Welcome to www.msunderestimated.com
|
How to Work the Internet to your Advantage in a Job Search
Are you on the hunt for the perfect job? If you need a new job and you are spending every day running out and buying a paper and flipping through the classified ads, you are way out of date. The newest way to find a job is to use the Internet in your job search. After all, nearly everything else people do these days is done online, so why not looking for your next job. The best part is that the Internet is much better than the classified ads in your local paper when it comes to finding a job you love. When you search for a job online, you have a world of employment opportunities right at your fingertips.
There are many ways you start your search for jobs online. There are several websites that are dedicated just to job hunting. On these kinds of sites, you can search through a database of literally thousands and thousands of jobs until you find some that appeal to you. Most of these websites let you search for jobs using many different criteria, from job location to job field to starting salary to jobs that let you work from home. These websites can be a wonderful way of getting a feel for what kind of jobs are out there and what the going rate of pay is for any job in any industry, and how that pay fluctuates regionally.
In addition, these sites are also ideal if you are thinking of moving, and want to move to someplace you can find a job. If you don’t care where you move, you can look for cities where the job market is hot. If you know where you want to move, you can look for jobs in your desired city and get the inside track on the job market from no matter where you are. Additionally, on these job listings websites, you can upload your own resume to the site. That way, you can apply to jobs through the website with the click of a button, and potential employers can find you when they are looking for someone with your skills.
Another way you can use the Internet to your advantage when you are hunting for a job is to build your own job hunting website. Create a website that showcases your resume and all of the work experience you have. You can set out your career objectives and show off any special skills you have. Having your own website is a great way to direct potential employers to where they can find more information about you and is a handy way of getting the message across about skills or achievements you have that may not be right for inclusion on your resume.
If all of this sounds like casting the net a little too wide for your tastes, the good news is there are now local job listings websites in most towns. These websites work in much the same way was the larger job hunting websites, but they only list local jobs and only allow local workers to upload their information.
Remember that the Internet cuts both ways when looking for a job. Just as you might Google a potential employer, so they may Google you. Be thoughtful about what you post about yourself on the Internet. If you don’t want your potential boss to know about that time you had too much to drink and passed out in your friend’s front lawn, don’t post the picture online. Likewise, be careful when blogging about political, religious or off-color topics. Almost anything you say online can be traced back to you, and may be used against you in a job hunt.
Web Hosting - FTP and Other File Transfer Tools Anything related to the Internet or computers is bound to introduce technical issues pretty soon. One of the earliest that novice web site owners encounter is FTP, which is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol. Seeing it spelled out, it's easy to see why those in the know quickly move to speaking in short hand. The reason web site owners soon will (or need to) become familiar with FTP is obvious to anyone who has built a site on a remote server. You have to have some way of getting the files to the remote computer and FTP is one of the most common tools. It's also one of the simplest and most efficient. FTP is composed of two parts: the client software and the server software. It's similar, in a way, to talking to someone on the phone who writes down everything you say. You (the client) make a request ('transfer this file to the server') and the listener (the server) takes the request and acts on it. That request to copy a file from a local computer to the remote one is carried out (often 'under the covers') by a PUT command, as in PUT this there. You create the web page (in the form of a file) and then PUT the file on the server. To move a file in the opposite direction, from the remote server to your local computer, your client software issues a GET command. Many FTP clients have graphical interfaces, similar to Windows Explorer, that allow you to drag-and-drop or otherwise copy the file without ever seeing the actual commands that carry it out. But it's helpful sometimes to know what goes on underneath. In tricky cases it can be an advantage to use a command line interface (in Windows, the 'DOS box', with a similar interface familiar to most Linux users). Knowing the commands and being able to use them in the command line form can sometimes help you diagnose what is going on when the graphical tools misbehave. But FTP is not the only way to get a file from here to there. In fact, your browser moves files around from a remote computer to your local one all the time. In most cases, when you type in or click on a URL, what happens under the covers is in essence a file transfer process. The web page is transferred from the web server to your local computer then displayed by the browser. Alternatively, you can sometimes even email a web page/file from your local computer to the remote server, then use an email client on the server itself to get the file and put it in a folder. That requires that you have some form of access to the remote computer. But there are many ways of doing that, such as in-built utilities in the operating system or using commercial remote control programs. Those alternatives can be helpful to know in cases where the FTP file transfer process is misbehaving. Having more than one way to accomplish the task helps you diagnose what might be going wrong. It also helps you get the job done when the usual tools aren't cooperating. The more you learn about these sometimes puzzling acronyms, the easier you can accomplish your own goals. Web Hosting - Unix vs Windows-Based Hosting, Which Is Better? An operating system functions largely out of sight, or at least is supposed to. It doesn't matter to non-geeks how a file gets stored, or how memory is used, or how simultaneous processes share the limited resources available on a computer. These are among the basic functions of any operating system. Yet, you can find very passionate supporters - who offer very detailed lists of pros and cons - for every operating system. Why? Because, though the low-level functions of an operating system do their work out of sight, there are many other features that rise to visibility. Sometimes, they do so when they're not supposed to. Weighing the pros and cons objectively could consume a book. But to select a web host operating system, a manageable level of considerations apply. They can be weighed even by those who don't know a processor queue from a pool cue. Learning Curves For most web site owners, administering the site/server is just overhead. It's not something they take pleasure in doing and they have plenty of other things to worry about. Many wouldn't know how and have no interest in learning (rightly so, given their priorities). Consequently, ease of administration is paramount for such people. Whether a Unix-based site (usually Linux these days) is easier to administer than Windows depends on your current skill set and the type of tools and level of access the web hosting company provides. But in general Linux is more difficult to install and maintain than Windows and the learning curve is steeper. FTP and Control Panels Often, you don't have to care. For many, the operating system is fairly transparent. FTP file transfers to get a new web page up to a Windows server are very much like they are to a Linux-based site. The user/administrator simply doesn't see what's behind the curtain. Many companies provide other utilities that completely mask any awareness of the operating system underneath. When that's the case, the web site owner has no reason to care, until or unless they need or want to go 'inside the black box'. Performance Performance issues can be relevant in selecting which operating system host type to choose. But for the most part, that aspect is outside the web site owner's control. Overall performance can be good or bad on either system, depending on many factors that the publisher will rarely see. The issue is a wash, as far as tipping the scales is concerned. What is more likely to be seen by a web site owner, at some point in their (and their site's) development is the database product that can be used to store information. Databases Microsoft SQL Server is relatively simple to use, yet extremely powerful and can deliver great performance. But it doesn't run on Linux. At least, not without special software to emulate Windows, which usually kills performance. On the other hand, with a bit of time invested, MySQL isn't significantly more difficult to learn than MS SQL Server and there are many free installations. Cost may well outweigh other considerations for most on this issue. Programming Languages Last, but not least, there are differences in programming languages that can be (or at least typically are) used on Windows vs Unix. If you have programmers who are skilled in Visual Basic, ASP and other Microsoft technologies, then a Windows-based host will be your preferred choice. For Perl and PHP programmers, Linux is the more common platform of choice. No single factor can push you to one versus the other operating system. And, in the long run, it isn't the primary consideration, unless you just enjoy playing with operating systems. |