Job Searching Online For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))

If your last job search took place more than a year ago, you may be shocked at how widespread online job hunting is today. Pam Dixon reckons that between 40 and 80 percent of employers now search for job candidates online, with millions of jobs being posted via company Web pages and online employment databases. If you know how to use it, the Internet is a magnificent tool for learning what jobs are available, in your field or in fields you may wish to explore, in your neck of the woods or across the country in a region you may not mind relocating to--if only there were a job waiting for you.

Job Searching Online for Dummies is a priceless investment in the job hunt process. Dixon explains new job search trends (such as who is likeliest to succeed in an online job search) and which online job search strategies are most effective. She provides job search engines and professional indexes, discusses r sum privacy, and touches on the tricky issue of whether your current boss may see your r sum online. There are also chapters on formatting an electronic r sum , r sum send-out strategies, how to compose an appropriate electronic cover letter, and doing a bit of pre-interview Internet research, too. Dixon then delves into e-mail protocol, contacting the right people, and using online job databases to your best advantage. There's an Internet directory in back, with 63 pages of worthwhile Web sites, and there's a CD, too, compatible with PC and Mac systems, that contains a clickable list of all the URLs in the directory, an ASCII template for a basic electronic r sum , and BBEdit Lite, a freeware text editor (compatible with Mac OS only) for composing HTML.

Job hunting is still exhilarating, scary, and time-consuming, but if you take advantage of the job search techniques the Internet now offers, the process can be far more efficient and effective. You have nothing to lose, except perhaps the right job. --Stephanie Gold