Job hunting

Information collected might include open positions, full name, locations, web site, business description, year established, revenues, number of employees, stock price if public, name of chief executive officer, major products or services, major competitors, and strengths and weaknesses.

[3] Likewise, job seekers are beginning to use social networking sites to advertise their skills and post resumes.

Today, job seekers can use resources such as Google+’s Circles, Facebook’s BranchOut, LinkedIn’s InMaps, and Twitter’s Lists to make employers notice them in a unique way.

[5] Job seekers need to begin to pay more attention to what employers and recruiters find when they do their pre-interview information gathering about applicants, according to this 2010 study by Microsoft, "Online Reputation in a Connected World".

With certain occupations, such as graphic design or writing, portfolios of a job seeker's previous work are essential and are evaluated as much, if not more than the person's résumé.

In most other occupations, the résumé should focus on past accomplishments, expressed in terms as concretely as possible (e.g. number of people managed, amount of increased sales or improved customer satisfaction).