New Feature: The Job Hunters Chronicles

New on the IMDiversity Career Center, we're pleased to kick off our new feature, The Job Hunters Chronicles, with three submissions.

Although the software engineer, a dot-com executive, and a journalist who works as a government liason for a non-profit service agency are all in very different occupations, they share a common theme in their job hunting stories.

K.D., a software engineer who wanted to relocate from San Francisco to Chicago, took a fairly traditional approach to posting his resume on an online job board, and was lucky to be contacted by a desirable employer. However, he recalls that that first contact was just a foot in the door. He had not anticipated the highly time-consuming electronic back-and-forth that ensued, including multiple interviews and a sample of original code programming solving a problem the company sent him.

David Fox, a dot-com executive, focuses on the importance of using online tools to thoroughly research a prospective employer. In his case, the time spent researching the products and even the flaws of his current employer's websites -- and then corresponding with a hiring manager about them at length and in detail -- paid off.

Shawn Chollete, who had worked as a journalist, similarly landed a good job at a NPO through a seemingly round-about fashion: through networking on sites like Facebook and MySpace, and ultimately cross-referencing these social resources with contacts in job postings he wanted to apply to.

If there's one common thread among our inaugural user contributors to The Job Hunters Chronicles, it seems to be that simply posting to job boards and applying to jobs is only the first step in a job search process. Following up by using the widest range of online tools to research, communicate with, and present themselves to their prospective employers is key to successfully concluding a job hunt online.

Amen.

Do you have a story to share with other jobseekers abot what worked or didn't work for you in online job searching? Please submit it to The Job Hunters Chronicles, or feel free to leave a coment posted here on this thread.