5 online job search tricks

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Now that so much of the job search process happens online, the most common complaint I hear about is the “black hole” -- that mysterious place to which resumes seem to travel from the moment an applicant hits the “send” key.  If you’re involved in a job search where you feel like you repeatedly send out resumes in response to ads and rarely hear back, then it might be time for some new online search techniques.  Try these 5 tricks to shake things up:

Answer questions on Linkedin
Your strongest chance of being hired is to find ways to show off your expertise and build relationships in your field. One easy way to do this is to troll the “Answers” section on LinkedIn and start responding to questions where you think you can be helpful. People whose answers get high ratings show up on a list of experts. Nabbing one of those spots is a terrific way to ensure that people using the site to fill a position will find your profile.

Play around on Twitter, which offers a slew of ways to search for job postings, interact with recruiters in particular fields or geographic locales, and respond to listings. The beauty of job searching on Twitter is that there is a live person on the other end of a Twitter account and you just might be able to attract that person’s attention and engage in conversation.  Job activity tends to be heaviest in web-related fields, but now that Twitter has gone mainstream, jobs are being posted because companies realize that all kinds of people are showing up on the service. Read this post from Mashable.com for some excellent ideas for how to use Twitter in a job search. (For newbies, here's a good overview of Twitter basics.)

Find jobs on employer websites
Ever hunt around a web site unable to find the job listings even though it seems like they should be easy to find? Try this method, which should work with nearly any search engine.

Make sure you are looking in the right place
The Web is so big and fluid that it’s easy to get lost.  Alltop.com is a comprehensive blog directory that makes it simple to find scores of blogs on a particular topic. Scan the “careers” and “jobs” categories, where you’ll be able to decide if a blog is relevant to your search based on its 5 most recent posts; you can also look for blogs that cover your industry. Also check out this comprehensive list (again, from Mashable.com), which includes scores of job-related sites and a one line description of each (Hat tip to Megan Fitzgerald, who blogs at Career By Choice.)

"Key word" your resume
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not a big believer in getting jobs through the blind submission of resumes. Still, if you are going to send yours out for any postings where you don’t also have a personal relationship, you’ll want to give yourself the best chance of being noticed. And since most resumes are digitized and scanned by software for screening, it is vital that your resume contain the key words an employer will be searching for in a given job search. As a starting point, figure out the words your resume should contain by looking at the job description and title given in the posting. But there's more to it than just plugging in those words. Here's some additional things to consider to make sure that you are key word optimized. Keep in mind that it's not just your resume that should pay attention to key words. The same thinking should go into all of your online profiles.