Graduate Advice - Watch Out For Cyber-space!
Why candidates need sound advice on how to find a job online.
There are over 2,000 registered job boards in the UK, with around 10 million CVs registered with them, yet many job-hunters simply don't know where to start when trying to find a job online. Others, after countless unsuccessful registrations and job applications, are left wondering if Internet job boards are simply black holes into which their precious CV simply disappears without trace.
In her latest careers guide, Surf Your Way To Your Next New Job - Your Free Guide To Finding A Great Job Online, Janet Davies draws on her extensive knowledge of the online recruitment marketplace to offer job-seekers her insider tips on how not to commit 'career cyber-cide'.
'In the space of around 18 months, we've gone from a sellers market where good candidates were in short supply, and anxiously fought over by employers and recruiters alike, to a buyers market where those who have a job count themselves lucky,' says Davies. Her book shows job-hunters exactly how to use the internet to research the best places to find great career opportunities, uncover hidden recruitment gems, and how to approach CV writing and registration to help recruiters actually find them among thousands of other candidates. Even making sure that your CV contains the right key words will turn your CV from cyber-dross into cyber-gold!
For example, a study by the University of Hertfordshire showed that certain words and phrases used in CVs had an influence in determining which candidates were actually short-listed for an interview. Their research revealed that the top words to include in your CV were: achievement, active, developed, evidence, experience, impact, individual, involved, planning and transferable skills. Davies advises candidates that: 'It simply isn't enough these days to make a basic list of dates and duties on your CV and hope someone will pick you out as a shining star. Employers want to know that the salary and benefits that they are offering will attract candidates that know how to create a real return on the investment being made in them.'
Personal information safety and identity fraud are also factors that worry and sometimes put prospective job seekers off storing their CV online. This potentially means missing out on being considered for suitable roles so Davies urges candidates to observe some basic common sense rules: don't put your full home address on your CV, and definitely not your National Insurance number.
Fierce competition between advertisers for the top slots on search engines creates yet more black holes for the inexperienced online job seeker to fall into. Davies says: 'There are so many of these sites that people often miss the very one that may have just the right job for them because it doesn't come up on the first page of their search. Or, they don't realise that the company they want to work for actually has its own career microsite such as Tesco, British Gas and 3 Mobile. Finding a new job is tough at the moment but not impossible. The job-hunters that do their research well, network like mad, and put the effort in will be the ones that are more likely to succeed.'
Davies singles out websites such as Womenintechnology and Seasonworkers for praise for their ease of use, quality content and value to the user. She is less than enthusiastic however, about the Government's Jobcentre Plus database online. 'Even before everyone got into a flap in this recession about how ill equipped Jobcentres were to deal with white-collar workers, this was a pretty poor database. It's cumbersome to use, it doesn't carry any useful information about employers, you can't set up any job alerts, and the search result quality is really bad.'
The Surf Your Way To Your Next New Job guide can be downloaded free from the newlifenetwork.co.uk website now:
http://www.newlifenetwork.co.uk/free-guide-to-job-hunting-online-surf-your-
way-to-your-next-job-i601859.html
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