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New Year, New Job
by Karin Call
December 18, 2000
With the current dot-com shake down, it's entirely possible that you have been or will be laid off. Or, maybe you're unhappy in your job and have resolved to find a new one for the New Year. On the other hand, you could be as happy as Bill Gates in your current position, but are smart enough to know it pays to keep one eye on the job market at all times.
No matter what the scenario, it's a given that finding a job during the holiday season is challenging at best — after all, it’s the slowest hiring time of the year. Read about the newest trends and employment hunting hot spots, especially for the IT worker, so that you will have a jump-start on your job search, resulting in a far happier and stress free New Year.
Emerging trends
Actually, the future is now. These trends are all viable options; they just aren’t commonplace happenings. Take note so that you can market yourself appropriately and leap ahead of any annoying fellow candidates.
- Hold on tight for multimedia portfolios. Posting a text-based resume on job related Web sites is widespread these days. Try making your resume a talky and you will really stand out. And then burn it onto a CD along with work samples and short interviews. It’s a lot easier, and a heck of a lot more exciting to send off a CD to potential employers, as opposed to sending reams of paper stuffed into a plain manila envelope.
- Quick is key. More companies are making decisions faster. It’s not so unusual to get on-the-spot offers contingent upon reference checks and drug testing clearance. Therefore, it’s even more crucial for you to do your homework: know ahead of time everything you can about the company that you are interviewing with. It could be considered poor taste to make your employer-to-be wait while you high tail it to the nearest Internet connection to do a search on their company’s solvency.
- Vertical job boards will move to the front of the class. We have plenty of ‘superstore’ job boards that advertise six gazillion open positions at this very nanosecond. Unfortunately, many of them are for counter clerks at Dunkin Donuts. There is only one open Webmaster position in Denver, and it’s the one you just threw up your hands and resigned from yesterday. Luckily, job sites are moving toward specialization. A good example is http://chicago.techies.com. Obviously, this is a job board for technical people that want to work in Chicago. Talk about a time saver.
- Got a life-partner who happens to complement your job skills? More often, companies are considering a team-spouse hiring position. They’re hiring couples as a matched set; which is in stark contrast to the outdated policy where, “no fraternizing with the opposite sex within the company” was the norm. Let’s face it: people fraternized secretly, anyway. This evolution just takes the sneaking around out of the equation. So what are the advantages of working with your partner? You can ride into work together. You can gossip and know it won’t leave your house. You can fight about work - in addition to money and whose turn it is to take out the garbage.
Going Trolling
Now that you have looked into the crystal ball, it’s time to hit the Internet highway. There are hundreds, okay, thousands, of Web sites with lists of job openings. That leaves you and your magic fingers to weed out the technical positions, right? Well, maybe not. Help is on its way. As mentioned previously, Internet job employment sites are moving toward specialization. Here are five top-notch IT-exclusive sites that are free to the job applicant:
- Techies.com
- Computerjobs.com
- Brassring.com
- Dice.com
- 1-jobs.com
Each one has it’s own individual idiosyncrasies (and I mean that in the nicest of ways, naturally). But, most importantly, all of them have a healthy database full of IT positions — open for you to peruse. It all sounds so easy: limited searching on sites that speak our language.
And finally
Should you do all of your job-hunting online, just because you can? Well, it doesn’t hurt to diversify your search. Try local newspapers, recruiters, and especially use your excellent networking skills; it may get you where you want to go faster. It’s akin to using a high-speed cable modem as opposed to a 56K lunker.
Realize that job hunting is frustrating because not everything that surrounds the search is within your control. You may have had a fabulous interview with a wonderful company; but the boss’s son-in-law is also vying for the same position. Politically speaking, you’d better keep looking.
Accept what you cannot control, stay focused and don’t give up. You will soon have the job of your dreams even though you’re searching within a downright slow hiring period. With your qualifications, how can you miss?
Happy holidays and happy hunting!
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