If you are still seeking a reason to get on the
Internet, consider this: Whether your job has
anything directly to do with computers, from now on
your employability and your ability to compete for
positions in many fields may depend on having access
to and familiarity with the World Wide Web. Why?
Because of all the Web-savvy people competing for
the same positions, of course.
Help wanted
Already, the Internet has become a de facto screening tool. Sure, you can
keep sending résumés the old-fashioned way, via snail mail. But take a closer
look at the help-wanted ads now appearing in newspapers and magazines. You are
invited to visit a prospective employer's Web site to peruse job listings. Then
you are encouraged to email your résumé to a specific address. You may even be
confronted with an "e-form," where you must key in your personal data online. Do
all of the above and you will demonstrate to the company that you have some
fundamental computer skills; you won't have to take an onsite test to prove it.
Of course, you will also pass some not-so-subtle socioeconomic screening.
People who are poor, undereducated, or otherwise not part of the "info elite"
seldom own computers or have Internet accounts. In the era of e-forms, these
people are rapidly losing the ability to compete (albeit for highly skilled
jobs), because they still must rely on typed, mailed resumes.
Custer's last scan
A visually appealing, laser-printed résumé remains a valuable commodity
within the job-search process, yet a document that is elegant graphically may
actually cause you to miss out on the chance for some interviews. How can this
be? In a word: scanners. Many corporations-and search firms that find candidates
for positions-are trying to cut down on how much paper they handle and store. So
they scan résumés electronically, then drop the information into databases and
find interviewees based on keyword searches.
To compete in today's computer-oriented career chase, you must know how to
create a résumé in ASCII format and send it via email so it can be captured
electronically by your potential employer. ASCII is barebones; it allows for
virtually no formatting. So you dazzle them with your facts and experience, or
you don't dazzle them at all. If your résumé must be mailed or faxed instead of
sent by email, you should assume that it will be scanned after it is received.
Therefore, you may need to generate a version using a sans serif type such as
Helvetica or Antique Olive. Some scanning systems occasionally have difficulty
deciphering serif types like Times Roman or New Century Schoolbook, particularly
if the characters are on a fax printout or photocopy.
You do need Internet access, of course. It's important to learn as much as
possible about an organization's culture, history, products, and services before
you go for a personal interview. If you have your own Web page, you can expect
it to be visited by someone from the company that is considering hiring you. In
the competition for a job, a Web page of your own may be a powerful plus. But if
it makes a mediocre impression, it may cause you to be quietly dropped from
further consideration. That alone should be incentive to learn better Web-page
design-or to get help from a consultant.
Pitstops on the infobahn
What about the Internet itself? Won't there be "road-gang" jobs aplenty along
and on the information superhighway? You bet. However, some of today's
technology-based "careers" seem to have the lifespan of a summer job at a city
swimming pool. Train for the wrong specialty and you can graduate just in time
to be toast.
For example, you probably have seen late-night television commercials
extolling the virtues of becoming a Web-page designer. People are pouring into
this field, creating a glut. And some of them now are being pushed aside by
better-and cheaper-Web-page-creation software. These packages let users perform
basic Web-page design by themselves, without having to learn the dreaded Hyper
Text Markup Language (HTML). You just modify one of the dozen or so templates to
suit your taste, click on an onscreen symbol, and the program creates and posts
your Web page automatically.
The need for Web-page designers likely will linger, and you may achieve
success by specializing in Web pages for highly technical or hard-to-sell
fields. It helps to have a background in graphics or publishing, because content
is always key. But always remember to rely in the future on your abilities to
actually create, communicate, and sell-not on your prowess with File Transfer
Protocol when you upload new Web pages to an Internet service provider.
What's hot? What's not?
The prognostications are everywhere: The 20 Hottest Jobs for the Year 2000.
Thirty Ways to Make Millions in the Next Millennium. You are exhorted to become
a paralegal, a freshwater catfish farmer, a multilevel-marketing
entrepreneur-anything but what you already are, to avoid ending up in a virtual
or actual bread line.
Meanwhile, the Internet has become the international equivalent of the Gold
Rush. But actually going to work "there" may be a bit more difficult than you
think. "There are lots of people involved in developing the Internet and moving
stuff over to the Internet." says Mike Pilot, manager of the U.S. Department of
Labor's Occupational Outlook Program. "But most of them are in existing careers
at this point."
Most "existing careers," in fact, will continue to exist well into the next
century. Keep in mind that the Internet is about information-finding it, moving
it, storing it, and doing something useful with it. You can still be a banker, a
dentist, an automobile mechanic, a librarian, or a classroom teacher in the
Internet Age. You will just need to know how to "drive" on the infobahn as
naturally as you now drive to work.
So pick a field you enjoy. Keep your computer skills honed to the max. Learn
to burrow deeper into the world's enormous stores of information to find the
right nuggets. If you can constantly figure out better ways to use information
to benefit your employer or your own business, your career will prosper-and so
will you.
