20 Need-To-Know Tips To Jump Start Your Online Job Search

Looking for the right job is always a stressful experience. Whether you’re out of work, or not content with the job you already have, it is something most of us have come to dread and lose sleep over. Fortunately, the last decade has seen an explosion in online resources available to help you track down a long and satisfying career. And while most experts will tell you that only a small percentage of your job searching should be based in online activities, you should nevertheless catch-up on these simple steps to engaging in a successful online job search:

 

1. Have a strong, customized resume ready. Or at the very least, just shuffle the order of stuff to bury that 2 year employment gap where you were folding shirts at Kohl’s. Maybe play up your leadership skills and take credit for the entire store’s 3% sales growth while you were working 18 hours a week there.

 

2. Branch out to field-specific sites. Indeed.com, Monster, and Career Builder are great resources if you want to wear out the scroll wheel on your mouse to get through the 129 regional openings for a medical data entry specialist or advertisements for temp agencies that want to place you as a medical data entry specialist.

 

3. Create a Linkedin profile. Might as well, right? And once you’re on there, go ahead and connect it to your Facebook profile. That way you can create a secondary social network index of people you don’t talk to. Except now you can see how much more successful they are than you, too.

 

4. Write a meaningful cover letter. Or, you know, at the very least open Microsoft Word and dick around with the header fonts for your contact information for like an hour and a half. Then maybe go to Google and find out if it should start with “Dear Sir or Madam” or “To Whom It May Concern,” and stare blankly at the cursor for another 20 minutes.

 

5. Research growth opportunities in your field. You know, just to remind yourself that your degree is utterly useless, no one cares about your GPA, and the field you wanted to work in is basically dead and never coming back. Then sigh, admit defeat, and submit for that medical data entry specialist job you saw earlier.

 

6. Take breaks to pace yourself. You don’t want to burn yourself out on a job search or get too discouraged. Maybe check out CNN.com or HuffPo or something to give you a diversion that will still engage you with the world around.

 

7. Avoid clicking on that article about spiraling student loan debt. Dammit, you clicked, didn’t you? Okay, well don’t scroll down to the comments.

 

8. Who the FUCK is this ‘1776PatriotEagle’ dude? Who does he think he is, lecturing people on how irresponsible they must be to be so far in debt? Calling me people freeloaders looking for

a handout? And how is he the top voted comment?

9. Show that dick who’s boss. Make sure he knows he’s a worthless coward troll who would never say that stuff to your face if he were there in front of you. And make sure to downvote that SOB’s comment. That’ll show him.

 

10. Ugh, it’s 4:30pm. All right, fine. I’ll just fire off a bunch of applications without cover letters. No one reads ‘em anyway.

 

11. Dammit, this site requires a cover letter submission to continue. Just use that one you submitted for that coffee house supervisor position. But make sure to swap out the names of the companies where appropriate. And maybe remove some of the references to your years of barista experience. But keep the bulk of it, whatever.

 

12. Did that prick on CNN reply yet? No, of course not. Coward. Oh, wait. Some dude named “NObama2012” did instead. Cute, he even has the “HOPE/DOPE” Obama avatar. Now you get to engage on TWO fronts. Take this guy down a peg. I bet if you write a really dense wall of fact-based text, he’ll bow to your intellectual superiority. Give’em hell!

 

13. Check your email throughout the day for potential interviews. Or, you know, at the very least, maybe you’ll get job search matches from Monster.com, telling you they have the perfect career for you: medical data entry specialist. Or maybe this time they included “Product Inventory Management Specialist III.” Whatever the hell that is.

 

14. Oh shit, did you see this video on Facebook that Matt just shared? This cat sounds just like a dog, I swear! That’s freakin’ crazy!

 

15. 5:01 PM: Share that video on your own wall. But close Facebook right away before it becomes more of a distraction.

 

16. Take call from your mom saying she just ran into Suzanne down at the store and she gave me her business card. And mom will swing by this evening to drop it off…you should really give her a call.

 

17. Did they put the new season of “The League” on instant streaming yet? Wait, is the last season even over yet? Shit, I guess I’ll just watch some more SVU.

 

18. 5:05 PM: Open Facebook to check to see if anyone commented on the video. Ooh, one notification! …oh, some dude you don’t know commented on someone else’s status that you posted on three days ago.

 

19. Post “Does anyone know anyone who is hiring?” on Facebook, but post an “LOL” at the ending to make it sound less desperate. Resist the temptation 5 minutes later to leave a sad face as the first comment on your own status.

 

20. Call your friend’s uncle who you worked with last summer. His company is always hiring. Whoa, he really does have an opening! I mean, they were planning on interviewing people from the applicants they got online, but fuck it, you start Monday!