In this article, I will touch on 4 ideas to find a Web Developer and/or Website Design position. The ideas are not in any type of order, but you will get the idea: create an online portfolio, write good cover letters and resumes, and get a bit aggressive in your job hunt by sending interest letters to employers of interest even if they have not posted a job opening.

Idea 1. Create an online portfolio

Have you ever heard the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Well, it works. Having a portfolio tells a lot about your skills. Employers can actually see your work.

To show off your business or writing skills, write a paragraph describing each project. Include the programming languages or software you used to development the project.

Write a small web application and set a generic user name and password for potential employers to use so they can check out your work. Be sure to test it first before letting anyone else use it.

Idea 2 is the most time consuming and frustrating part of the job hunt. Unfortunately, we need them. When writing resumes and cover letters you must write them to fit a specific job, which means you will have many versions. When saving them to your hard drive name them “companyname_resume”, and “companyname_coverletter” (or something like that) so that if you get an interview you will have the exact resume with you that you sent to them. No more wondering which resume you sent to them or showing up at an interview with a different resume and coverletter than the employer has on file. Or for less work, create company folder names on your hard drive and save the resumes and cover letters to the company named folders.

Idea 2. Write good cover letters and resumes (online, printable, and plain text layout)

An online resume is an html version of your cover letter and resume. This one is a good way to show off your design and development talents.

The printable copy is your professional MS Word formatted resume - create a link to it from your html version. When asked on the job boards to upload a copy of your resume, use the MS Word copy. Be sure to add your URL to your portfolio.

The plain text copy (use Notepad) has no bullets, underlined text, or bold text and everything is flushed to the left for pasting into a text area on job boards like monster.com (http://monster.com), CareerBuilder (http://careerbuilder.com), and Dice (http://dice.com).

I have tried one other idea with pasted resumes on job boards: I take the main keywords from my resume that match their job description and place them at the top of the pasted resume (separated by commas). This makes it easier for their scanning software to pick up your skills. If your resume does not have the keywords in their job description, add them to fit into your resume.

Idea 3. Get aggressive. Don’t wait for a job opening to appear.

If you know of a company or companies you would like to work for, send them a copy of your MS Word cover letter and resume. Before doing this, call the company to get the name of their hiring manager or Human Resource person so that you can specifically use that person’s name on your cover letter and envelope.

Idea 4. Start learning keywords used within your career field

Learn your career keywords. It is very impressive to use career keywords when talking to a potential employer or showing off your skills. It makes you appear very professional and shows that you know what you are talking about. Not only will you learn the new keywords to increase your gift of gab, but you will learn a lot more about your career field.

The best way to get started with this is to write down all the career keywords you are unfamiliar with from job descriptions or information technology articles. Study them and find out exactly what they mean and how they are used. Also, subscribe to a few of the industry magazines both on and offline and read some other resources for your career field: Web Developer.com (http://www.webdeveloper.com/tocs/index.html, ColdFusion Developer’s Journal (http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/), Oracle (http://www.oracle.com/oramag/index.html), Graphic Design (http://www.graphic-design.com/)

Try to find someone who is in the same career field - someone who has been in the field for at least 5 years. They will surely be able to give you tons of advice. If you don’t know any one personally, find a forum online like SitePoint (http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/) and become a member.

I have many more information technology job hunting ideas to share with you all, but I think I better make this particular article short before I end up writing an entire book (no time for that at all).

If you would like to contact me with questions, feel free to contact me at atlantaitpeople@yahoo.com.

About the Author

Regina Stevens is the founder of Atlanta I.T. PEOPLE, http://atlantaitpeople.com. She teaches basic website design and how to use Microsoft applications. She also, as a hobby, writes computer and IT job market articles that can be found on many websites. -

Whether or not you are a designer or would-be designer, do pay attention to these mistakes. They are what distinguish the professional from the amateur. They will also help or hinder your website?s placements on search engine listings. And, they will determine whether or not your visitors stay for a time at or leave - never to return - your website.

MISTAKE #1: Huge graphic files, along with too many graphics. These are the culprits that slow the downloading of a website. Resize the images and lower the resolutions before uploading to the website. Visitors have no patience for waiting to see your website.

MISTAKE #2: Confusing navigation. If visitors and/or the search engine spiders (that visit and index your website) can?t easily find their way around your website, they will leave as fast as a click of the mouse. I love using roll-over buttons, but also realize that for the spiders I need to post text-based links - usually at the bottom of the pages.

MISTAKE #3: The lack of a unique title for each and every page. I have a search-engine-guru friend who stresses the fact that so many pages lack this important feature. Without a title, your website pages will have little or no chance of showing up in the major search engines. When we include keywords in our titles, we increase our chances of top listings. These are super important because no one will find your website just because you have built it.

MISTAKE #4: The use of ?Mystery Meat.? Vincent Flanders and Dean Peters in their Web Pages that Suck books compare websites that are confusing - you don’t know what they are about or where they are going - to mystery meat (meat disguised by gravy, etc.). Be obvious - most users are not into guessing what it’s all about. They may surmise that we don’t know either.

MISTAKE #5: Using Flash Intros for the home or landing pages. Even though these can be quite clever and design-rich, most web-surfers I know and talk with, hate them. They take time to load and often produce confusion and ?mystery meat.? It is more expedient to use content that introduces you and/or your website to your visitor.

MISTAKE #6: No or little attention to the use of keywords. It used to be that we would load our meta tags with keywords and a description of what our website was all about. We should still do this, but most of the search engines don?t rely on these today. It is imperative that we use the important keywords throughout our website?s content.

MISTAKE #7: Adding animation for effect. In the beginning, everyone thought this was fun and cute. Maybe for a youngster?s website if used cleverly. But, animation gets old fast. It is like having a blinking neon sign outside your motel room?s window.

MISTAKE #8: Not using alt tags. Alt tags describe your graphics. They are especially for those visitors who have either turned off the graphics or who are using a reader program for the visually or aurally impaired. I find them to also be helpful in describing an object you want your visitors to click on.

If you avoid these eight MISTAKES, you will have a good start to a successful website.

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