While the Net can serve a vast array of needs, it also may serve as an equalizer for women and minorities. It reduces dependence on race, gender, and other impediments to fair and equal treatment in social and legal settings. You can protect your privacy with regard to factual items that a face to face meeting would reveal, getting to know someone without reference to little more than their ability to communicate.

From the following list, rank your Job needs from most important to least important. This will tell you a good deal about the who, what, and where of your desirable field of work.

Purpose - expressing your real self, manifesting meaning in daily activities

Skills - using education, knowledge, and abilities

Autonomy - control over work, freedom from constraints

Spirituality - adherence to a set of religious, spiritual, or moral principles

Growth - learning skills, developing talents/potential

Competition - being in a competitive environment

Creativity - designing/developing ideas & products

Altruism - helping others and contributing to society

Achievement - job challenges & accomplishments

Security - knowing you always have employment when you need it

Variety - job allows for differing tasks and means to accomplish them

Adventure - fast pace, constant changes, high levels of excitement

Teamwork - collegial work environment, group goals

Location - close to affordable housing, schools, social activity, etc

Leisure - work affords enough time for other activities

Prestige - opportunity for recognition by professional peers

Power - decision making responsibility over budgets, staff, and resources

Intellect - works allows for mental stimulation & independent thinking

Money - good salary/benefits

Supervisor - your boss is fair, easy to understand & get along with

Aesthetics - your work makes the world a better, more beautiful place

Another advantage to taking a seemingly dead end Job for a short while is it increases your circle of acquaintances (read: Network). Jobhunters have an unfortunate tendency to isolate themselves from the rest of the world, reflecting the common misperception that self worth is no more than net worth. And to all too many people, net worth is the product of one's weekly salary. If someone tells you they're making $80,000/yr in their first few years out of school, you'll probably start asking exactly what it is they do and how you can go about doing it too.

Jobhunting is work, and needs to be treated like work. Discipline yourself (or get someone else to do it!) to get up at your usual time just as if you had a regular eight hour shift to complete. Budget time for lunch, and celebrate your 'free' time and weekends as special. So often Jobhunters spiral downwards after the first month or two of frustration and rejection.

Life is about the stories we create, and working is a substantial part of our lives. Therefore couching your Interview time with potential Employers in terms of a series of memorable stories makes for a much more vivid impression than merely chronicling your educational or work history. Weave together anecdotes that show your character and 'can do' attitude in work and non-work environments. Hiring Managers are using more behavioral questions these days, so practicing your 'story' until it suits you is one way to leave a lasting impression.

Some quick reminders that should go on your bulletin board:

• Be open to new opportunities - most Jobs come from small companies you've never heard of before.
• Employers want to know about your future, not your past "What can you do for my company tomorrow?" rather than "What have you done for other companies in the past?"
• Spell correctly, dress appropriately, look 'em in the eyes, use positive body language, and ask for the Job!
• Don't BS too heavily when asked "What's your greatest weakness?" Answers like "I tend to put in too much voluntary unpaid overtime", or "My unrelenting pursuit of Quality" are simply not credible, and weaken the rest of your otherwise honest answers.

Use ASCII plain text. For emphasis, you can use asterisks or pluses. A 12 point font usually works well, and try setting your margins to show 6.5 inches of text.

Customize your resume for the specific Job with a specific company, whenever possible. If you submit your resume to a posting service, submit several using different, but appropriate keywords. It doesn't matter how your resume gets past the screen-out process, just so it survives and moves to round two.

Send your resume to a friend to see how it looks. Also, get into the habit of checking your work (emails, resumes, etc) before you send it. A lot of people seem to think that spelling errors in emails (and electronic resumes!) are perfectly acceptable. Well, they're neither perfect nor acceptable. Few Employers who look at your sloppy email/resume will jump to the conclusion "Here's someone that really cares about the quality of their work product. I need them on my team!" More likely, the second or third error will toll the death knell for your employment opportunities at the target firm.

Always find out whether the database or service you are posting to can offer confidentiality, if you need it. Generally a home address is considered standard, but the primary means of contacting you will be by phone. Will you be notified when your resume is sent on to an Employer? If the posting service is a pay service, will they allow you to update the resume at no cost? And is there a timeframe after which it will be deleted if not updated? Most searches of resumed databanks start with the newest batch, so updating frequently is smart. Recommendations for updating resumes run from every 30 to-60 days.

A couple more sites for posting that I didn't mention the other day:

In the last few years two technical innovations have changed the way resumes are handled by companies hiring new employees. The first is optical character recognition scanning. The second is database information retrieval software. Both are used by organizations to scan resumes into databases and search them electronically. Because scanners and searchers both "see" and "read" differently than humans do, the elements that go into an effective resume have changed.

There are several things you can do to improve your chances for success in the online resume game. Reduce the chances for the scanner to make a mistake, and increase the chances for it to recognize a match between your experience and the skills/qualifications the computer is looking for.

The following guidelines are useful for preparing an electronic resume.

1. Do not fax your resume, as scanners do not read faxed text very well.

2. Don't fold/staple your resume. The folds and/or staple holes may confuse the scanner.

3. Put your name at the top of the page on its own line.

4. Use white paper, standard letter size, printed with black ink. Laser-printed high contrast copy is best.

5. Don't use shading, borders, italics, underlining and reverse type (black on white). Again, these can confuse scanners.

6. Use common resume formats. Leave plenty of white space on the top, bottom, and sides (and between sections).

7. Use terms and acronyms specific to your industry.

8. Use nouns. Computers are programmed to look for nouns, rather than verbs. Using the right nouns, the right typeface, and the right paper can be the difference between success and failure in getting beyond the first level of screening out.

Employers don't want to scan resumes or have their Hiring Managers enter endless fields of data on Job candidates, they just want the Job filled with someone who will do the Job competently without causing any trouble. Convenience is still king in this Country, and anytime you make someone else's Job a little easier, they will notice and look for you in the future.