Back-to-school season has me thinking about school and it’s similarities to career planning. When searching for your next job, you should think of networking as your schoolwork—you should concentrate on contacting your network about opportunities and following up with the leads. As in school, sometimes getting the job means cramming for an interview and doing extra credit work to get past some unexpected hiring obstacles.

Below, I’ve outlined three additional things—essentially homework assignments—which will help you get past some of the hiring obstacles.

Assignment #1: Keep up with your chosen industry

Whatever industry you chose to work in, you need know the current trends and the forecast for the future by reading publications and blogs. You should also go one step past that and follow blogs and tweets of those companies you where you want to work. Keeping up with the industry has the advantage of helping you expand your network by introducing you to others through blog comments or tweets and gives you an advantage in knowing which companies are in trouble and which ones could be hiring soon.

Another good way to keep up with their work and changes in their clients or organization is to use Google Alerts to receive articles and blogs about that company. It is also a smart idea to follow industry gossip blogs to know about internal strife and situations in a company.

In addition to keeping up with the industry, you should leverage LinkedIn groups and join those relevant to your target industry. This will help broaden your network and expand your profile on LinkedIn while keeping you updated on the industry.

Assignment #2: Update phrases for your résumé, cover letters, and correspondence

With computer programs scanning résumés for certain key words and phrases it is imperative to do the research and know which ones they will be seeking out. Usually those words are in the job post. If there is not a job post—say you have a contact within the company and are passing on your résumé through them—then you should look at similar job posts and job boards. Comb through your résumé and cover letter for outdated terms and titles and eliminate them. Using the current industry terms and phrases shows you are up-to-date and give your résumé a higher score by the scanners, making you stick out of a crowd.

Extra Credit: Brush up on necessary skills

Sometimes great job candidates are excluded for lack of skills. If an opportunity you want calls for skills you don’t have, you should take the time to learn those skills. Courses are usually available at local colleges, Apple Stores, and the U.S. Small Business Administration. In addition, several sites offer online tutorials and webinars for skills and software. This homework assignment may be more time consuming than the others, but will pay off when you get past some of the hiring hurdles keeping you from your next job.

Taking the extra time to keep up with your industry, update your language, and learn any necessary skills will help make you more marketable and help you find your next job.

One mistake job seekers make is to focus their job search only on online job boards. In this economy, those job seekers have a high amount of competition and are unlikely to find a job using that method.

A few recent articles and blog posts highlight the growing evidence against focusing solely on online job boards.

From the Wall Street Journal blog Laid Off and Looking, a post titled Why Online Job Boards Are Virtually Useless:

In the year I’ve spent in the job search, I’ve realized that Internet job boards (both internal and external) are the most puzzling aspect of my search. Job boards were a big part of my focus early on, but have since become very minor (a networked connection is obviously the most preferred method). In theory these services specialize in aiding career searches. I believed that such sites were a good way to get hired. I mean, isn’t it what they claim?

Wrong. It seems to me that companies are posting positions on job boards but aren’t really doing much hiring. While I know people who’ve landed jobs this way, the numbers to me, just don’t add up. I’ve realized it’s an employers’ market, and successes are few and far between.

From CNNMoney.com:

“Because most people are going through conventional methods of finding a job, you’re going to meet the most competition going the conventional way,” according to Cheryl Palmer, an executive career coach at Call To Career in Silver Spring, Md. …

“It’s a buyers market and the employer is the buyer, they don’t need to find you, you need to target the employer,” he said. “Whether they use Google maps or another resource, job seekers should target the areas they are interested in and find the major employers there,” King added.

Palmer encourages job seekers to think outside the box, particularly by bypassing job boards and going directly to the employer. As long as your tactics are “within reason,” she said, they will likely be impressed with your resourcefulness.

“If you’re doing the same thing everyone else is doing, how do you stand out?” Palmer asked.

Here’s blog on recent graduates in the Wall Street Journal blog, The Wallet:

“If [recent grads] just decide to have fun for a year, I think they’re making a mistake” and are likely to have greater difficulty finding a job later, says Bud Bilanich, a success coach in Denver. …

“I think it’s not a good idea to just go on to… any of the big job boards and just put your resume on there,” says Mr. Bilanich.

Instead, you should research a company and tailor your resume to highlight the skills that make you a good fit. Use active verbs and list specific goals you accomplished. Then go through your network to see if you know anyone who can refer you, he says.

Finally, Job-Hunt.Org suggests networking with people in an article on The Dirty dozen Online Job Search Mistakes:

Limiting your job search efforts to the Internet only.

Even if you have a job and can only job hunt at home in your spare time, don’t focus all of your attention online. People are hired by people, so the Internet is only useful as a way to reach the people with the job opportunities. Use the Internet as a part of your job search toolkit.

Evidence shows job seekers should look beyond job boards and seek out their network to find their next job. Don’t become one in the mile-high stack of résumés, use your network to stand out.

Sherri Wilson is a regular contributor to the CardboardResume Blog and a Skills Holder.

Photo courtesy http://www.sxc.hu/profile/channah