Twitter does the “Monster Match”

I know it’s closer to Mother’s Day than it is to Halloween, but this is appropriate regardless of the time of year, especially with all the vampire movies selling millions of tickets these days.  To paraphrase the old Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Cryptkickers song,

“They did the match...they did the monster match…”

All silliness aside, this is a new and potentially very useful initiative from one of the biggest “Monster” of job boards and Twitter, a wildly popular “micro-blogging” site. That was just in case you had been under a rock for a while and hadn’t heard of twitter.  ;-)  

Monster has a new tool called Job Search Beta that uses Twitter to connect job seekers with job opportunities.  They’ve blocked off the time slots of 3-4 PM Eastern Time on Wednesdays and Fridays, which they’re calling #WorkWednesday and #HireFriday.  During those times, job seekers can tweet what position they’re looking for and where they’re looking to work, and Monster will respond with a suitable match. 

Here’s how it works:  Simply log in to your Twitter account, and create a new tweet.  Use @MonsterKAW and the hashtag #monsterlive together with a location and job title, such as the following:

@MonsterKaw looking for a business development manager job in Atlanta, GA #monsterlive

Then Monster will respond with something like:

@YourTwitterName XYZ Inc is hiring a business development manager in ATL.  More Results: http://mnster.me/283jzw #monsterlive

Why do this instead of just going to Monster’s site?  Well, one possibility is if your job search is in “stealth mode” and you are “working” during those times, at least that way visits to Monster.com won’t show up on your server logs and potentially be brought to the attention of your boss. 

Another option could be to use a tool such as SocialOomph to schedule your tweets in advance, and send out tweets during those particular times, with your target positions.  Then you can simply check your Twitter account and not even type in “monster” or anything else that could get you caught by the boss’s watchful digital eye.  Better yet, check Twitter on your cell phone (personal cell, of course) and don’t even leave any evidence on your computer. 

So what happens if you miss those days?  Of course you can always visit the main Monster.com site, or their Facebook page, where you can also post requests for job openings.

Or you could use one of the many services that has been using Twitter for jobs far longer than Monster has – they’re a little late to the game, but better late than never.  TwitterJobSearch is a job search engine for Twitter, TweetMyJobs has over 5700 vertical channels for specific job types and locations, and can also filter out the ones not relevant to a job seeker, and just send the suitable jobs as a text to their cell phone.  Pretty cool, huh?  They also have a service called TweetMyResume where you can tweet your resume to 90,000+ followers.  Sure, not everyone’s going to be ON twitter at that moment but the key is that it’s searchable.  JobShouts is yet another, that filters out the spammy “work at home” opportunities claiming you, too, can become a millionaire simply by stuffing envelopes in just minutes a day! 

From your friends at CareerOyster – Your Online Career Coach.  And remember...

The World is Your Oyster...Be the Pearl!

David B. Wright is Chief Marketing Officer and Partner of CareerOyster 

How A Header In Your Resume Can Give Your Job Chances The Boot

Many job seekers use a header in their resume.  This usually includes their name and contact information.  While this can help your resume look good in printed form, it’s really not the best way to format your resume. 

Here’s why: Headers & footers are often not read properly by the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) used by many recruiters and hiring companies.  While technically the headers can be read by most of these Applicant Tracking Systems, the problem is that it usually takes an extra step to make sure the information in the header is captured and stored in the ATS.  The real issue is that most recruiters just don’t have the time to take that step.  Think about it – when a recruiter or hiring company places an ad for a job, particularly in today’s economy where competition for each available job is high, they’ll get hundreds or even thousands of resumes from job seekers applying for that job.  So they’re overwhelmed and simply won’t make the time to take that extra step, particularly when they have tons of resumes from other qualified (and less-than-qualified) applicants. 

So if they don’t take the time to make sure the information in the header (and footer, for that matter) is properly imported into their Applicant Tracking System, here’s what happens: Your resume will be imported into their database, but guess what? It will be missing that key information contained in the header & footer sections of your resume.  So while your work history, experience, education and other fields will be in their database, it will be missing the most important information: how to contact you. So even if your resume highlights the skills and experience that are a perfect match for the job, you won’t get a chance to interview because your contact information won’t be in the database. 

This holds true for lots of other formatting, including tables, text boxes, and so on.  So using these tools may make your resume look great on paper, it dramatically reduces your chances of having the information in those fields in a recruiter’s database.  So you end up missing out on opportunities that you would otherwise get a chance at getting. 

Here’s what I suggest: use standard formatting to make your resume look as good as possible.  This means no headers, no images, no tables, no footers, no text boxes, and so on in your resume.  If you insist on using these tools, use them for a resume that you will print out and take to your job interviews, but make sure you submit resumes online and via email that do not use these formatting tools. 

The moral of the story: Jobseekers – don’t put your contact info into the header!

David B. Wright is Chief Marketing Officer and Partner of CareerOyster