geographers:

getting jobs
planning careers
at work

trends in job search

Briefly, EVERYTHING is changing.

Because of the Internet and other major changes in technology, and the U.S. (and world) economy, almost everything about employment, and how to search effectively, is changing. With few exceptions, it's a new world out there.

Resumes

• are no longer a set format, that catalog your past work.
• need keywords - terminology has always been important, but it's even more so now.
• should not list references (not even the statement "available on request" is necessary).
• should not list personal information (health, marital status, family).
• should be ready in at least two formats, one of which is traditional, on paper, but also scannable (on paper) and electronic versions, including email, ASCII and/or RTF, possibly HTML - and, if you are applying for jobs in government, there is a federal government resume format).

Portfolios

- used for years in fields with primary graphic components (photography, architecture, advertising, fashion, graphic design) and now being adapted to schools and in business, primarily to demonstrate focused abilities

Cover letters and follow-up letters

- still effective, but more likely to be sent via email

Job advertisements

- as likely found on the Internet at actual employing organization's websites as in the employment pages of a newspaper

Networking techniques

- still immensely effective as human interaction, but also possible using other (electronic) means, although perhaps more difficult to achieve and sustain electronically

To understand what is changing, it helps to know why it's changing and how that affects your search.

Resumes

Technology change (with a growing U.S. economy) seems to be at the root of the current changes here.

Most of the larger companies (and some of the smaller) are now scanning all resumes and putting them automatically into a database. It means they use a scanner with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to convert the scanned (graphic) image into ASCII, which can be understood as words, and filed in a database. Whenever they want to search the database for applicants, they use keywords (usually the ones appearing in the job description) to search for matches with applicant resumes.

What this means for your resume is that, if you have the skills listed in the job description, you must be using the same terminology as the hiring organization. It is not enough to list your past job titles, even briefly describing the jobs, if the terminology is not the same.

The computer does not understand, it merely searches for word matches. For example, it is possible that a search for "Geographic Information Systems" may not retrieve a resume that merely lists "GIS." In contrast, if the only phrase in a job description were "knowledge of GIS" and a resume in the database contained the phrase, "no knowledge of GIS," that resume would probably be selected as part of the applicant pool. (However, this is not a good way to get into the applicant pool.)

After a database search, the resumes retrieved get human intervention. If too many come through, the search may be narrowed, or a clerk may select the resumes to be presented to the actual hiring manager, who may then present a set number to the manager who initiated the position. If only one or two resumes come through the initial search, a database manager may change the list of search terms to bring out more resumes for human selection.

The point here is that we can't always predict what will happen during the resume selection process, so remember that if you know you are well-qualified for a position, yet you were not interviewed, some "glitch" may have happened in the process. If it happens more than once, you need to discover the cause, in case it is easily prevented, for example, by revising your resume.

More to come here, as questions come in and time permits.

To ask questions about the "new" job search process, email me.
Kate Duttro
Geography Career Resources Coordinator
403 Smith - 206/685-0048
duttro@u.washington.edu

Geographers:

getting jobs
planning careers
at work