Imag­ine world where your tablet, smart­phone or com­put­er takes the hard work out of a job search. The advent of the seman­tic web could take the headaches out of the job hunt once and for all.

Recruit­ment rep­re­sents the lion’s share of Inter­net traf­fic, and while peo­ple are increas­ing­ly savvy when tap­ping into online oppor­tu­ni­ties – those look­ing for tech­nol­o­gy and media jobs are already har­ness­ing the pow­er of the social web to con­nect with recruiters and raise their pro­file with the peo­ple in the know, but as we hur­tle towards a more ‘intel­li­gent’, adap­tive web how will this affect how we find our next role?

What Does Web 2.0 Look Like?

Those already using Web 2.0 are using the pow­er of social media chan­nels such as LinkedIn, Twit­ter and Face­book, as well as blogs, to max­imise their employ­ment and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and to devel­op and pro­mote their brand. Web 2.0 allows peo­ple to con­nect and share, it allows them to post con­tent and shape their space.

The cur­rent web mean job hunters can con­nect with recruiters, approach employ­ees of com­pa­nies they would like to work for, put them­selves in front of busi­ness lead­ers and con­duct thor­ough and time­ly com­pa­ny research and they can engage in real-time dis­cus­sions with like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als from across the globe.

Web 2.0 makes the recruit­ment process more flu­id; job seek­ers no longer have to go through the motions of send­ing out hun­dreds of resumes and scour­ing the clas­si­fied ads. You can share your resume via the social web, have ads deliv­ered straight to your inbox and talk to the peo­ple that mat­ter, all from the com­fort of your armchair.

How About Web 3.0?

Where Web 2.0 allows inter­ac­tion and mass pub­lish­ing of con­tent, Web 3.0 will blur the line between peo­ple and machines and try to make sense of that con­tent. Using machine learn­ing and algo­rithms, 3.0 will present you with infor­ma­tion it believes you will val­ue, based on past activity.

While 2.0 allows you to con­duct your job search from the com­fort of your arm­chair, 3.0 will enhance any expe­ri­ence while you’re out there expe­ri­enc­ing it, and while 2.0 sees social media as a rec­om­mend­ed way of search­ing for a job, with Web 3.0 it will be the norm.

The tech­nol­o­gy offered by 3.0 will lead to height­ened and more fruit­ful and offline events. For instance, del­e­gates at career fairs and net­work­ing events will use their smart­phones to scan and share data and link in with the recruiters in a way that’s both imme­di­ate and rel­e­vant. Some of these events may even be vir­tu­al, where you can send your avatar to do the hard work for you. Heard of Hyper­fair? Then you know what we’re talk­ing about.

Includ­ing QR codes on resumes and job seek­er cards will allow you to con­trol your brand and the infor­ma­tion recruiters see about you. If there’s any­thing in Cyber­space you would rather recruiters didn’t see, direct­ing them to a well-ordered library of data is a use­ful way of giv­ing them every­thing they need, with­out them attempt­ing to find it them­selves. This part­ner­ship between peo­ple and tech­nol­o­gy will see online and offline brands becom­ing more con­gru­ent and will lend job seek­ers a lev­el of con­trol they’ve nev­er had before.