If you are still seeking a reason to get on the Internet, consider this: Whether your job has anything directly to do with computers, from now on your employability and your ability to compete for positions in many fields may depend on having access to and familiarity with the World Wide Web. Why? Because of all the Web-savvy people competing for the same positions, of course.

Help wanted

Already, the Internet has become a de facto screening tool. Sure, you can keep sending résumés the old-fashioned way, via snail mail. But take a closer look at the help-wanted ads now appearing in newspapers and magazines. You are invited to visit a prospective employer's Web site to peruse job listings. Then you are encouraged to email your résumé to a specific address. You may even be confronted with an "e-form," where you must key in your personal data online. Do all of the above and you will demonstrate to the company that you have some fundamental computer skills; you won't have to take an onsite test to prove it.

Of course, you will also pass some not-so-subtle socioeconomic screening. People who are poor, undereducated, or otherwise not part of the "info elite" seldom own computers or have Internet accounts. In the era of e-forms, these people are rapidly losing the ability to compete (albeit for highly skilled jobs), because they still must rely on typed, mailed resumes.

Custer's last scan

A visually appealing, laser-printed résumé remains a valuable commodity within the job-search process, yet a document that is elegant graphically may actually cause you to miss out on the chance for some interviews. How can this be? In a word: scanners. Many corporations-and search firms that find candidates for positions-are trying to cut down on how much paper they handle and store. So they scan résumés electronically, then drop the information into databases and find interviewees based on keyword searches.

To compete in today's computer-oriented career chase, you must know how to create a résumé in ASCII format and send it via email so it can be captured electronically by your potential employer. ASCII is barebones; it allows for virtually no formatting. So you dazzle them with your facts and experience, or you don't dazzle them at all. If your résumé must be mailed or faxed instead of sent by email, you should assume that it will be scanned after it is received. Therefore, you may need to generate a version using a sans serif type such as Helvetica or Antique Olive. Some scanning systems occasionally have difficulty deciphering serif types like Times Roman or New Century Schoolbook, particularly if the characters are on a fax printout or photocopy.

You do need Internet access, of course. It's important to learn as much as possible about an organization's culture, history, products, and services before you go for a personal interview. If you have your own Web page, you can expect it to be visited by someone from the company that is considering hiring you. In the competition for a job, a Web page of your own may be a powerful plus. But if it makes a mediocre impression, it may cause you to be quietly dropped from further consideration. That alone should be incentive to learn better Web-page design-or to get help from a consultant.

Pitstops on the infobahn

What about the Internet itself? Won't there be "road-gang" jobs aplenty along and on the information superhighway? You bet. However, some of today's technology-based "careers" seem to have the lifespan of a summer job at a city swimming pool. Train for the wrong specialty and you can graduate just in time to be toast.

For example, you probably have seen late-night television commercials extolling the virtues of becoming a Web-page designer. People are pouring into this field, creating a glut. And some of them now are being pushed aside by better-and cheaper-Web-page-creation software. These packages let users perform basic Web-page design by themselves, without having to learn the dreaded Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). You just modify one of the dozen or so templates to suit your taste, click on an onscreen symbol, and the program creates and posts your Web page automatically.

The need for Web-page designers likely will linger, and you may achieve success by specializing in Web pages for highly technical or hard-to-sell fields. It helps to have a background in graphics or publishing, because content is always key. But always remember to rely in the future on your abilities to actually create, communicate, and sell-not on your prowess with File Transfer Protocol when you upload new Web pages to an Internet service provider.

What's hot? What's not?

The prognostications are everywhere: The 20 Hottest Jobs for the Year 2000. Thirty Ways to Make Millions in the Next Millennium. You are exhorted to become a paralegal, a freshwater catfish farmer, a multilevel-marketing entrepreneur-anything but what you already are, to avoid ending up in a virtual or actual bread line.

Meanwhile, the Internet has become the international equivalent of the Gold Rush. But actually going to work "there" may be a bit more difficult than you think. "There are lots of people involved in developing the Internet and moving stuff over to the Internet." says Mike Pilot, manager of the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Program. "But most of them are in existing careers at this point."

Most "existing careers," in fact, will continue to exist well into the next century. Keep in mind that the Internet is about information-finding it, moving it, storing it, and doing something useful with it. You can still be a banker, a dentist, an automobile mechanic, a librarian, or a classroom teacher in the Internet Age. You will just need to know how to "drive" on the infobahn as naturally as you now drive to work.