This was originally posted on The Recruiters Lounge, but I thought that the readers here might receive some benefit as well. (Hope so - Smile.)

Jim Stroud

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I don’t get out as often as I could (or as I should) I suppose, so when I do venture my head out of my laptop, I like to make a show of it. (I think those who attended SourceCon2007 know what I am talking about.) Well, I was invited by Debbie Rodkin to chat to a group of jobseekers and offer them tips on how to better position themselves online so recruiters (and sourcers) can find them. Well, I gave a few tips that I thought were common knowledge. Judging by the reaction of the crowd not everyone was hip to my jive, which made for a most interesting session.

The biggest takeaways from my session were:

• If you want Recruiters to find you online, placing your resume on Monster is a good start, but not the finish. Use free web hosting sites (like Geocities, plus I gave them a list) to put your resume online for free. (And if you can get a domain name related to what you do, that would be even better.) Here are a few people that took my advice and did just that: Atlanta Brand Consultant, Ellen Miller and Landa Flowers
• Use Google Adwords to promote your resume online. Its cheap to join, you set your own budget and its HIGHLY effective.
• If you have your resume in Monster, Careerbuilder, HotJobs and others, edit your resume once a week (or more). It does not matter if you change a comma or a paragraph; editing it will convince the system that your resume is “fresh” and as a result, it will bring your resume higher in the search results. (wink)

Debbie “paid” me for my time with a delicious cake that I took great pleasure in. (Smile) Yummy! Below are a few pictures from the event. Please ignore my growing gut, I will be working out more this week. (Especially since Debbie’s cake is gone.)

This is Debbie and I flexing our muscles.

And these are our “Supermodel” poses. (I think they need work.)

This is me explaining the Google AdWords thing and how it could benefit them.

Here is another one of me saying… something. (I don’t know.)

This is me smiling for the camera. (I’m such a ham sometimes.) You would think I was running for office.

Oh! Almost forgot (embarrassed face), I want to give a shout-out to my friend David Wright who was also there. David has written a VERY good book called - “The Get A Job Book” and was gracious enough to give a copy away as a door prize. Although I created a blog called - The Job Search Strategist, David does most (pretty much all) of the writing for it. Click here to check it out!

Hope my pics did not scare you too much.

E’ you later!

Jim

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