Build a Strong Online Presence to Compliment Your Job Search Efforts
Building a comprehensive online presence for yourself may be the overriding factor that places you light-years beyond your competition when it comes to job search. Consider the busy schedules of human resource managers and small business owners. The potential hires that will most likely stand-out in their minds and quite possibly get the call for an interview are those maintaining an internet presence on sites such as Facebook, Friendster, Linkdin, Twitter and so forth.
Just like you, most managers would rather do things the easy way. If they are able to type a person’s name in Google and a wealth of information returns in a few microseconds, they will choose this course of research over wading through stacks of applications and resumes. If you make your face, unique attributes and skill-set readily available online, you will be ahead of the game. The idea here is to introduce you to prospective employers without ever meeting them. By the time you get the phone call for an interview, they will already know volumes about you, your positive job attributes and character.
Be sure to create profiles and content that is professional, interesting and well-written. Have a friend or two check your work and become your chief editor. You can also do more harm than good if only one less-than-complementary aspect about you is revealed. Put aside your need to be cool and blend in with the rest of your friends by posting derogatory comments or compromised photos. If you post a photo of you and your friends doing the city in an all-nighter, with beer bottles scattered throughout the back seat of your vehicle, you are probably going to be overlooked by most employment managers. Remember, the name of the game is to get that great job.
An even more powerful approach, and one normally overlooked by many job seekers, is to build your own website. There are plenty of free website hosting options out there. Do a few Google searches for “free website,” you’ll be surprised at all the options available! While free is always good, if you can afford it, a custom domain of your own and paid hosting will present an even more serious potential employee to those considering you as a part of their organization.
The most respected approach here is to actually purchase a domain name using your actual name, (first and last) or a derivative thereof. This will help your site to be found by prospective employers when doing a Google search. Consider an extension domain with your full name contained within it if your name is common and already taken. An example of such may be johnsmithresume.com, johnsmithprofile.com or another variable. Strive for the .com domains as much as possible as they are the most desirable.
There are many quick-build website services out there to create a cookie-cutter site in no time. Again, be sure to create good content and have a friend edit your writing and work as it is virtually impossible for the writer to edit his or her own material.
The last consideration is getting a few links to your site. Actually, the more the better! This will cause the search engines to find your site and do what is called “spider it.” If it does not have links pointing to it, it may never come up for that busy human resource manager to see. Have all of your friends place links to your site from their social networking, or other internet pages.
It’s a tough job market out there and you need all the help you can cultivate to position yourself above the rest of the crowd. Be sure to have a strong online presence and if you are able, get out there and build your own website. It may mean the difference between sitting at that desk at home searching or actually obtaining that ideal work situation.
Joseph Nino Rudolph
