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The Internet offers huge opportunities for a job seeker, but also presents several possible challenges. It also adds many complexities, and a lot more matters to think about…and be mindful of.

Job hunting needs to be thought of as a personalized, extremely targeted marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network is your source for information and opportunities.

So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we recently posted a job on a popular job site and got 600+ applications in a week. For one job. That’s increased competition.

Had the right person gotten ahold of us before we ran the posting, they could have gotten the position prior to running in to all that competition. How? By knowing someone at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware of the job for at least 9 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?

Be careful how you submit your application as well. When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily removed with a quick triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our job posting. By passing over candidates whose cover letters gave us grounds not to engage them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating candidates whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by eliminating prospects who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the great news is that job sites give you a sense of who is hiring, and for what kinds of jobs. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still try, if you have a well written resume, designed to appeal directly and clearly to the recruiter. And if you have practiced interviewing – so you don’t stumble at a critical point.

Another thing to be aware of is how quickly you can be checked out on the web. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to rock our thinking about who to choose.

AA-Careers provides a extensive set of services for Bay Area job seekers, providing our clients a personal career consultant, a managed job hunting campaign, modern tools like a personal website, video, highly targeted resume, and much more. Let us know if we can help you.

Be careful out there, and good hunting!