to interview preparation and salary negotiation.
  

Online job search sites are increasingly building themselves as a one-stop shop for job hunting. Employers and recruiters rely on these sites for quality resume searches, so be sure to set up an online job search account and be proactive in searching for employer and recruiter job postings.

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Social Networking: Good for the Job Seeker?

The age of online social networking has arrived and will be here for some time to come. Whether or not it is a truly helpful tool, especially when looking for a job, is a question that needs to be addressed.

The current big three of social networking, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, each serve their own purpose, sort of. Facebook and Myspace are constantly competing with each other to unite old and current classmates and colleagues. Facebook has the more professional interface though. Many companies have taken to these sites as well, utilizing them as a marketing tool. Twitter is still being experimented with by many folks who haven't yet figured out its best purpose. It's fun and easy to add hundreds and thousands of followers on Twitter, but at the end of the day, are these "followers" going to be benefit you? One of the criteria for effectiveness on Twitter is that you add appropriate followers, those interested in your updates.

Other social networking sites that have popped up in recent years include LinkedIn, a professional network of past and current colleagues. If you are in the job market, I would highly recommend setting up a LinkedIn account, as recruiters and employers may look you up as a preliminary background screening. Plaxo is one site I haven't quite figured out yet. They look to be as professional as LinkedIn, however. Actually, they're more of a cross between LinkedIn and Facebook. Then there's Classmates which if you join with a Gold membership, you have just spent money you didn't need to. It's a great site for reconnecting with folks from school but its two biggest competitors are Facebook and Myspace.

If you are in the job market, it makes sense to set up professional networking accounts, as opposed to social networking accounts. So forget Myspace and Facebook, as you don't want your words on someone's wall getting misconstrued by the discerning recruiter. There is enough talent out there that makes it easy to skip to the next candidate, so do not give them a reason. If you already have a Myspace or Facebook account under your real name, then hide the profile or temporarily disable the account. Even if you think your pages are "clean," this is always a subjective point of view. With Twitter, folks don't generally use their real name. If you did do this, however, make your updates private.

I am not denouncing social networking by any means. However, for the purposes of seeking a job, it's more in your best interest to seek out the professional networking sites, as mentioned above.

What do you think?

The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success
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In the Office, Internal Customer Service is Important

When we think of customer service, we associate it with retail stores, service companies and their 800 numbers. In the office, customer service exists in the form of clients. Administrative assistants are on the front line after the receptionist in answering their or their boss' phone and greeting clients in person ahead of a scheduled meeting. However, companies in recent years have placed increased importance on internal customer service as well.

In large corporations, calls to IT and other internal service departments are followed-up with surveys to the caller afterwards asking for response times and call resolution. This practice has significantly increased productivity and streamlined what was once a "call and wait" operation. Now, the administrative assistant has unfreed some of her resources to concentrate on the boss' tasks at hand without constantly having to follow-up on a ticket opened or request submitted.

Do you agree with this?