彭蒙惠英语：Job Hunting in the 21st Century Goes High-Tech（在线收听）

Job Hunting in the 21st Century Goes High-Tech

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Don’t rely on e-mail alone. “Some company networks are flat-out deleting e -mails that have attachments,” says Kevin Donlin, president of Guaranteed Resumés. This “gives you a perfect excuse to call the employer.” Make the call brief, along the lines of “since e-mail is not entirely reliable, I just wanted to call to make sure you got the resumé I sent,” he says.

Get to know ASCII. If you don’t know already, figure out how to save your resumé in ASCII format, which is the plain text version that employers increasingly require.

Do a test run before sending it. “You want to save it as plain text and open it again using your text editor,” Donlin says. For instance, if it replaced all your bullets with question marks, replace them with asterisks.

Include keywords in your ASCII resumé to ensure your resumé pops up when hiring managers search resumé databases. To figure out which keywords to use, “you want to reverse-engineer job postings,” Donlin says. “Take the relevant keywords and put them into your ASCII resumé.”

Find a proofreader. Often job seekers trust their own eyes—without realizing what they’re missing. “Send the resumé to three friends,” Donlin says. “Ask them: ‘What’s your first impression? Do you see any mistakes? Would you call me?’ You’re getting free proofreading, but you’re also networking at this point. Now your resumé is in the hands of three other people.”

Get someone in the company to refer you. “Thirty to 60 percent of employees in most companies in the U.S. get hired by employee referral,” Mehler says.

Donlin agrees: “There’s no need for a resumé if you’ve been doing your networking properly. A job can be created for you. The key is to try to short-circuit the whole hiring process by getting into the hiring manager’s mind before he places a want ad.”

Vocabulary Focus

along the lines of (idiom) in a similar way

test run (n phr) a practical exercise with something new or unknown to discover its effectiveness

network (v) [5netwE:k] to communicate with people who might be useful to know, especially in one’s job

short-circuit (v) [FC:t5sE:kit] to use a quicker and more direct way to accomplish something

Specialized Terms

plain text (n phr) 纯文字 a generic, text-only computer file format that can be read by almost any computer program, useful for text that does not need any special formatting

text editor (n phr) 文字编辑器 any word processing program that one can use to type, as well as cut, add and arrange text

keyword (n) 关键词 a term entered into the search field of an online library catalog, database, electronic index, or Web search site

reverse-engineer (v) 追溯，逆向或还原操作 to analyze an existing system to identify its components and how it works, possibly to create representations of the system in another form

21世纪的高科技求职工具

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不可完全依赖电子邮件。凯文·唐林是网络简历撰写公司 Guaranteed Resumes 的总裁。他说：“有些公司网络会直接删除含有附件的电子邮件。如此一来，你便有借口打电话给该公司了。”他说，打电话时尽量长话短说，大致只要说“因为电子邮件并不完全可靠，我只想确认你收到我寄的履历表”。

学会如何使用 ASCII（即 American Standard Code for Information Interchange，美国信息交换标准码）。你若还不会，设法了解如何将履历表以 ASCII 格式存盘。ASCII 是愈来愈多雇主逐渐要求的纯文本格式。

履历表送出前先测试一下。唐林说：“最好将档案存成纯文本，之后再用文字处理软件开启。”若文字处理软件将所有项目符号取代成问号，则你必须将它们换成星号。

在你的 ASCII 履历表中键入关键词，以确保当征才经理搜索履历表数据库时，搜索结果可显示你的履历表。若想知道应使用哪些关键词，“你必须追溯参考征才广告”，唐林说：“将广告中的相关关键词，键入你的 ASCII 履历表中。”

找人帮忙校对。求职者通常会相信自己的双眼，而不了解自己可能有所疏忽。唐林说：“将履历表寄给3位朋友看，问他们‘第一印象如何？发现错误了吗？你会回电吗？’这样你不仅可获得免费校对，同时也建立人际网络。现在已经有3人拥有你的履历表了。”

请公司内部员工介绍。梅勒说：“在多数美国公司里，30%~60%的员工都是经由其它员工介绍而来的。

唐林同意说：“你若人际网络建立良好，就不需要履历表。公司可以为你创造一份工作。重点是在整个征聘过程中走快捷方式，在征才经理刊登广告之前，就在他的脑海中留下印象。”