How to contact job offerors

The jobseeker has a different task in the age of the Internet. Here are a few tips:

1. Manage your time and resources — Making contact has become a numbers game. You are competing with thousands of other jobseekers for attention, and getting attention is largely a matter of chance. So don't spend a lot of time or money on each resume you send out. It is easy to spend more trying to get a job than you will earn if you get it. Expect to send many thousands of resumes to get a job.
   1. Don't travel just to fill out an application — Travel is expensive, and the prospective client should bear the costs.
   2. Avoid long-distance phone calls — Ask the prospect for a toll-free number or send email if outside the local calling area. If you call them LD, ask them to call you back on their nickel.
   3. Hold copying and mailing costs to a minimum — Email the resume as a word processor attachment and let him print it out.
   4. Use job boards and send email — But don't spend more than a minute or two on each prospect.
   5. Avoid filling out skill sheets and forms — If they can't read your resume they probably aren't a good prospect.
   6. Leave tests to the final stages of negotiation — Your time is precious, so use it only for the most promising situations.
2. Maintain a steady pace — Plan on finding, say, 100-300 prospects a day, and emailing or faxing your resume to them. Seeking work is a full-time job in itself, and you need to put in a full day's work at it.
3. Maintain a contact database — Keep a record of what you send when to whom, their responses, phone calls, and contact information. Log any resumes submitted by third parties to avoid multiple submissions and to establish priority.
4. Have different resume formats or supplements — You may want a single all-purpose resume, for initial broadcast contact, with attachments tailored to different kinds of jobs and prospects.
5. Have multiple web sites and email addresses — Put your resume and supporting information on it, and enough keywords to make it turn up on web searches. ISPs can go down or become undesirable, so have a backup.
6. Have a good answering machine or voicemail service — You can't always be there when the phone rings, so make sure you don't miss that critical call. Might have a voicemail service that takes your calls if all your lines are busy.
7. Followup with phone calls to recruiters — Most prospects don't like phone calls, but recruiters will tend to lose your resume in the pile unless you call attention to yourself with phone calls and witty conversation that makes you a real person to them.