For Job Applicants, Knowledge Is Power

A CBS4 viewer recently posed an important question to CBS4: When applying for a job, is it better to do it in person or online?

After doing some interviews and research, it appears that answer depends on the industry an applicant is hoping to land a job in.

For the service industry, most employers seem to agree that an in-person interview makes a big difference.

"Because we are in the service industry we like to see job applicants personally and see how they are going to take care of guests," said Jennifer Friesenegger who is in charge of hiring for the Loews Hotel. She says the hospitality industry often hires only in-person applicants.

According to Brian Shumaker, a spokesman for Jobing.com, other industries that still encourage walk-in applications include:

- Transportation
- Retail employers such as car dealerships
- Companies searching for hourly laborers

All of the employers CBS4 talked to say a resume must be geared for the specific job an applicant is after.

"Read the description, understand the specific skills and tailor the resume to that job," Shumaker said.

The viewer who asked CBS4 the question is interested in landing a job in the health care industry, so her applications should be filed online and her resumes should be targeted to each individual job she's interested in. As with all resumes, she should be highlighting her personal strengths.

Employers say probably half of the resumes they receive have spelling and grammatical errors, which means they almost certainly go directly into the "trash" pile.

Also, younger applicants often send in resumes that employers say look similar in some ways to a text message -- there are abbreviations throughout, and the resumes have few explanations of what the applicant's skills are. Those, too, often end up in the recycling bin.

Once an application is in, employers say an applicant should call the employer to follow up five days later and, after that, call in on a weekly basis.