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Re: Job search strategies: the personal marketing/jobhuntin' webpage
Subject:Re: Job search strategies: the personal marketing/jobhuntin' webpage From:Tom Murrell <trmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 7 Nov 2001 05:46:53 -0800 (PST)
--- "Jane S." <judydh -at- total -dot- net> wrote:
>
> Anyway, OT: I'm having a brainfreeze on what the possibilities for this
> space could be, and how to promote it so that it can do some work for me.
> Realistically speaking, aside from Monster and HotJobs, do employers ever go
> out there and find out who's available and contact them from their profile
> pages on services like ours, or through search engines? For instance, try
> this search on Google: technical writer resume <your city>.
Lately, I've been getting one to two contacts a month from headhunters who have
found my resume on my web site (address in my sig). Since I'm not even looking,
I have to assume that at least the recruiters at agencies do web searches such
as the one you describe above. Do employers directly search the web for
candidates? If I base an answer on my experience alone, I would have to say No,
but despite the fact that I'm practically perfect I am not statistically valid.
<g>
> Where I have noticed people putting their personal URLs on their postings to
> this group, I've usually seen a nicely-laid-out resume. Have you ever seen,
> or created, a personal site that pushed the envelope:
> -that made you stand out to employers and recruiters seeking resumes and
> samples
Either what I do stands out or (more likely) I have a skill mix that matches
one or more openings they have. I don't think I'm pushing any envelopes. In
truth, I think mine is a rather plane web site. Personally, I don't think
flashy/splashy does anything good for you. Flashy resumes in the days before
web sites didn't help, and I don't think flashy web sites help either.
> -that helped get attention for jobs that aren't necessarily the usual fare
Haven't seen this at all. None of the positions I've been contacted about have
been remarkable in any way, which is why I haven't pursued them. Since I'm
happy where I am and with what I'm doing, it would take something remarkable to
interest me, but I'm not seeing that on offer.
> -that you could use for different jobs such as business analysis or software
> usability design
> -that people could, with a little more effort on your part, visit for
> reference if they needed help of a certain kind
> -any other possibilities?
I can see one developing pages on one's vanity site to do both. No reason that
you can't use such pages both to show off your capabilities and provide useful
information for those who wander by. I have some information I developed about
W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative that I developed for my employer posted. I
haven't gotten any specific feedback from browsers as to whether it was useful
to them or not. From my perspective it serves to show a little of my
capabilities, but then so does the whole site.
Still, and I can't stress this enough, I didn't set up my pages to be a
marketing tool for my services. I did it for the hell of it. I put things up
there when I want, and I put up what I want...and I see that I've not done
anything with it in some months, and I probably should do something about that.
__________________________________________________
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Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com
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