Some great advice for job seekers in the internet age (from WorkAwesome):

Resumes and Cover Letters Still Matter

Yes, these two pieces of paper are still important (check out CallMe!’s our previous advice here).  Maybe they’re attachments to your e-mail. But you need to give the hiring managers something to print and read.

While you’re at it, make sure you use proper grammar and spelling. One HR professional says she cuts and pastes all the cover letters she receives into Word so the spell check can tell her who gets it wrong.

Use Social Networks

College students are ignoring Twitter but the people who want to hire them are on it. Get in front of the people who are looking for your talents. Network in their circles.

Don’t Abuse Social Networks

Take a look at your Facebook account. How many times do the words “drunk,” “wasted” and “PARRRR-TAY” appear on pages? That doesn’t cut it with most employers. Sure they did it when they were your age. But not they’re responsible adults who want to hire people who know how to pretend they’re responsible adults.

Don’t put anything in a tweet or update that you wouldn’t say in a job interview.

• Bonus Tip: Change your Facebook privacy settings so that the only photos of you that can be tagged with your name are ones you tag. So all those beer pong photos don’t show on your wall.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn can be a valuable tool for finding a job. Make sure your public profile looks as good as your resume.

Clean up Your Email Address

Do you know how many people in your industry want to hire someone with the email address party_girl69 at hotmail.com? Unless it’s more than 90%, you’d better create a new job search email address. Any clean variation of your name will work fine – unless you’re John Smith.

Also, employers are searching social networks for candidates’ e-mail addresses. So give them one that’s not attached to your MySpace page.

Get Creative

Of course creative is a relative term. You don’t want to be seen as avant garde when you’re looking for a job in accounting, insurance or banking. But you want to stand out in a good way and show you know how your industry works.

Consider Alex Brownstein. The copywriter identified five creative directors he admired and started using Google Adwords campaigns for their names. When the directors Googled themselves, they saw this ad at the top of the search page:

“Hey, [creative director's name]: Goooogling [sic] yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun, too”

You’ll never guess who got his dream job.

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• You: Ways to Use Social Networking to Land Your Next Job (washingtonpost.com)

From SimplyHired:

May 2010 Metro Area Job Trends Report

As we are providers of staffing solutions for call center companies, a large part of our interview process is based upon our phone assessments.  With that in mind, this recent article has some great pointers for making sure you use proper phone etiquette (whether on an interview with CallMe! or any other potential employer).

Some highlights include:

Phone Interview Do’s and Don’ts

Create a checklist. Review the job posting and make a list of how your qualifications match the hiring criteria. Have the list available so you can glance at it during the interview. Also have a copy of your resume in clear view, so you don’t have to remember what you did when.

Research the job and the company. Take some time to research the job and the company. The more prepared you are for the interview, the smoother it will go.

Prepare for phone interview questions. Review answers to typical phone interview questions and think about how you’re going to respond.

Use a land line. Unless your cell phone service is 100% all the time, use a land line instead of a cell phone. That way you won’t have to worry about dropped calls and getting disconnected.

Turn off call waiting. If you have call waiting turn it off. The beep of an incoming call is distracting and can make you lose your focus.

Get rid of the distractions. Interview in a private quiet space. That means securing a babysitter if you have small children at home and kicking the dog, the cat, and the rest of the household members out of your interview space.

Have a glass of water nearby. There isn’t much worse than having a tickle in your throat or a cough starting when you need to talk on the phone. Have a glass of water handy so you can take a quick sip if your mouth gets dry or there’s a catch in your throat.

Take notes. It’s hard to remember what you discussed after the fact, so take brief notes during the interview.

Focus, listen, and enunciate. It’s important to focus on the interview and that can be harder on the phone than in-person. Be sure to listen to the question, ask for clarification if you’re not sure what the interviewer is asking, and speak slowly, carefully, and clearly when you respond. It’s fine to take a few seconds to compose your thoughts before you answer.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Phone Interview – When the Call Comes (iwaslaidoff.info)
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• Better Talking Lets You Practice And Review for Interviews [Interview] (lifehacker.com)
• How to Ace Your Job Interview (abcnews.go.com)

Over at CallCenterCafe, there is a new post detailing the two basic requirements to run a successful call center.  The post breaks it down to two categories, good people and cutting edge technology.  I will leave the technology aspect to those slightly more technologically competent than myself, but I will focus on the good people aspect.

The post notes:

The next vital cog in the machinery of a smooth-running, efficient call center operation is, of course, the actual agents. Whether they’re remote agents or in-house call agents, they need to have a professional attitude, be well spoken, dependable, and have infinite patience with people.

To reduce the expense of employee turnover and retraining, call agents should be carefully screened to weed out “job hoppers” or those who don’t have the necessary “people skills” to be effective and courteous on the phone.

A lot can be gleaned from a thorough job interview. So-called “behavioral interviews” can often be the most effective way to uncover personality traits – both good and bad — and identify “red flags” in job candidates that might otherwise not be revealed.

For example, if you ask a call agent applicant to describe a specific situation in which they have had to deal with a difficult customer or co-worker, how they handled it, and how it turned out, you can often gain some valuable insights into how they react to stress or conflict.

If you think about the face of your organization, the person representing your brand, and how you want to communicate with your customers, you will immediately realize the importance and value of a quality call center agent.  Employing courteous, professional agents who are adept at handling potentially frustrating situations will reflect well on your company’s brand and reputation.

Because of the importance and value of this position, CallMe! has invested heavily in developing personality, skill set and attitude testing specifically focused on call center agents.  Our testing is designed to best match the potential agent to the job taking our understanding of the qualities that are usually associated with successful agents.  This process is not only good for the employer, but for the employee as well.  By going through our screening process, the potential employee distinguishes themselves from the crowd and is more likely to succeed when placed as they will be a better match for the employer’s call center environment.

Click here for more on CallMe!’s recruitment & screening process.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Networking has come to our attention quite a lot recently.  Networking during the job search is an absolutely critical element to finding the right job.  Today, the Wall Street Journal ran a very good article detailing some steps you can take to increase the effectiveness of your networking during the job search.

Some of the advice:

1) Develop a stronger online identity by revamping your résumé.

2) Make better use of LinkedIn, a professional networking Web site.

3) Create a more visible personal brand.

4) Get a bigger payoff from industry events.

As for some additional steps you can take, we recommend taking industry specific training classes to boost your resume, working temporary jobs to fill in work experience and joining professional or trade groups for networking.

Of course, the key to any job search is persistence and just getting yourself out there!

Related articles that may be of interest:

• Revamping your job-search strategy (msnbc.msn.com)
• Keep Your Resume Out of the Recycling Bin (halliecrawford.typepad.com)
• Be Equipped (jobsearchingblog.com)
• Polishing Your Résumé Part I (halliecrawford.typepad.com)
• The Search: Writing a Résumé That Shouts ‘Hire Me’ (nytimes.com)
• 9 Insider Secrets to Getting Hired (usnews.com)
• Start Searching For Your Next Job Before You Need It (thatonecaveman.com)

Just wanted to point to our job listings section and make note that we are now listing a new job. The latest listing is an Inbound/Outbound telemarketing position that also has Lead Generation and Sales component.

All of our job listings are available here.  We also post all of our jobs to our Facebook fan page and to Twitter, so be sure to become a fan and follow us!