This is yet another in the "Dummies" series of books. The series presents information, in a friendly manner, on about just about every topic that could be imagined. The idea is to present a fresh look at a topic and present it in a way that even dummies could understand. These books are not really for dummies (resume preparation and job hunting are not tasks for dummies). The title is just a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor to suggest that these topics can at least be presented in a friendly and easier-to-read format (each new section in the book starts with a job-related cartoon).
This book begins with some hard facts about holding a job in today's economy: it suggests that an employee can no longer count on job security; therefore, the book concludes, employees had better take control of their own careers. The book outlines a method for "staying in touch with the job market." It suggests that unlike the traditional job hunt, "the search for job security has no start and no finish." It is an ongoing process.
While few employees have the time to continually stay in touch with the job market, the internet makes it much easier to periodically "look around" to see what opportunities are out there.
The book suggests spending one hour per month assessing your career goals. To do that, the book suggests a series of stages. They are:
Getting ready for the job search: provides an overview of the online job hunting process.
Building your electronic tool kit: describes the essentials of the electronic resume and how it differs from a traditional paper resume.
Communicating and networking in the digital world: describes how to use email and other internet resources such as web forums and mailing lists.
Finding and choosing a job online: covers the process of trekking through the online databases of jobs, as well as some "treasures off the beaten path."
The part of tens: goes over some of the basics of job hunting and resume preparing.
The five stages represent chapters in the book and each presents a different aspect of job searching. But they can be broken down into two types of information: (1) information about job hunting and resume preparing, and (2) information about how to use the internet for job hunting.
It would have been easy to just dash off a rehash of all the basic tips for creating and resume and searching for a job out there in the wide world of employment. But the author does much more than that, describing in detail how job hunting has changed due to the emerging influence of the internet. An interesting section of the book describes new trends in job searching. They are:
Millions of jobs are now advertised on company web sites.
Businesses now post tens of thousands of jobs per day to the various online databases of jobs.
Employers are now actively searching these online databases of jobs, looking for good employees.
Email now represents one of the main methods for job searching and for contacting employers.
There is a steady increase in high-level executives using the internet to search for new jobs.
More and more professional are using the internet to search for jobs.
Online job databases have grown into full-fledged businesses (some of them have gone public with stock IPOs).
A 1998 survey indicates that 70% of business respondents used the internet for recruiting.
Some online databases of jobs are now receiving millions of visits (hits) in any given week.
Many online job databases are growing at the rate of 25% per year.
More and more types of businesses are now using the internet to search for prospective employees, with more than 70% of all technology firms doing so.
In other words, the internet is becoming "the way" for people to find jobs and for employers to find good, new employees. For that reason, this well-written analysis of the online job hunting situation is a must for anyone embarking on a new job search.
In addition, hundreds of links to job sites and other useful information can be found on the CD-ROM that is included with this book.
