When you are looking for a new job, chances are the first place you turn to is the internet — and for good reason. With countless job sites, employer career pages, and staffing agency resources available to you all online, it makes sense to start your job search here.
If you’re looking to speed up the job hunt process or just find jobs that are a better fit for you, check out these 6 tips for applying for jobs online!
1) Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
Even if you find the perfect job posting that’s exactly what you’ve been looking for – and everything else seems off by comparison – you should keep applying to other postings that grab your attention. You never know what will land or what new opportunity will surprise you.
Get into the flow of the application process and apply for multiple jobs in one sitting, revising resumes and cover letters to fit each one as necessary, seeking out the perfect fit but also being open to possibilities you hadn’t considered or different fields where your skill set would apply.
2) Organization is Key
All that applying can get confusing, so create a master folder with files to keep track of all the jobs you apply for, including the resumes, cover letters and other materials you use for each application, as well as the date you applied, the company, and the job description. Nothing is worse than hearing back from a company asking you to come in for an interview, only to have forgotten what it was you applied for.
However, if you do hear back from a company and can’t remember what job you applied for, there may be hope. If you applied for the job through a major job board (like Milwaukee Jobs or Indeed), there is a place within your profile where you can see all the jobs and companies where you applied.
3) Everyone Should Have a Professional Email
Hearkening back to our 10 Tips for Resume Formatting post, your email address should be a simple combination of your first and last name that doesn’t include any identifying numbers (i.e. the year you were born).
Not only does this represent you better to employers, but again it will help you organize responses you get to applications, conversations you may have with potential employers, alerts from job sites, and any other professionally related emails. Keeping all those separate from your personal emails will be a big relief.
4) Don’t Rely on Just One Job Site
Use a variety of sites and make personalized accounts using your new professional email, as you never know what site or application will yield a hit. Attach your resume to your profile to make applying easier, and provide keywords about your qualifications so that you’re easily searchable – you may even receive emails directly from employers who use these sites to find qualified candidates.
Some examples of sites we recommend besides our own:
If you are interested in a specific company, don’t forget to go directly to their website to apply for jobs. Many companies rely on a joint effort between internal recruiters and staffing agencies, so don’t miss any opportunities to get your resume in front of them.
5) Refine Your Search
Relatedly, use the advanced search features on these sites to hone in on the kind of jobs you’re interested in: hourly wage, shift availability, part time or full time, location, skill and job title keywords, requisite training or education, etc. This will help you filter out jobs you would never consider and jump straight to the ones that are potentially the right fit. Some sites will allow you to sign up for email alerts when jobs that meet those criteria are posted, giving you the advantage of applying early.
6) Do Research
It’s important to know about the companies and positions you’re applying for: what do they do, who do they work with, what are their accomplishments, what would you be contributing there? Most of this can usually be found on the company’s website or within the job posting itself, and the information will both confirm whether or not you’re interested, as well as inform you how to revise your resume and cover letter to be relevant.
Knowledge of the company is also extremely important in the interview process, as employers want to see that you’re invested.
Next Steps
Want some help with finding a new job? Tell us about yourself here to get started!