Job Search/Career Tips for Marketers

From Marketingprofs.com, here are some job search tips for marketers. I'm OK with most of it. But number 5..."resumes are dead" is dead wrong. Resumes don't sit in a pile anywhere. They sit in a searchable database and this is the first place a recruiter goes when looking for a candidate. So, not only are they not dead, they are more leverageable than ever (not sure if leverageable is a word but humor me just his once, OK?). Keywords are what you need to think about when writing your resume. Think like this: "the recruiter that is working on filling my dream job...what are the keywords they might search on when looking for a candidate to fill the job?" Then use those keywords on your resume. (hint: find that dream job description on a company career page? Use keywords from it).

Perhaps better advice than telling people "resumes are dead" would be telling them that "resumes may not be enough anymore". Because of the Internet, recruiters and hiring managers have more search tools at their disposal than ever before. Where they used to collect that stack of resumes received as responses to a print ad (remember those?), they now have databases (in house and out), search engines, user groups, conference lists, etc. Frankly, no recruiter will ever exhaust what is out there. So my advice: be in the resume database of your top companies AND make yourself visible on the Internet. I would worry less about putting together a portfolio than making sure you are visible within your industry space (like speaking at conferences, getting involved in professional organizations). As a recruiter, I find online portfolios to be a bit fluffy, usually. I can tell so much more about their fit with our company or a job by talking to them on the phone. A good recruiter will make that call.