Top Tips for Leveraging Your Smartphone for Your Job Search - Part 1 - CareerAlley

Top Tips for Leveraging Your Smartphone for Your Job Search - Part 1 - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Job search is often driven by time is of the essence (as in those who apply later in the process will not get an interview). For every job opening there are potentially thousands of individuals who are qualified. While the primary requirement is that you are a good fit for the job, it is only those qualified individuals who get their resume and application submitted within the first 100 responses that tend to get an interview (and ultimately, someone of this group will get the job). Knowledge is power and timing is everything. Waiting until you get home from work (or whatever activity is keeping you away from your computer) will most likely keep you from getting the job. So what can you to do to be prepared to send your resume from anywhere? Your Smartphone is the answer. Give yourself the tools to send your resume on the fly from your Smartphone. This is a three-part article focusing on the three basic tools you will need to manage your job search documents from your smartphone: Part 1 How to access the most recent copy of your resume, cover letter and other job search documents. Part 2 How to edit your documents from your smartphone should you need to add a little tweak at the last minute.Part 3 Smartphone apps that will let you attach your document(s) and email them from anywhere. This article assumes you have the basics: a smartphone and a WiFi or cellular connection. Part 1 How to Access Your Resume and Cover Letter from Anywhere: You will need a cloud storage account where you can save your documents. The good news is that there are quite a few free services (with limited storage unless you want to pay a fee) you can use to do this. Most of them will work across your various devices (desktop, smartphone and tablet). Ive listed a few of the services below (there are plenty more Ive not listed). There are a lot of similarities across these applications, so your decision about which one to use should be based on what works for you. Here goes. Dropbox Probably the best known cloud storage services (and one of the first to offer this service), Dropbox works across almost any operating system (smartphone and desktop). Setting up an account is easy, and once youve signed up, loaded the app on your smartphone and desktop, the rest is easy. On your desktop, Dropbox will look like another drive and it is simply a matter of saving or copying your documents to a Dropbox folder in your account. Dropbox is available for Android, iOS, Mac and Windows. From you smartphone, you can open your documents from within Dropbox or a number of editing apps (like Pages, Quickoffice, Evernote and more). Depending on your smartphone, you can also email your resume from within the app. More on editing apps and emailing your documents below. Google Drive You will need a Google account to use Google Drive (no different than any of the other services) and, like Dropbox and the others mentioned below, Google Drive will work across most desktop and smartphone operating systems. One advantage to Google Drive is that any documents you edited and saved using Google Docs are now saved in Google Drive. If you already use gmail or other Google services your account will be integrated. It is not as easy to email a document from within Google Drive as compared to Dropbox, but you can also open your documents in many of the popular editing apps (depending on your smartphone operating system) as well as create a new document. Box The basic functionality in Box is similar to Dropbox. You will be able to open a doc in a selection of applications on your smartphone or email the doc as well. You can use a web interface on your desktop to upload existing docs or to create new docs. Box starts you out with a higher free storage limit. You can create new documents in Word, Google Docs, Excel plus a few more on the web interface, although I did not see a way to edit docs on your smartphone from within the app (more on that in Part 2). Evernote Evernote is so much more than a cloud storage app. It is a way to capture and organize just about any piece of information. Evernote basic is free, however, if you want to be able to access documents without a cellular or wifi connection you will need to pay the annual fee. If you can get by with just accessing stuff when you have connectivity, the free version works just fine. Similar to the the other options above, you can open and edit your documents in a variety of applications. You can also email your document from within the app and, like the other options, there is a web interface, desktop version and smartphone version. While the other apps are primarily focused on cloud storage/access, Evernote extends well beyond that functionality and supports a variety of apps and uses. Other Choices There is (what seems like) an endless list of similar services. You can also take a look at SkyDrive (a Microsoft product) and SugarSync. Parts 2 and 3 will cover editing and emailing the documents youve saved to your favorite cloud storage app. One word of advice, should you feel the need to test emailing a document before reading Part 3, it is best to test the app and email the doc to yourself first. This way you can get comfortable with the functionality Career Tip of the Day:8 Tips for Printing Your Resume Professionally Suggested Reading:Job Hunting and Careers Guide Resume Online Marketing Book We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. 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