Jobs - How to tap the power of internet in your job hunt?

Internet has come as a blessing to the job hunter where he can not only hone his skills according to the job requirement but also find out more about vacancies and match the employer’s requirements to his own. To categorize, internet places the following added advantages to a job seeker:

• Internet offers unlimited opportunities for research about fields, occupations, jobs, companies, cities, geographical areas, salaries, and so on. Before you embark on a job hunting sprees, you need to research intensively to identify the field, the job, and the company you would most like to work for, and the person there who has the power to hire you. In fact, research is one of those tasks for which the Internet was born. It can be defines as a worldwide library at your fingertips, that you can access anytime, day or night, in your frumpiest clothes, without ever leaving your apartment or home.
• When you are on a lookout for a job, you need to make contacts and network with people, who can help you find information, or suggest referrals, or help you get in for an interview at a particular place. Internet enhances human links between you and information, between you and a prospective employer. Every resource on the Internet can always be used for contact/data mining and name gathering. Who are the authorities in the field? Who is it that others listen to? Who is respected and well-known? What people write the bulk of the articles and periodicals in the field? Who are the people that others interview most? Quote most? Generally, the people that are more highly placed in their field will be the ones who know the most people in their field and the more highly placed they are, the closer they are to the people who have the power to make hiring decisions. It is to be remembered here that anyone you contact on the Internet (or off) should be approached respectfully, politely, courteously, with keen awareness on your part that this is a busy person who may or may not be able to respond to you.
• Internet is a place for you to search for vacancies listed by employers (often called want ads, job postings, or job listings). Job placements have become more and more computerized these days and as such more and more employers are posting vacancies on sites like ‘Monster.com’, ‘LinkedIn’, ‘JobSearch’ and so on and so forth. Even discussion boards and forums are buzzing with requirements for qualified people. Gone is the era when job hunting meant moving from door to door with resume tugged under the arms. Welcome to the world of internet where you can see the job vacancies at the click of the button and also research thoroughly about the suitability of the job to your skills.
• Okay, now that you have decided to land up with your job and have prepared a bullet proof resume, what next? Where do you start with? Here again, the answer is internet where e-resumes can be posted with the comfort of sitting at home. You can post your resume via internet either by answering to the job advertisements or by submitting your resumes at sites which offer this facility to its members and you can also create your profile page with some sites like ‘LinkedIn’ and ‘JobBankUSA’ and so on.
• Internet is a place where you can get some skills testing, career counseling, and job-hunting advice. Though Internet cannot replace a live, face-to-face career counselor, but it can definitely give you quite a bit of guidance for your job hunt with tests, articles, manuals, FAQs, etc. However, a word of caution here as sometimes these advises are just too superficial and dumb to be followed.