Job Help 101 at IBM ~ by Gina Larson

Recruiting experts joined forces on Thursday to dish out advice on how to land a job in this embattled economy. The Info River Valley's latest event played to a packed house, as Dimitri Boylan, from HotJobs.com, Andy Sernovitz, CEO of Gaspedal Ventures, and Jessica Shevitz, an HR Consultant with Journey Consulting gabbed about what companies want from future employees and what tactics recruits need to take. One of the more universal concerns the crowd had was about online job databanks. Are resumes going into a vacuum? Are they really hitting the in-boxes of the HR Director? The answer: If you want to know, make a phone call. While a long groan was almost audible from the crowd, the panel insisted unanimously that following up with a call was the most important step in the application process. 


 Franc Carreras, a recent MBA grad from Columbia, said that another lesson he took away from the panel was the fact that applicants should cough up a figure when a company asks for a salary requirement. "They could see it as a confidence issue if you don't," he says. After the panel, Sernovitz succinctly summarized the gist of the event: "You need to conduct a search the way your Dad told you to do it," he says. "Write a cover letter and perform follow up."