Are you planning your job search or expecting to get lucky?

Here is an example of a good plan…

• Get a calendar and journal, and start to document your daily activity. If you don’t track your activity, there is no way for you to make a good decision if you need to change something.
• Make contact with AT LEAST 5 new people a day that have influence on the hiring process. Not through a job ad, but on the phone or in person. This can be done by using services like Jigsaw, Linkedin, Zoominfo, and ResumeSpider. Each has a unique system for building a network.
• Setup job alerts on SimplyHired, Indeed, and Jobster. These services aggregate jobs from multiple boards, which saves you time from scouring hundreds of job boards.
• Go to at least one networking event a week AND meet people. You can find a listing of networking events in your local paper.
• Read one book a week that has a positive influence on your attitude.
• Subscribe to blogs and newsletters that are in your targeted industry or discipline. This is another way to stay connected and know what is going on in your field.

Are you doing these tasks? If not, get out of your rut and start a plan today.

All these activities take work and time, and WILL yield results.

Don’t expect to get lucky like this guy…

Many job boards and resume distribution services, require you to have a text version of your resume.  A text or ASCII formatted resume can add tremendous value to your job search and here is why…

• Text resumes have a higher chance of passing through a spam filter when embedded into an email and not used as an attachment.
• Many employers use automated software to receive and parse resumes into their database.  Text resumes are easily converted and no important keywords in your resume are lost.
• Job board databases are sold to employers so they can search resumes.  A text resume has a higher chance of being found because the data is cleaner versus a Word or PDF document that needs to be electronically translated into searchable data by the job board’s software.

If you simply try to copy & paste the information from a Word document into the text field of a job application, your resume format and spacing will drastically change.  In addition, special formatting symbols, like bullets, will be replaced with unrecognizable symbols.

Here is an easy procedure you can use to create a formatted ASCII text resume from a Microsoft Word resume.

1. Open your resume in MS Word
2. Click on ‘File’ and select ‘Save As’
3. In the ‘Save As’ window, change file type to ‘Plain Text’, and then click the Save button
4. After the File Conversion window appears, change the text encoding to ‘Other encoding’ and ‘US-ASCII’, check-off ‘Allow character substitution’, and then click the OK button

This produces an ASCII text document with proper formatting that you can email or copy & paste into any text field.

We recently received this question…

In today’s market, why would an employer want to pay recruiter fees with the supply of skilled people being so high?

Here was our answer…

Employers may be experts in their niche, but many are not experts at recruiting or finding great employees. Unemployment nationwide is around 5.5%, so it is still difficult for employers to find great employees.

Recruiting requires dedicated people, software, processes, unique tools, and constant training. Most employers are not sophisticated or forward thinking when it comes to recruiting. Therefore, they hire outside or third party recruiters.

While you are searching for great employers, find out if they use outside recruiters or have a dedicated recruiting staff as outlined above. If they do, I would consider them a progressive employer that is strategic thinking and prepared to compete. Otherwise, they will have limited capabilities to recruit and screen-out under-performers. This is important because you will not want to work for an employer with bad leadership and under-performing peers. The result for you will be looking for another job in a year or two.

Read it again. Understanding an employers recruiting methods should be used as a screening mechanism for you to find great employers. It is very important for you to know that you will be working with great people.

Here are more reasons employers use recruiters in ANY economy.

• Employers lack the dedicated resources to have an ongoing recruiting campaign (candidate pipeline), whether they are hiring or not.

• Recruiters provide unbiased third-party input.

• Some employers want confidentiality because they are replacing an employee.

• Most of the time recruiters can find great candidates faster because they are tapped into the marketplace.

• Recruiters may consult with an employer to help them fine-tune a job opening.

• Many employers like a recruiter to help with negotiating compensation.

• The investment may seem costly for an employer, but it is even more costly for an employer to settle for average performers.

Is you resume in the hands of hundreds of recruiters? Read this blog post on why you NEED to get your resume in front of as many recruiters as possible: http://www.resumespiderblog.com/2008/07/09/i-dont-want-to-use-recruiters-in-my-job-search/

At Resume Spider, we hear the following statement often… “I don’t want to use recruiters in my job search!”

My question to you, the job seeker, is why?

It is like you are telling me, “I want to get to the finish line first, as long as I don’t have to run!”

I am not a recruiter, so here is my unbiased response towards this statement…

Get people to work for you for free. Duplicate your time and effort by using MANY recruiters that specialize in your discipline and have connections to decision makers. Furthermore, if you get your resume into the hands of enough recruiters, you will find the ones that have opportunities right now.

Here are more reasons not to eliminate recruiters from your job search…

• Many employers only work with recruiters, which means you will never get access to those jobs unless a recruiter has your resume.
• Executive Search/Recruiting Firms maintain the largest network of un-advertised jobs. This is an obvious reason to get connected to this network and work it aggressively.
• Recruiters are hired by the employer to find the best person for the job and are rewarded financially when this happens. As a result, recruiters are always interviewing great candidates. A common misconception for many job seekers is they believe that recruiters work for them. Knowing this, you need to get yourself in front of hundreds of recruiting professionals. Take advantage of ResumeSpider’s economy-of-scale to make the numbers game work for in your favor. We have thousands of active Executive Search/Recruiting Firms in our network waiting for your resume.
• Recruiting is done nationally, so do not limit yourself to the recruiters in your area. Jobs in your town are constantly filled by recruiters from other cities. But do not worry. Our technology will connect you to any recruiter that has jobs in your area.
• If you have special skills in high demand or have a remarkable work history, some recruiters will proactively market you to potential employers. Remember, recruiters are only paid if a successful hire is made. ResumeSpider’s targeted distribution allows you to get your credentials to the right group of recruiters.
• If you are employed and confidentiality is a concern, recruiters will discretely provide access to opportunities.

I hope this makes sense!