New Web tool to jump to jobs
By Dana Knight
The Indianapolis Star
For your hardworking mother in the 1970s, job hunting meant a night at the kitchen table scouring the classifieds. For you, it's a click and another click and you're on the job hunt.
Pay close attention to each employer's instructions for submitting a resume. Should it be e-mailed, e-mailed as an attachment, faxed? Have a well-written resume in plain text, so it will transfer intact via e-mail. Consider putting one or more versions of your resume on the Web, giving employers 24/7 access. When possible, post your resume directly on the company's Web site. Source: "The Riley Guide: How To Use the Internet in Your Job Search and Quintessential Career."
Seems so easy, doesn't it?
Getting a job
It's about to get even easier.
In just months, a new URL (uniform resource locator) will be introduced to the world — .jobs — a tool being tagged as a revolutionary way not only for employers to get the word out about their openings but for employees to find those coveted vacant postings.
The way it works: Instead of going to yourcompanyhere.com and searching for the jobs page, you simply go to yourcompanyhere.jobs and every job for that employer pops up — providing, of course, that the company wants to set up a .jobs site.
"The elegance is in its simplicity," says Gary Rubin, chief publishing officer for the Society of Human Resource Management, which is sponsoring .jobs. "You go to a company's Web site now, and it becomes a scavenger hunt to try and find out where in the world the jobs are listed. This takes you right to it."
Most Web sites, after all, are designed for the consumer and not the job seeker, which is a bad thing because so many people are online looking for that perfect position.
More than 52 million Americans search for information about jobs online, according to Pew Internet. More than 4 million go online each day to do so. Pew says the number of online job hunters jumped by 60 percent from March 2000 to July 2002, the latest numbers available.
Internet users age 18 to 29 are the most likely to do Web searches for jobs, with 61 percent hunting online. That compares with 42 percent of those age 30 to 49, and 27 percent of those age 50 to 64.
In his quest for a job with benefits, Brian Quaife says, "I would perform a job search on the Internet first." No question.
The 28-year-old, who graduated in December from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, is an information technology specialist working a contract position at a local hospital without health benefits.
After sifting through Internet postings, Quaife says friends and family come next with word-of-mouth openings. Finally, as a last resort, he might check out the newspaper classifieds.
For companies interested in adding .jobs to their names, the projected rollout is Sept. 1, .jobs chairman Tom Embrescia says. Companies will apply for their own licenses with the .jobs ending.
