Websites, career-related

Listed below are several major professional organizations, publications, and websites in the fire service field. You may want to take advantage of the information and assistance that these organizations have to offer regarding fire service opportunities, training and education, union activities, and other career-related matters. You can also learn more and keep up on the latest fire-service news by reading dedicated magazines, journals, and websites. 

An electronic or digital resume is one that will be e-mailed to a potential employer, posted on a career-related website, or included within an online resume database. Some employers that accept electronic resumes have a specific pre-defined resume form on the company website that must be completed online to be accepted. This also holds true for the majority of career-related websites. 

Other employers that accept electronic resumes request that the documents be created and saved in a specific file format, such as Microsoft Word, Rich Text Format, or ASCII. When creating an electronic resume, adhere exactly to the formatting specifications provided by the employer or career-related website. 

Anyone applying for jobs online must have an electronic resume. This includes people using any of the career-related websites or those plan-nig to apply for a job directly through a company s website. Electronic resumes are also ideal for sending via e-mail. The majority of large companies currently accept electronic resume submissions. 

Later in this chapter, methods of actually getting your resume into the right hands are explored. These methods include responding to an ad, networking, and taking advantage of career-related websites. 

The Internet is also a powerful job search tool. Hundreds of career-related websites are available, such as The Monster Board (www.monster.com), offering literally thousands of job listings. These listings are updated on an ongoing basis. Appendix C at the end of this book is a listing of career-related websites worth visiting. 

What s available from the various career-related websites... 

Appendix C of this book lists career-related websites that cater to job seekers. This is just a small sampling of the many sites available to you. A career-related site caters to job seekers by offering a wide range of online services, typically offered free of charge. 

Many daily newspapers now post their entire help-wanted section online as well as offering it in printed form. A growing number of newspapers also offer career-related websites that cater to their geographic area. For example, Careerpath.com (www.careerpath.com) is sponsored by a large group of newspapers and covers all geographic areas. 

The various career-related websites also allow you to apply for jobs online using an electronic resume. So, if you come across what looks like the perfect job opening, instead of mailing your resume, you can apply for that job online (immediately) by sending your resume via e-mail to that employer. 

Yet another service many career-related websites offer is an online resume database. You can add your resume to a large database (with thousands of other job seekers). These databases are made available to employers. If an employer is looking to fill a bookkeeping position, for example, the director of HR for that company can access a resume database, such as the one offered on The Monster Board, and perform a search for qualified applicants. The employer, upon accessing your online resume, can then contact you directly. 

Because so many different resume databases exist to which you can post your resume, for the best results pinpoint a handful of the most popular databases, based on the type of work for which you re looking. Choose five or so of the extremely popular, general interest, career-related sites, such as Hot Jobs and Career Mosaic, and then find a few databases that cater specifically to your industry, area of expertise, or trade. For example, most professional associations have their own website, and many allow their members to post their resumes. If you work in advertising, for example, find a few industry-oriented sites that cater to the advertising industry and post your resume on those sites. 

Aside from finding job opportunities, adding your resume to an online database, and being able to access free career-related advice, many of the specialized career-related websites also enable job seekers to perform company/industry research online. They offer a range of other services and features designed to make the job-search process faster, easier, and less stressful. 

In addition to the many specialized career-related websites and those sites hosted or sponsored by professional associations or organizations, it s also an excellent strategy to visit the website of the companies for which you are interested in working. Most company websites offer company and product or service information and have their own job opportunities or employment pages where you can discover exactly what positions a specific employer has available, determine whom you need to contact within that company, and discover how that employer prefers to receive resumes and cover letters from applicants (via e-mail, fax, postal mail, etc.). 

Surfing the Web is much like channel surfing on your television when you don t have a clue what s on or what program you re in the mood to watch. As you visit career-related websites, industry-oriented sites, or company-operated sites, don t be afraid to follow hyperlinks to see where they lead. If there s a company you re researching, find out who their primary competitors are, and visit their websites as well. 

Appendix C offers a listing of news-oriented sites worth visiting when performing research. At any of these sites, you can perform keyword searches to find the specific information for which you re looking. Another source of company information is the career-related websites. Many of these sites contain background information about the employers that advertise job openings on their sites. 

Another method is to complete an online-based resume form while visiting an employer s website or a career-related site. In order to keep incoming resumes consistent in terms of formatting, many websites designed for recruiting insist that all electronic resumes be created using a predefined template, or provide a detailed form that requests all pertinent resume information. The website then formats the information automatically to meet the employer s requirements. This information is kept on the company s server and you won t have a file to submit via e-mail. 

The majority of online resume templates you will encounter on the various career-related websites and sites hosted by individual employers follow the same basic format as a traditional chronological resume. You will be prompted to enter each piece of information in separate fields, and you will most likely be limited in the number of fields you can fill in order to convey your information. 

Because career-related websites can be updated in real time, 24-hours-per-day, as companies have new job openings, they can be posted instantly, allowing job seekers to learn about and apply for openings immediately via e-mail or by visiting a specific website. Those who surf the Internet and continuously look for the newest ads posted online are more likely to land a job than those who sit home reading the newspaper and submitting their resume via U.S. mail. 

Priced between 19.95 and 39.95, some of the more powerful resume-creation software packages are designed to assist you in virtually every aspect of your job-search process. For example, some have built-in contact management applications (for keeping track of potential employers) and an appointment book application (to handle the scheduling of interviews). Some packages are compatible with the various career-related websites and will automatically find the best job opportunities for you and help you apply for those jobs online. 

ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB, there are literally thousands of career-related websites. Some of these sites offer how-to advice about landing a job. Others offer a database of job listings that can be searched by region, industry, job type, salary, position, job title, or almost any other criteria. There are also resume databases allowing applicants to post their resume in hopes of it being read by a recruiter. If you need assistance creating your resume, there are professional resume writers who you can hire directly off the Web, many of whom also have informative websites of interest to job seekers. 

Career-Related Websites Where You Can Post Your Resume Online... 

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