This page contains links to various means of finding employment within Australia. Some are links to employment classifieds, employment agencies, the CES and various employment related newsgroups. Some of the employment agencies also have the facility for sending your resume online to them as well as tips for successful presentation at an interview.
A year or so ago, it was rare to find jobs advertised on the Internet unless they were science or Information Technology related but increasingly more advertisers and employers are using the Internet to find employees. For those people interested, I've included some information about including your resume on a home page and how to register it with search engines.
Putting your Resume on a Web Page
First of all, is it worth it? It's hard to tell, anything is worth a try when you are looking for employent. It doesn't hurt to have your up-to-date resume on one of your personal web pages and you never know, your next potential boss may just be browsing the web one day and find themselves looking at your page. Maybe they want to find out a little more about you, the person whose page they are visiting. On my home page, I have a link to a page with some information about me so that you, the visitor can get more of an insight about who I am. On that information page I have also included a link to my resume page so that if anyone was looking for someone with my skills, the information is readily available for them to look at. Why don't you have a look at my resume now? I'll wait..
So on this personal page of mine you not only get some idea of who I am and what my interests are, you also have ready access to my resume so that you don't have to go hunting all over my web site for the information.
If you do include your resume in your web pages, be very careful about such things as punctuation and spelling. Make sure you keep your resume up-to-date! Not just your skills, but also hobbies, sports and other interests Think that your sport doesn't relate to the job you are looking for? Think again, a team sport can illustrate your commitment and ability to work as part of a team.Coaching a children's chess club demonstrates leadership, coaching and mentoring abilities. Your sport or hobby may make you a more rounded individual and perhaps make you more interesting to a potential employer.
Another thing to consider is what other content you have on your pages. As an example, if you list your favourite sport as alternative drag racing (driving around really fast in women's clothing) then maybe you should reconsider putting your resume on your web site. The content of your site does have an effect on how the audience views you - it may be your first (and only) contact with them!
But I don't know how to write a resume? Okay, there are more than a few resources on the Internet that can guide you on how to create a resume and there are literally hundreds of books on how to write a resume. You can even use my resume as a template for creating your own (I don't mind). Or you might want to visit the Virtual Resume site which features hundreds of resumes for you to examine. Looking at other people's resumes can give you a good idea of how to (or not to) write a resume. If you don't know how to create a web page then you may want to get a web editing program (preferably a WYSIWYG type program so you don't have to learn HTML).
Should I include lots of graphics sounds etc to make my resume stand out? This is a matter of personal choice however you risk losing your audience if they have to wait too long to download your all-singing, all-dancing resume. Maybe they are using a text based browser which doesn't display images or maybe they don't have the plug-in for the extra features you have included. Your best bet is to keep it simple and to the same (or similar) format as your paper based resume. This makes it easier for your audience to copy and/or print it out.
Another good idea is to have an unformatted text version that your audience can view. Save it as a standard ASCII (text) file without any fancy formatting. This makes it easier for professional employment agencies to add your resume to their list. Remember, by making something easy for people to use and access, they are more likely to use it and follow through. On the page that includes my resume, I have included an unformatted text version just in case someone was interested enough to want a copy.
Okay, I've got my resume page ready, how do I register it with search engines like Yahoo? Okay, there are a few ways to do this. One way is to manually register with each search engine (most, if not all have online forms for entering details about your web page) or you could pay one of the many organisations that have appeared that will register your pages for you. I prefer to register my pages myself, after all, I'm the one who is most familiar with the content. Another way is to use the HTML <META> tag.
The <META> tag allows you to include information that is read but not generally displayed by the browser. A number of search engines now recognise the <META> tag as a way to find out information about the content of a page. Okay, you are probably curious about how to use this tag to tell people about your page. For our purpose the <META> tag will be used twice and need two parameters; a NAME and a CONTENT parameter. The NAME parameter is the META information name, it tells the META tag what you are using the tag for. The CONTENT parameter, as it's name implies contains the content for the META tag. Perhaps an example will make things a little clearer:
Example: <META NAME="description" CONTENT="This Web Page is about ....">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keywords, separated, by, commas">
As you can see from the above example, the first NAME parameter is 'description' while the content is a description of what the page is about. The DESCRIPTION tells the search engine that the META information is a description of the contents of the web page while the CONTENT is a short phrase saying what the page is about.
THe second META tag has a 'keywords' name and the content is a number of words separated by commas. Now you could put anything in the contents part but you want the search engine to know what your page is about. So some suggested examples would be: Resume, CV, Curiculum Vitae, jobs, employment etc. You may also want to include keywords for the type of job you are looking for.This way someone that is searching for specific information in the field that you work in, is more likely to find your page.
Finally, think about how you found my page, did you find my page by sheer chance or did you happen to search for some information that led you to one of my other pages. I had a lot of spare space for my web site and I thought that I might include some information about topics that I was interested in and may be of interest to others. Do you have an interest, hobby or sport that you would like to tellpeople about? Perhaps this is a way to attract people to your pages. Give them a reason to visit your site and keep them interested enough to find out more about you. People are curious by nature and not all web pages tell us much about the person who wrote them, this gives you the opportunity to not only tell your visitor about you but to sell the skills you have to a potential employer.
I hope this page has provided you with some useful information. If you feel there is more that I could add, or have any questions please email me at .
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