When searching for a new career position, the job seeker has two options – as an active search or passive candidate.  A passive candidate will update their resume, ensure their LinkedIn profile is robust and complete, and post their resume online to the big resume databases (e.g., Monster, Indeed), but then sit back and wait for folks to find them. 

An active candidate will update their resume constantly (especially if still employed) and consistently post to open positions. They will also upload resumes into company resume databases, regardless of whether the business has an open requisition that matches their skills.  The purpose of loading resumes into company databases is to help recruiters ‘harvest’ skills of qualified candidates from their ‘resume farm’ when that new job requisition is posted.

An active job seeker should be seriously networking with friends, peers, co-workers, clients, and industry group members. Statistics seem to support networking will result in hires for about 65% of the time.  It’s also productive to be a part of a trade group or industry organization. For instance, MeetUp.com has trade groups from computer geeks and coding programmers to quilters and writers and website designers and marketers.  Members in these network groups join to learn something new or interact with like-minded folks. Recruiters may pop in to scope potentially qualified candidates for future positions.   The human resources organization, SHRM, has job opening posted on their website, as well as monthly meetings for continuing-educational credits, where sometimes as many as a few hundred HR-related members will show up, including recruiters.

Sales reps should track top clients’ point of contacts – not just to respond to work-related communications, but to develop friendships beyond work. If the job seeker is an amazing salesperson or customer service rep, that customer will remember you, and may be a great source for industry job openings – as well as being able to provide work referrals. 

One overlooked source are state employment agencies. The Virginia Employment Commission is an example.  Job seekers can visit the website, create a profile, upload a resume, and post to positions online or wait until an employer reaches out.  Some companies post open jobs to this resource to save recruiting costs (its free to Virginia-based companies).  Other companies use this option to ensure Affirmative Action Plan goals by postings jobs to reach the minority, disabled, and veteran job seekers.

There is nothing wrong with driving around a geographic area and looking at businesses located within the desired commute.  Alternatively, use Google maps to search.  For instance, a Computer Scientist with a desired commute of no more than an hour from Gloucester uses the search term ‘Software Development.’ They may find a few software or IT companies in Gloucester, as well as a dozen potential employers in Richmond, Williamsburg, and Newport News.

So, the answer to the question, “how often should I be posting my resume into databases?” is varied.  If you are unemployed, and a serious job seeker, then your full-time job is ‘looking for work.’ You should be posting resumes to job announcements and uploading the resume into company resume databases (ATS) for between 10-20 resume uploads and applications daily.  Your goal is to get your resume into as many company databases as physically possible to increase the potential for ‘being seen’ by recruiters. 

If you are a passive job seeker, then post your resume to the big databases once and ensure your LinkedIn Profile is ‘open for inquiries from recruiters.’ Both active and passive job seekers should revisit resume databases every 30 days to update (just add a line or a space) by reloading the ‘updated’ resume to ‘trick’ the system into thinking it’s an entirely new resume.  (Most job board or resumes systems push resumes down in the results queue as they age.)

How long should a job seeker expect to search for a position?  If you have a well-written resume and are posting to the perfectly matched job descriptions and getting phone calls from employers for interviews (and you interview well), there is a loose standard for time expectations.  Before the 2009 market crash, during the economic boom, the expectations were an average of one month of job searching for every $10K in salary expectations over $40K annually. The present economic environment is similar, so if the job seeker is looking for a minimum of $60K annually, then about two months would be the average search.  To reduce that time factor, it’s vital to post hard, post fast, and apply for the maximum daily time allowance daily.  It usually takes about a week for valid job inquiries to come back from most recruiters who are actively searching for keywords and phrases in the resume.