When I talk with new clients one thing I almost always hear in our first conversation is that they have been sending out countless resumes over the internet with nearly zero response from potential employers.

The internet can be a successful way to find jobs but if you do it wrong you can find yourself feeling burnt-out and anxious from hours of surfing, sending and waiting.

Here are three powerful tips to get your internet job search activity running smooth and easy with lots of great results.

Tip #1: Use a job aggregator

This single tip is worth its weight in gold. Using a job aggregator (a beta search engine) works just like Google. You type in what you are looking for and where you are looking for it and it brings you back results from major and minor job boards, associations and companies. My favorite is indeed.com. It’s super easy and intuitive.

Tip #2: Don’t just use the internet to search for jobs

To truly be committed to making your next career move a really good one you must honor that commitment by using other, non traditional methods to look for jobs. I prefer tapping into the 80% of the job market that isn’t advertised. Through doing this you can quickly identify your target market, best companies and associations to contact, land more interviews and get bigger offers.

It works like this because positions that have yet to be advertised are generally more creative and flexible in terms of what the company is looking for, salary ranges and the hiring process in general is strikingly easier and more informal than the typical rigid HR process a job that has been turned over to them entails.

Now if you are interested in finding out more about the unadvertised market for a very tiny investment I suggest you look at the “Events With Mary Elizabeth” section of this newsletter where I am offering you a very special pre-release price on my new electronic guidebook which is all about the hidden job market.

Tip #3: Delete you other job board email alerts

If you have been jumping from board to board setting up email alerts and accounts now is the time to delete (yes delete) all of your email alerts from the various job boards. This will get rid of all that overwhelm (and lots of junk advertisements) that come into your email in box. Replaced with the elegant and powerful job aggregator that you can easily set up email alerts on – brand new positions that are matches for you will be delivered to your email in box daily.

And one last small tip – I recommend spending no more than 30 minutes each day on reviewing jobs on the internet. Yes you may find your next dream job from the internet but creating a plan to use 2 or 3 other techniques for landing the job you really want will serve you much better than the small 1 to 4% response rate internet jobs generally yield from electronic job boards.

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If you are like so many of my clients, you begin your job search with a great zeal and a boundless enthusiasm. You probably found a handful of jobs PERFECT for you on the internet. So you put together your resume and a cover letter for each job, meticulously sending out each electronic application one-by-one. Then what happened? Did you wait and wait only to hear nothing back?

I call this the “what’s wrong with my resume” syndrome. When an intelligent and well meaning job searcher begins to look for a new position using the internet, only to experience these results, it quickly leads to frustration, disillusionment and despair.

Providing you know your resume is focused properly and sells your skills well for the industry and position you are targeting – if the above story describes you, take heart! Here is the information you need to boost your online job activity and MORE:

Did you know over 80% of jobs are filled before they ever have to be advertised? It’s true. And by the time they are advertised several other things happen:

1. There is a whole lot of competition for that position
2. The company most likely will be swamped with resumes if they advertise on a job board
3. The job posting will most likely be handled by staff in Human Resources vs., a decision maker
4. The job process itself will probably be long and mechanical process of screening out candidates down to a final three

 Doesn’t sound like al to of fun does it? Using job boards as your main method for trying to land interviews is the method that brings with it the most amount of perceived rejection from the sheer lack of response. The BEST thing you can do to increase your interviews is to integrate multiple job search strategies including working with recruiters, following up on corporate growth opportunities, networking and contacting companies directly.

To improve your online job search experience first you want to find a good job aggregator or Meta-search engine (like www.indeed.com) and use that as your primary job search vehicle. This way you won’t have to spend hours bouncing from one job board to the next.

Next, set up an email job alert on your job aggregator – so that the job descriptions that fit you will be set to come to your e mail inbox each day. You will be able to measure the time just this one tip will save you – in hours!

Finally in addition to your email agent, the next two places worthwhile to check out online are company websites and niche job boards. Use discernment as you choose one or two niche boards to keep tabs on. Often times, companies will advertise on their site to attempt to fill their open positions well before they will pay a job board to advertise the positions for them.

Understanding the sometimes harsh realities of using the internet to search for jobs will empower you will a healthy objectivity as you move forward towards your goals. These powerful tips are easy changes you can make that will quickly improve your results.

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