Blasting Your Resume To Enhance Your Job Search

The growth of the Internet has helped fuel a new trend in job searching - the resume blast. A resume blast is a mass e-mailing of your resume to potential employers, usually handled by an e-mail marketing firm or agency. The benefits of a resume blast vary depending on the type of blast you use, and many human resources specialists/recruiters have a somewhat neutral to negative view of this strategy.

Blasting services

The web is full of blasting services that promote themselves as your best option for finding a job, but in reality these services generally fall into one of three basic categories:

• Company and industry - These services use databases that list thousands and thousands of companies. Many of them allow you to customize your blast by industry, company size, or region of the country.
• Recruiters and headhunters - These services use databases containing contact information for professional recruiters and head hunters. Some people believe this choice is best suited for professional and executive level job seekers.
• Job boards - These services send your resume to online job boards, where they post automatically. Some offer the option of posting to specialty or niche job boards that are industry or job specific.

Advantages of resume blasting

Blasting your resume, if you choose to do so, should be just one part of your overall job search strategy. It can be particularly helpful if you plan to post to online job boards, saving a great deal of time when compared to posting your resume on each site.

At some larger companies, human resources specialists do not mind receiving blasted resumes. They have a process in place to take all resumes received and scan them into the company database, where they can be searched when job positions come open.

Disadvantages of resume blasting

The biggest disadvantage of resume blasting is that many people who receive such messages simply discard them as junk mail and often block the sender, too. Blasting services like to promote themselves by emphasizing how many e-mails will be sent on your behalf, but make no claims regarding how many of the e-mails will actually be opened and read.

Blasting can backfire because you lose a lot of control over your job search. Your resume may be sent to companies for whom you have no interest in working, or to potential employers in parts of the country where you do not want to live. It also has a more subtle effect on your own job search motivation, because it is tempting to sit back and wait for the contacts to start rolling instead of actively networking and seeking opportunities for yourself.

Summary

The jury is still out on the effectiveness and desirability of e-mail blasting of resumes. Some people do not mind receiving resumes in this fashion, while others strongly dislike the method and do not even open these types of messages.

What is clear, though, is that if you choose to blast your resume you must be as targeted as possible with the effort, and use the tactic as only one part of your job search strategy.

 

 

 

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