Use the Web to find your perfect job - Military Careers, Second Careers - Army Times

Use the Web to find your perfect job

Employment Web sites have made job hunting easier than ever, placing hot opportunities from around the globe just a few clicks away.

But with so many options at your fingertips, it’s easy to get lost in the alphabet soup of search engines, networking sites and professional organizations. The playing field changes almost daily as new sites emerge as the hot places to hunt for work, and networking is the new buzzword in online career development. Some sites are huge and advertise just about any job you can imagine. Others target specific fields or people with special skills.

Before you start this mission, you’ll need a plan of attack — and a list of targets. To gather essential advice and some of the best sites on the Net, we talked to career transition experts, job-search site officials and one service member who made the switch to the corporate world.

Do your homework

Cmdr. Dave Jones was working in the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Va., and retirement was about a year away.

Jones, a Naval Academy graduate, served as a supply corps officer during much of his career in the Navy. His final assignment, working in engineering, was different. It was also the assignment that led to his second career.

“I knew when I took my last assignment that I was going to try to retire after that assignment,” Jones said. “That job encompassed dealing with a lot of government employees as well as a lot of defense contractors from a lot of companies. ... I had a lot of exposure for work opportunities.”

Research and networking helped Jones, 42, handpick the company he joined last June: BAE Systems, where he’s a senior specialist engineer.

Jones took note of the contacts he’d made while working at NRO, and about a year before he retired, he turned to the Web to research potential employers.

“I did a lot of independent research on the Internet, looking closely at companies and seeing what they were about — their mission, vision, strategy, direction — where they were headed,” Jones said. “I talked to a lot of service members who were transitioning with me or who had recently transitioned.”

Where to look

Online job boards such as Monster (www.monster.com) and CareerBuilder.com have been around for years, but job search engines including Simply Hired (www.simplyhired.com) and Indeed (www.indeed.com) have taken trolling the online job postings a step further.

Whereas job boards post employment listings, Simply Hired and Indeed allow users to search postings on newspaper Web sites, corporate and industry specific job sites, and online job boards, combining the results in a single search.

Phil Carpenter, vice president of marketing for Simply Hired, characterizes the site as the “young kid on the block.” The site launched in March 2005 and now sees about 1 million unique visitors per month — making it relatively unknown when compared with an established job board such as Monster, which was founded in 1994.

And even with the scores of opportunities listed on job boards and ferreted out by search engines, your online job hunt shouldn’t end with those sites. Companies often advertise openings on their own Web sites, and many allow — even require — candidates to apply online.

Earth Tech, for example, doesn’t accept mailed or e-mailed resumes. To apply for a position at the consulting, engineering and construction services firm, job seekers must fill out the company’s online application form.

Although it’s possible to attach a résumé, you still have to fill out the online application, said Debra Acklen, Earth Tech’s senior human resources manager. As more candidates apply through Earth Tech’s automated system, the company adds to its database of potential employees.

A single posting can draw hundreds of applications.

The volume of applications has made one job-hunting tradition obsolete in Earth Tech’s case: the cover letter.

“I’m really mainly concerned with the resume — the qualifications,” Acklen said. Most of what recruiters want to know, including education and employment history, is included in Earth Tech’s online application.

Increase your odds

The right keyword and a few clicks can net hundreds, even thousands, of job possibilities, depending on how specific you are. So while you’re following up on all those leads, why not give recruiters the opportunity to contact you, too?

Posting your résumé on career sites boosts your chances of being noticed by prospective employers who search those sites for recruits. People who post their résumés on Monster, for example, are twice as likely to find a position through the site, according to Tara Murray, a spokeswoman for Monster Worldwide.

But as intuitive as some career sites have become, they still can’t read your mind (as far as we know).

That’s why the New York State Department of Labor’s Veterans Program emphasizes using quality keywords in your online job search.

Program coordinator Thomas Rielly suggests that military people ready to trade camouflage for business casual take their cues from Defense Department documents such as training records and completion certifications, particularly the Verification of Military Experience and Training form. Such paperwork provides valuable keywords and phrases describing your specific skills.

If you take the time to describe your skills carefully in plain language, your qualifications won’t be lost on recruiters for lack of translation, Rielly said.

‘Cast a wide net’

The transition from Navy life to a new civilian career was nearly seamless for Jones, thanks to a year of careful planning. He identified BAE Systems as his employer of choice four months before his retirement and sent a resume to one of his contacts there. Jones retired from the Navy on June 1 and reported to his new job four days later.

To follow in Jones’ footsteps, Carpenter recommends starting with a broad search and narrowing it as you determine which fields, and even which companies, might be right for you.

“Cast a fairly wide net at first when considering your options,” Carpenter suggested. “Go from general to precise gradually over time. Don’t jump to the end of the game. Finding a good job should be a process of exploration.”

Carpenter recommends taking advantage of career sites’ advanced search options once you have a good idea of what you’re looking for. Simply Hired offers the ability to search for jobs with Fortune 500 companies, those that are mom-friendly or eco-friendly, and even companies that are dog-friendly.

“You really can slice and dice this information in different ways,” Carpenter said.

It’s who you know: New sites let you ‘work the room’ online

Sometimes, getting a position comes down to who you know.

But now, you can “work the room” even if your connections and contacts are spread out around the world.

Professional networking through Web sites such as LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) are gaining popularity as a means for recruiting job applicants.

It’s also a route for those hoping to get a foot in the door at the company of their choice.

