3 Easy Strategies to Boost Your Chances of Getting Noticed When Applying for a Job Online

Getting a job is all about getting noticed. Employers want to find a candidate with the right skills, quickly.

But there's more to it than that. They want to hire somebody they like. And they want to be impressed.

Bear in mind, for every job that's posted online, there can easily be more than 1,000 applicants. If the position is with a highly desirable employer, or it's a really sexy-sounding job, expect the number of applicants to increase exponentially.

If you want your resume to be noticed by recruiters and hiring managers, you need to work a little bit harder than the average applicant. There's no guarantee your resume will be selected - or even reviewed - but there are some easy steps you can take to increase your odds.

First, a note about where your resume goes after you apply online; employers track their open positions and job seekers in something called an Applicant Tracking System. In short, this is a database that manages a company's hiring activities.

These Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS's) use algorithms to match job seekers against job descriptions, then rank the applicants for the recruiter who's reviewing all the applications. Every system uses its own algorithm, so there's no way to know exactly how it will rank you, but suffice it to say that a resume which more closely matches the terminology in a job description will most likely rank higher in the search results. By extension, if you're a recruiter and your time is limited, you'll spend your time reviewing the applicants who have been highly ranked by the ATS against the position, not those with low rankings.

That said, here are some strategies to increase your chances of getting noticed when applying for a job online:

1. Apply early. If you apply within the first couple days the job has opened, it's much easier to stick out – you're competing against fewer job seekers. Hiring managers NEED somebody to fill their open position, and there's a good chance they're putting pressure on the recruiter to find them somebody quickly so they can mitigate the pain of having to do their employee's job as well as their own.

2. Tweak your resume. Be strategic in reviewing the job description; try to understand terminology that the employer may be using. Review the job description for specific verbiage in describing the essential skills, competencies, or tasks required. If your background aligns with the requirements, tweak the terminology in your resume to more closely match, and then upload the tweaked version of your resume. This may influence the system to rank your resume higher.

3. Locate an appropriate contact at the company and send them a note. After you've applied to the position, search through LinkedIn and try to find an appropriate contact at the company to tell them you've applied and about your passion for the role and the company. A LinkedIn premium subscription costs you a few bucks, but gives you great search capability and InMails (direct communications to people you're not connected to), which can be incredibly valuable during the job search. Be strategic about this - try to find the leader of the department you're applying to, or maybe the human resources contact, or somebody else in a key position in the company. Send them an InMail telling them that you have applied to the role (always after - otherwise, they'll direct you to apply online), a line or two as to why you're qualified, and thanking them for their help. I've seen notes like these bubble a candidate to immediate consideration whereas they were previously buried in the results.

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

What to do When Your Employer Finds Out That You Are Looking For a New Job

Here’s the scenario. Your boss asks you if you could step into their office for a quick word. You have no idea why, but you readily agree. As soon as you step into his office, he closes the door, asks you to sit down, and casually asks you, “So, are you happy here?”

“Why?” you ask.

“Because,” he says, “I just heard that you had applied to a similar position at Melvin Motor Company.”

Oh, crud. Now, it all comes rushing back to you. You applied on their website a few weeks back to a tantalizing position at MelMoCo, then spoke briefly with the company recruiter. You’re not quite sure how your boss found out, but it may have something to do with the fact that Fred over in the Operations department used to work there, and somebody called him to ask about you.

It doesn’t really matter how your fat landed in the fire. But now you have to explain to your boss your alleged act of treason.

What do you do?

• Before saying anything else, cool off evaluate your situation. Don’t let your emotions be the spark in what can be an electrically-charged situation. Try to think through your position.

• Apologize for how your manager found out. True, almost nobody tells their manager that they’re looking for a new job, but that can’t help that they probably feel betrayed. So, make sure that they know you regret that they heard about your application through the grapevine rather than from you.

