One More Reason to Take Your Job Search to the Web

Jennifer Fry
Careerminds Consultant

The traditionalist job seeker, a title that may describe many individuals who find themselves in a career transition, might be encouraged to revamp his/her job search tactics. A recent study shows that Internet job searching can shorten unemployment time by 25% when compared to traditional methods.

Assistant professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver, Hari Mansour, Ph. D., and economics professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Peter Kuhn conducted a study on the effectiveness of Internet job search tools by surveying young job seekers, collecting data on their usual methods and the results thereof.

While these findings may seem like common sense to many living in the current digital age, the results of the study, in fact, directly contradict those of similar research conducted in 2004, at which time researchers concluded that either the Internet was simply not an effective job search tool or that those individuals who were looking for jobs online were not well-qualified.

Truth is, though, the online climate has changed considerably over the past 7 years, and whether or not the previous researchers were correct in their conclusions, Mansour and Kuhn’s work stands in support of Internet job searching at the present time.

Individual employers have begun providing their own detailed job listings and application opportunities on their own websites, and those that don’t often take advantage of job search websites that provide countless listings and an easier interface than they did less than a decade ago.

Additionally, and perhaps most important, social media has grown leaps and bounds since 2004—just imagine, Facebook was a fledgling venture in 2004 and Twitter didn’t even exist until 2006! Mansour and Kuhn explain that the use of the Internet to connect with friends and family (AKA: networking) is especially effective during the job search; these personal connections are often what lead job seekers to openings or even directly to employers.

So, the lesson to be learned here is this:

• Clean up your social media profiles—how many stories have you heard about people losing their jobs or not landing a position because of something their employer found online?
• Get in contact with people—start talking to family, friends, former co-workers, former classmates, whoever you have available to you who is willing and able to give your job search a boost.
• And of course, get online! If you aren’t already, you need to start taking advantage of the endless opportunities available to you through the ever-expanding possibilities on the Internet.

There is a lot to be said for tradition and sticking to your guns, but career coaches aren’t kidding when they urge you toward the computer. Mansour and Kuhn’s study shows that the average Internet job seeker lands a new position 25% faster than non-Internet users, and you just can’t argue with those kind of numbers.

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Careerminds provides scalable, strategic solutions to organizations seeking affordable, web-based outplacement services. Using a Web 2.0 e-learning platform that delivers affordable, online career transition services, Careerminds provides a high-tech and high-touch blend of on-demand career transition education supported by senior-level career consultants to help displaced workers reenter the workforce quickly.