Answers:
1. FALSE -- Organizations may let days or even
weeks go by before beginning to sort and evaluate responses
to job postings. You don't win extra points for getting yours
in early. Some career coaches even say that your chances
of being seen are better if you wait a week before responding,
after the initial crush of responses. The key point here:
Doing it right (with a thoughtfully tailored cover note,
for instance) is probably more important than doing it fast.
2. FALSE -- While a small percentage of job
seekers do find work by posting their resume, it's best that
you (a) be very selective in where you post, and (b) keep
your expectations low. Most Human Resources departments are
stretched too thin to ever look at those resume postings.
3. FALSE -- Search agents, or alerts, are a
wonderful timesaving feature of most job-posting web sites.
They enable you to enter your search criteria, and have emails
sent to you to indicate when appropriate postings have come
in. If you invest a little time in "tweaking" your
search criteria to the point that the right kinds of postings
are being forwarded to you, you can significantly reduce
your time spent on the internet, and increase the time spent
on more productive and targeted search activities.
4. TRUE -- Posting your resume to big job boards
is unlikely to work for most job seekers. It's best to post
on sites that are more targeted to your industry, profession,
or geography. But, if you're going to post, know that when
employers and recruiters search these sites for resumes,
they often look at them based on how recently they were posted.
Resumes that have sat for a while move to the bottom of the
list, and may not ever be seen. So, resubmit your resume
on a weekly basis (sometimes you can accomplish this by "editing" your
last posted resume -- you can change one character, change
it right back, and resubmit; the effect will be the same
as if you had just posted it for the first time.
5. TRUE -- Never assume that a human being
has actually looked at your resume; internet postings can
yield hundreds or even thousands of responses. Applying a
second time, and then a third time, takes little effort,
and increases your odds that someone will find you when they
dip into the candidate pool over the course of their search.
Allow one to two weeks between responses. Do this even if
you've received an "auto-reply" acknowledgment
of your first application.
6. FALSE -- The universally readable format
is plain (or ASCII) text. If you use Microsoft Word, consider
providing your resume two ways: Paste the text version right
into the body of the email (after the cover letter), and
attach the Word file. In the cover letter, say, "For
your convenience, I'm providing my resume both as inline
text and as a Word file." By the way, NEVER send a blank
email with a cover letter attached; ALWAYS write the cover
letter into the body of the email.
7. FALSE -- Treat each opportunity separately;
it's rare that an organization would retrieve your earlier
response to a different job.
8. TRUE -- My suggestion: Use one "meta-search" site
such as www.wantedjobs.com or www.alljobsearch.com. These
will search multiple big-name and regional sites in one fell
swoop. Supplement these with good industry-specific or function-specific
sites. You won't capture 100% of potential opportunities,
but you'll capture most of them, without burning up all of
your search time.
9. TRUE -- "Key words" are the words
and phrases that employers specify when searching for candidates.
The resumes that score high in "relevancy" are
the ones that will likely be viewed first; these resumes
will have the right words, appearing early in the document.
So, put yourself in the employers' shoes, think about the
words they'll be searching for if they're looking for someone
like you, and make sure those words appear in a "Summary" statement
at the top of your resume.
10. FALSE -- Get yourself together, get dressed,
and get outside for a walk. Then, resolve to limit your time
on the web to a few efficient hours a week, and to use the
rest in targeted, proactive, people-driven activities --
the kinds of activities that will separate you from the sea
of people looking at the same job postings in the same places
every day. Best of luck to you!
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