Online Career Tips

One of the most overlooked activities in searching for a job is creating personal connections with recruiters. You can accomplish this by calling or sending an e-mail directly to a recruiter, showing you’re interested in a position. Do it within a day after you apply for a job on the company’s Web site. It greatly increases the chance that your resume will be reviewed and that you’ll get called in for a job interview. Don’t forget to mark down you who you contacted and when. And for an extra step, if the company has a twitter feed, follow them to see if there are any updates or changes in the company.

[How to Get Noticed: 5 Tips to Stand Out in Your Job Search]

By: J. Mason
Online Career Tips Staff

It’s nerve wracking putting yourself out there during a job hunt. Most of the time you’re submitting your resume online and patiently waiting for a reply, and sometimes you never get one. If you’ve had a couple no replies it can really wear on your confidence level. So, even it out by having a support group by your side.

[related: Choose Your References Wisely]

Something as simple as a code word through text with your good friend or significant other. Say you’ve had a bad day and the job search was a flop, the word can be a reminder to keep your head up. Or you can be more constructive. If what you’ve been doing isn’t working perhaps try dusting off some old contacts or old co-workers. Ask them if they’ve heard about any potential openings, or networking sites you can join. The motivation from the support can really help things turn around.

[related: Find a Great Career Match by Entering in the Skills You Have]

Just think, you tend to work harder when you’re in a content or happy place. Don’t let yourself dwell on things that didn’t work on, instead use each experience as a stepping stone to something different and potentially better.

By: J. Mason
Online Career Tips Staff 

While you’re busting your hump to get your resume seen, you may be getting reviewed by potential employers you didn’t even know about. If you have an online presence on places liked LinkedIn and Facebook you’ll want to make sure your “working” traits and skills are portrayed tactfully, and with lots of SEO.

[5 Tips for Improving Your Visibility on LinkedIn]

Not familiar with the term SEO, well you should be. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It includes things like keywords, metatags, the title of a page, description and more. This is how search engines find you things when you do a simple search on places like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The higher items appear on the page, the more relevant they are to the search. If a potential employer enters terms looking for someone with IT experience, specifically with Microsoft CRM integration then the results they get will vary based on the profiles on the site. When you write out your resume and profile make sure to include “hot words”, items that will be picked up in a skim. Since people don’t read the full extent of a page, they skim it, they’ll be looking for certain words.

To make yourself stand out from the rest of hungry job hunters do some research on terms for your industry. Try integrating key terms that give a better idea of the work you do, while making you more visible to the employment recruiters out there.

[related: Don't Hurt Your Job Search By Being Passive]