By Anne Fisher, FORTUNE senior writer

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - Friends, be warned: If you’re hoping to find a new job through a job board or other online channel — or if you’re an employer seeking candidates on the Web — the world just got a little bit more difficult.

New federal guidelines meant to standardize how employers track data on the diversity of their job-applicant pool are taking effect starting today for jobs at federal contractors — and similar rules will kick in later this year at U.S. companies with more than 50 employees. And resumes and search approaches that worked perfectly well before may no longer do the trick.

In the new system, federal regulators will be checking to see that companies are keeping diversity data on all applicants, according to a new, more uniform definition of “applicant.”

According to this definition, an applicant must “express interest” in the job, whether by sending in a resume, applying on the company’s site, or whatever other means the company requests, says Gerry Crispin, founder and principal of CareerXRoads and a long-time Internet job hunting expert.

That “expression of interest” must show that he or she has all the qualifications for the job listed in the company’s job description (not just some or most of them) — and those qualifications must be specific and measurable.

The applicant must be considered for a specific current or future position, and “never remove himself from consideration for the job,” says Crispin. For example, “if I have a job opening in Boston, for example, and you’ve specified that you want to work in Chicago, I can infer that you’ve removed yourself,” he says.

To comply with these new rules and get the most diversity, employers will have an incentive to keep the pool of applicants for each job relatively small and as random as possible. To make sure you’re considered now, you’ll have to:

Follow the company’s instructions. “If an employer says that, to apply for a given job, you must go to their web site and enter a certain code number, then do that,” says Crispin. “Otherwise your resume will never be seen.”

Spell out your qualifications clearly. “Pay very close attention to the specific qualifications an employer lists for a particular job, and make sure your resume contains those exact words,” Crispin says.

For instance, if a job description includes the words “three years of credit accounting experience,” put “three years of credit accounting experience” on your resume. “Don’t just list a credit-accounting position with the dates you had it and assume someone will figure it out,” Crispin advises. This may mean you have to rewrite your resume for each job opening you apply for.

Keep your resume up-to-the-minute current. “The rules allow companies to pick a random pool of applicants by searching the job boards for ‘most recent’ qualified applicants,” Crispin notes. “In those cases, no one will even look at a resume that is more than two or three weeks old.” Yikes.

Target specific companies and visit their web sites often. “The first announcement of a job opening very often appears on a company’s own site before it is posted anywhere else,” says Crispin. If enough applicants turn up on the site, the employer is unlikely to look any further. “Companies really do not want 500 or 1,000 applicants for each job,” Crispin says. “If they get 30 who are qualified, that’s a reasonable number for a hiring manager to consider and select from.”

If someone is referring you for a job, make sure you — and they — understand how to do it. About one-third of all new hires now come through employee-referral programs, and companies are still permitted to run these however they like, as long as they follow a consistent policy. So if your pal at Ostrich Corp. wants to refer you for a job, know what Ostrich’s policy is (whether via the company web site, having your friend submit your resume for you in a particular way, or what-have-you) and follow it to the letter.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the new rules will actually increase diversity in companies or just create extra work for everybody. Either way, if you’re looking for a new job, you can’t afford to ignore them.

What you need to know is this: an offer of $30,000 will go farther in Atlanta, Georgia than it will in Boston, Massachusetts. It will go much farther in Akron, Ohio, than it does in San Francisco, California. If you make $30,000 in Syracuse, New York, you’ll need less than that to maintain the same standard of living in Wichita, Kansas.

The truth is, geographic location and cost-of-living play a big part in determining how much salary you will be offered-and how much you can afford to accept. Cost of living and salaries fluctuate among metropolitan, suburban, and rural areas. The starting salary for a sales job in a metropolitan area with a high cost-of-living will probably be significantly higher than the salary for the same job in an area with a low cost-of-living. Yet, the buying power of a salary in these locations may be similar.

Find a salary calculator online and you can compare the cost of living in a number of cities. Suppose you are offered $30,000 to take a job in Tampa Florida.

Move to Charlotte, North Carolina and you’ll only need $23,639 to maintain the same standard of living. You’ll need $42,682 in Boston; $56,019 in San Francisco; $28,560 in Wichita, Kansas; or $29, 511 in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Supply and demand also play a major role in the amount of starting salary you will be offered. For example, if you’re looking for a job in a field that has a healthy supply of candidates, you’ll probably find stiff competition for jobs; so, your ability to negotiate salary will probably be limited. On the other hand, some fields are so hot right now that graduates in those areas will find they have their choice of employers, many of whom will offer top dollar. But, even within fields, salaries vary, and industry and type of employer also affect salary.

Finally, you’re unique. Your specific qualities and qualifications will play a role in your ability to attract employers and negotiate a salary.

Below are starting salary ranges for selected disciplines. The ranges are provided to give you a rough idea of salary potential for a variety of majors, but keep in mind the factors that affect salary offers—and remember your starting salary may be higher or lower than the figures reported here.

• 57 percent of respondents indicated that HR is viewed as a strategic asset, compared to just 18 percent who indicated it is viewed as a cost center

• Over 70 percent of respondents indicated becoming a leader in “total talent management” (including recruiting, performance, learning and succession planning) would make HR more strategic to their organization; respondents from larger organizations placed even more emphasis on talent management than smaller organizations

• The use of alternative HR service delivery models, like shared services or outsourcing, was not viewed as especially important in enabling HR transformation; shared services scored a 3.1 on a 1-5 scale, outsourcing of HR IT received a 2.8, and HRO scored a 2.3; alternative service delivery models was more common and highly regarded among respondents from larger organizations

• Organizations that have undertaken Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) scored its importance to address talent challenges at 3.58 on a 1-5 scale

• The top factor driving adoption of RPO was to accelerate the recruiting and hiring process, as cited by over 60 percent of respondents

Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for five days before anyone asked if he was feeling okay.  George Turkelbaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers.

He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was working during the weekend.

His boss, Elliot Wachiaski, said: “George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave each night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all the time and didn’t say anything.  He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself.”

A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary.  George was proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.

You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally.  The moral of the story.  Don’t work too hard.  Nobody notices anyway.

These demographic shifts mean all of us are likely to need flexibility at different points in our working lives depending on our individual circumstances. Simply put people need and want to have time outside of work to so they can enjoy their families and the fruits of their labor.

Fortunately it would appear employers are willing to make the changes necessary to accommodate their employee’s life situations. With technology facilitating different ways of working and the reduced cost to employers by having employee’s office virtually this looks to be the way more and more of us work in the future.

That being said it will also afford us all the requisite 75 days we need to spend shreddin in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, you know “working virtually”.

p. smurf

If you’ve impressed them enough to make them select you from among the other candidates you’re in a position of power which is always a nice place to be.

p. j. o’ smurf