Thursday, August 16, 2018

Using An Online Career Portfolio App Is Better For Job Searches

By Diane Johnson


The great thing about searching for a job or opportunity online is fairly easy. Anyone can locate prospects in any part of the world and documents can be sent by a click of a mouse. While this may seem simple, the challenge that the average job seeker has is being able to stand apart from the crowd. One way to do this is set up an online career portfolio that shows off a lot more than the average resume.

Although some people may think that adding a lot of extras may take too much time, it helps to look at the effort as an investment. Being shy in a competitive industry rarely guarantees a paycheck and certainly does not help anyone move up the ladder. Using the modest traditional resume that lists skills at the bottom is becoming a thing of the past.

Many job search specialists advise their clients to use their resume package and any outside experience to their advantage when looking for work. This may include freelance or volunteer jobs, as well as continuing education or industry certifications. Having the latter is especially important because many badges or certificates of completion can be verified online.

This also includes social media activity that may reflect changes or other positive information about an industry. Users with an active profile should make sure that their responses are not defamatory against any individual or company, even if the information is true. While some may disagree with this practice, it helps to play things safe when looking for a new opportunity.

Items that can be inserted as a textual link include articles or books the applicant has authored in recent. Still or moving pictures with a short download time may be used, otherwise it may help to reduce the resolution or show a sample. Social media profiles can also be useful in promoting self but the user must do this with caution and where it will fit.

Other features to add to a portfolio are certification badges, PDF copies of awards, degrees, and other credentials. When these items are placed as an anchor text link at the top of a resume, the recipient is most likely to place it to the side for further viewing. At one time, the concern of most job seekers was to ensure that everything was properly formatted but this has changed.

Because time is limited due to the great number of resumes being submitted, those that seem to go above and beyond in satisfying the job qualification are considered first. While there are exceptions, others without the wow factor are discarded. A lot of these portfolio apps have tutorials that can show anyone how to rework their traditional resume so that it is suitable for electronic submission.

Taking time to craft the modern resume will certainly pay off. Some employers have different requests, like sending everything as a PDF or plain text format. It may also help to experiment with different styles to see which gets the best response. This is the type of testing is what businesses do to determine whether a marketing tool will be successful or needs work.




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