You have carefully crafted your resume, reading all the tips and compiling your information before editing and polishing your presentation to be the best snapshot of the assets you bring to the hiring interview. How do you get that resume distributed so it gets read? It isn’t enough to go through the paper and send envelopes out to any address you find, hoping you get a response. A lot of companies will now ask you to apply online even though they advertise in that newspaper.
It’s a good idea to learn how to work with online applications and attach your resume electronically. This is pretty much standard, and not knowing how to do it limits you. It’s also a good job skill so you don’t have an excuse for ignoring that whole technology thing.
The next step after writing a resume – distribution – trips a lot of job-seekers up. They don’t really know how to distribute their resume and aren’t honestly aware of all the potential openings available to them. When you employ a hit-or-miss method to looking for a job, you are going to miss a lot of the job openings in your field. A “resume blast” indiscriminately blanketing the job market often is ignored or seen as spam.
If you are serious about distributing your resume effectively, consider working with a recruiter. This is a professional whose career is connecting companies and potential employees. They know exactly how to get your resume into the hands of someone who will want to call you in for an interview. Recruiters often specialize in certain industries or areas. You can do the research yourself, hoping you find the right match, or you can do this:
Professional Resume Services can connect you with the recruiters who fit your search. Instead of that resume blast or scattered attempts, the database of almost 16,000 recruiters is searched for the best options for you. This database is updated quarterly and has major recruiting firms, contingency and retained recruiters, and more. Once the recruiter is identified, a targeted letter in PDF and MSWord format is sent to each one. Then you get an Excel file with the contact information for every recruiter your resume was sent to.
That’s a lot more effective than circling want ads and hoping you find a job.