Pounding the Internet Pavement

If, like me, you are pounding the Internet pavement in search of a contract position, you need to make yourself look current. Here is my list of how to market yourself as an active contract candidate:

--Make sure your excellent resume is posted on the major job boards.

--Visit the job boards frequently (even if you receive email alerts), and read the descriptions of positions in your field of expertise. Look for trends in wording that describe your qualifications. Compare them with the wording in your resume and update your resume as needed.

--Since you are visiting the major job boards regularly, update your resume frequently so that its "posted" date is current.

--Email or upload your resume to recruiting companies specializing in placements in your field of expertise. My understanding is that recruiters will look for candidates in their own databases before posting an opportunity to a job board. Therefore this tip: Visit the recruiting company website that has posted an opportunity similar to what you are looking for. Be selective, but if you like the feel of the agency, add your resume to their database, or send an introductory email to the recruiter who has posted the position. I try to add my resume to several recruiting agency databases each week.

--If you receive an email regarding a position for which you are not a fit, respond to the recruiter, thanking her and briefly explain why the position is not a fit, such as: "I do not have C++ experience," or "I am not able to relocate to (the city named in the opportunity)." Always mention that you would appreciate being contacted with any other appropriate opportunities, and offer to send a current copy of your resume. As with any other act of professionalism, it will be remembered and will make you stand out.

Contrast this approach with Resume Blasting - Mistake.

--Next, consider a fully completed LinkedIn profile. I've recently read some articles about the rise of social networking as a recruitment and candidate self-marketing tool.
LinkedIn Sourcing With a Free Account
Does Social Networking = LinkedIn for Most Recruiters?
The 7 Mistakes You’re Probably Making on LinkedIn

--Consider creating a blog. Write about your area of expertise, or use the blog to showcase your talent. Addressing blogging in general, in this article from a couple years ago Kevin Wheeler makes an excellent case for what constitutes a good blog:
What Makes a Talent Blog Good

--If you have highly specialized skills (such as programming languages), also get involved in forums about that skill. Clever recruiters mine specialty application forums looking for candidates they can't find on job boards. Here is an excellent example of that:
WEEKEND REVIEW - Durbin Case Study: How do you use a Blog to Get a Job?

--When you accept a position, you must decide whether to deactivate your resume and profile on the job boards. If you wish to remain a passive candidate, leave your resume activated, but make sure you respond to any recruiters who email you with an opportunity. Doing this is mutually beneficial! Thank the recruiter, briefly describe whether the opportunity would or would not be a good fit (as in the tip above), and state that you are engaged until a specific date. Also state that you will keep his information on file and will be in touch when you are available. Again, your professional courtesy will make you stand out, and in the meantime you create a personal contact list to use when it's time to find your next project!

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Pounding the Pavement, and Résumés

All right. I am job hunting. As a contract technical writer, I am prepared to have to do this from time to time. In fact, the last three Christmas holidays I have been without a project. It's nice to have free time for holiday activities and family, but it's better if such a break can be predicted.

The last two years I have been on projects that were scheduled to extend through or past the holidays, but in each case I was laid off - in 2007 the day before Thanksgiving, and in 2008 on election day. Therefore, in spite of the clearly troubled times in which we currently find ourselves, my attitude is "different new year, same situation." This is how I am personally whistling past the graveyard of the ritual doomsday purveyors (yes, I mean the media).

Anyway, at the moment my attention is on updating my résumé, forwarding it to fruitful-looking recruiter databases, completing my LinkedIn profile and related tasks. Because I forward my résumé in electronic format, and because I am a technical writer, not only must I have a visually appealing document, it must also be able to be machine-read for databases. So the first question is whether to not use tables and columns (which might make electronic scanners unable to glean necessary information). I have opted to design it for visual appeal instead of for the ease of machines.

Some of the online job boards will scan your uploaded résumé and then auto-populate skills and work history fields which you can then edit. I have not seen one do a perfect job of it, so I don't know whether a successful auto-population is a good test of the visual appeal versus machine-readability question. If anyone can provide insight on this, please do post a comment.

Next, I have never included an objective on my résumé, and a review of a few résumé-writing advice sites offer differing opinions on whether to include one.

This article points out that an objective can be useful if you are applying for a specific position at a particular company, but that for a "general use" résumé, an objective may have less value:
Resume Tips and Job Hunting Advice from the Emurse Blog

And here are a couple of interesting things I've read today regarding résumés and job hunting:
Researching Keywords in Employment Ads
What to do if you’re laid off in 2008 recession (post is from January last year)
Resume Design from the OWL at Purdue

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