LinkedIn Chairman and President, Products, Reid Hoffman, created LinkedIn in 2003, said Orly Keren, LinkedIn’s marketing manager. Hoffman previously served as executive vice president of PayPal.

The site serves as a professional counterpart to social networking sites. Where young people talk music and movies on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.com, people talk shop on LinkedIn.

Now about 9 million people in 130 industries worldwide are members of LinkedIn. People most often become part of LinkedIn because they’re invited to join an existing member’s network, Keren said.

But there’s nothing stopping industrious job-seekers from signing up and starting networks of their own. It takes only a few minutes to complete LinkedIn’s initial profile.

To take true advantage of the power of networking, though, you can’t sit back and wait for contacts to come to you — you still have to build your virtual contacts like you would network at a cocktail reception.

“If you have at least 20 connections, you’re 34 times more likely to find a connection that will lead you to a new career move,” Keren said. The average Google employee — a Silicon Valley benchmark — has 63 connections.

One thing to keep in mind: Other LinkedIn members may consider your connection with a person an endorsement, so it’s important to build connections with people you know and trust.

11 expert tips

We asked job-search experts to share their tips for success on the Web. Here are 11 of their best hints:

1. Apply to jobs you qualify for. Just because you can easily send a résumé to every job you find, don’t. It wastes your time and the recruiter’s.

2. Refine your search. Use effective keywords. Take advantage of a site’s advanced search options to narrow the possibilities. Some sites send e-mail alerts when a new job matches your criteria.

3. Save searches. You save time and ensure a thorough search every time you return to a site.

4. Act quickly. Apply to a job as soon as it’s posted to raise your chances of being noticed.

5. Customize your résumé. Résumés and cover letters formulated for specific postings are still important. Research a company to link your skills with a prospective employer’s needs.

6. Spread your search around. Using only a few Web sites in your job search limits the results. Your perfect job could be waiting unnoticed on a small, industry-specific site as you perform the same searches on the big sites day after day.

7. Beware of scams. Not every posting is legitimate. Regard work-from-home, envelope stuffing jobs as particularly suspect. Use caution if a job sounds too good to be true.

8. Polish your résumé. Print your cover letter and resume and proofread each document carefully before sending it. It could look different in printed form than it does on your computer screen. Repeat this process until you can’t find anything else to improve.

9. Use the right tools. If you’re applying for a job online, don’t type responses directly into the application’s answer field. Use your word processing software, and check for spelling and grammar errors. Once you’re sure it’s clean, copy and paste your response.

10. Refresh your résumé frequently. You’ll learn things during the course of your job hunt that could help fine-tune your résumé. Every two weeks, go to the sites where your résumé is posted to update it. You often can also find out how many times employers have viewed it.

11. Be accessible. Recruiters are dealing with many, many resumes. If you’re not easy to reach, you could be passed over for the next qualified candidate. Include a phone number where you can be reached during the day.

Protect your ID

Posting a résumé on employment Web sites boosts your exposure, but including too much information can put you at risk.

Consider these guidelines for preventing identity theft.

• Before you post a résumé online, be sure the Web site has a privacy policy, and read it.

• Set up an alternative e-mail address for job hunting.

• List a cell phone number on your résumé rather than your home number.

• Use a post office box as your address.

• Don’t provide references until a recruiter asks. This also protects your references’ privacy.

• Delete your résumé from a site when your search is over.

• Check up on recruiters to be sure they’re legitimate before sharing sensitive information such as a driver’s license or Social Security number.

• Consider asking your college or university not to release your educational records without your permission. You’re allowed to by law.

• Never enter your entire Social Security number into a Web browser. If you’re trying to determine whether your personal information is available on the Internet, type in only your name and the last four digits of your SSN.

— Gannett News Service

Where to hunt

Here’s a roundup of good sites or job seekers, ranging from job search engines to sites tailored or military members.

Job search engines

Sites that gather postings from job boards all over the Internet include:

• http://www.indeed.com

• http://www.simplyhired.com

• The Labor Department’s job-search site, http://www.jobsearch.org, is also known as America’s Job Bank. It includes a military occupational code search option.

General listings

Sites that list jobs in just about every career field include:

• http://www.careerbuilder.com

• http://www.hotjobs.com

• http://www.monster.com

• In addition, http://www.jobcentral.com, a service of the DirectEmployers Association, includes employers Cessna Aircraft, Procter & Gamble, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Warner Bros.

Military-related sites

Sites that cater to people with military experience include:

• http://h2h.military.com/h2h/

• http://www.vetjobs.com

• http://www.operationheroforhire.com

• http://www.clearancejobs.com

• http://www.taonline.com

Industry-specific

Among the many sites that advertise positions in distinct career fields:

• http://www.fedworld.gov

• http://www.constructionjobs.com

• http://www.911hotjobs.com

• http://www.officer.com

• http://www.dice.com

• http://www.everytruckjob.com

• http://www.medhunters.com

Professional networking

Sites that help build career connections:

• http://www.linkedin.com

• http://www.ryze.com

• http://www.konnects.com

Other hot spots

Job sites aren’t the only places here employers advertise openings. Other destinations to consider:

• Company sites. Go online if you have a specific company in mind.

• Government sites. States and large cities often post their openings.

• Professional associations. Groups such as the National Society of Professional Engineers post openings for members. Look for a professional association in your field.

• Local newspapers. If you know where you want to live and work when you leave the service, browse the local paper’s online classifieds.

• http://www.craigslist.org. This site features classified ads for 50 cities, including job postings.