• Turn the conversation into a career discussion. Hopefully, prior to this point you’ve been having meetings with your manager about your career aspirations and your opportunities for personal development, so the groundwork would already be in place. Regardless, something sparked you to look at another role – a new challenge, a promotion opportunity, or some other career factor. Let your boss know you truly enjoy working for him and the company, but that you were looking to stretch yourself in the direction you identified, and would love to continue to do so here. Hopefully, this can be the basis for a constructive conversation about where you’d like your career to go.

• Don’t make any rash statements. Your manager may be looking for a promise that you are going to stay – and he may be desperate enough not to lose you that he’ll toss out some promises of his own (promotions, raises, corner office, etc.). Resist the urge to tell him you’ll stay for eternity, or to beg to keep your job – but make sure that he knows you appreciate the opportunity to work at the company, and that your strong desire is to stay at your current company.

• Prepare for the consequences. Depending upon how deftly you handled the conversation, and how valued you are as an employee in the organization, you could face either the carrot (incentive to stay through career development) or the stick (a stalled career or, worse, fired). Pray for the former, but you may need to accept the latter.

Incidentally, make sure that you document the discussion you have with your manager. Any promises by you – or them – about the future should be honored by both sides, and you don’t want to forget what was said.

One last word about confidentiality. Keeping the interview process mum can be tricky and unreliable, no matter how hard you or a company try to keep things quiet. Besides the gossip mill, other leaks do occur – it’s entirely possible (and not entirely unlikely) that you may run into a coworker at your prospective new employer, interviewing for the same job. And in case this didn’t occur to you, your current employer keeps track of what web sites you visit, so applying to the MelMoCo job portal at work may not be such a great idea.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

4 Easy Hacks To Help Get You Noticed on LinkedIn

Are you actively looking for a job? Would you like to get noticed? Recruiters are combing LinkedIn for people to fill their open positions. Make it easier for them to find you.

Here are four hacks you can use to quickly improve your chances of getting your profile noticed on LinkedIn.

1. Change your name! Not literally - but LinkedIn gives you 40 spaces for your last name. Unless you have a really long surname, use some of that space to advertise who you are. For Example - "John Smith – Mechanical Engineer," or "Lisa Weathers – Project Manager." That way, when a recruiter searches for criteria, and they are looking at a list of names - your credentials will pop off the list.

2. Show your value in your headline! You get 120 characters immediately after your name to tell the world about you. Make this space jump out at recruiters so that they can quickly surmise the skills you bring to the table and want to keep reading your profile, separating each skill with a bullet. Some examples: "Software Engineer • C++ • Java • Global Enterprise Applications," or "Strategic Business Executive | Asset Management | P&L Leadership."

3. Select your skills! You have a section in your profile called "Skills and Endorsements." These are searchable by recruiters. Make sure you complete this section and, more importantly, put these in order of descending importance. In other words, if you are skilled in project management and want a job as a project manager, make sure that you have "Project Management" as a listed skill. You have the ability to prioritize your top ten skills - these are the ones that people will likely endorse in your profile; list your most important skills within the top ten. A note on endorsements - you're trying to trigger these by listing your top skills prominently; the LinkedIn system advertises your skills to your connections and ASKS them to endorse you.

4. Like what other people have to say – and add your own two cents! In your news feed, you'll see your contacts' posts - they will create their own updates, photos, or articles, or they will like what their contacts have to say. Take a few minutes each day to see what people are posting, then like or comment on their updates. This way, you will appear in your contacts' feeds for your activities. And if they like your comments, their connections may see your activity. On LinkedIn, activity is currency. Just a word of caution: I encourage you to stay away from posting anything political or overly controversial. While it's okay to post your opinions, bear in mind that LinkedIn is a business-oriented site, and it's best not to say or post anything which may hurt your public image - here's a good perspective on this: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-appropriate-to-post-non-business-content-on-LinkedIn

#resume #career #jobs #LinkedIn #Profile

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.