Big Book of Job-Hunting Hacks

• Be patient. The length of time you look for a job before you get the perfect offer—or even the first phone interview—may be longer than you might expect. Depending on the state of the overall economy, the health of your industry, and just plain luck, you may have to spend many months on your search. That can be discouraging—especially when you don’t hear back from many employers, or when you get multiple rejections—so steel yourself for the long haul.

• Put in the hours. Remember how you set a schedule at the beginning of your job search (Chapter 1)? As your job search winds on, it’s important to stick to that schedule. Do what it takes to put in the time you promised yourself, even if you have to break the time spent into two- or three-hour blocks.

• Keep meeting your goals. Your daily and weekly goals go hand in hand with your schedule. Keep striving for them, but if you find that the targets you originally set for yourself are unrealistic or too repetitive, it’s OK to set new ones. Try to broaden your search without easing up on the amount of effort you put in.

• Step away from the computer. Remember—while the Internet is an amazing source for browsing job openings, career advice, and company research, there’s more to a job search than Google. Make a point to get out of the house to volunteer and network formally and informally. You can start by heading over to your public library . . .

“Take advantage of the Internet. You have multiple ways of reaching companies. Of course, you certainly have to follow the directions for applying for an open position. But you can also follow up [through different channels] to differentiate yourself.”

—Dionna Keels, a member of the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) staffing management expertise panel

BEST IN SHOW—ONLINE JOB SEARCH

Bolles, Mark Emery, and Richard N. Bolles. Job-Hunting Online: A Guide to Job Listings, Message Boards, Research Sites, the UnderWeb, Counseling, Networking, Self-Assessment Tools, Niche Sites. (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2008).

Dikel, Margaret Riley, and Frances E. Roehm. Guide to Internet Job Searching, 2008–2009 ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008).

Doyle, Alison. Internet Your Way To a New Job: How to Really Find a Job Online. (Cupertino, CA: Happy About, 2009).

Levinson, Jay Conrad, and David E. Perry. Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0: 1,001 Unconventional Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Landing Your Dream Job. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009).

Job-hunt, www.job-hunt.org.

The Riley Guide, “Sites with Job Listings,” www.rileyguide.com/jobs.html.

Weddle’s, www.weddles.com.

WetFeet, www.wetfeet.com.

FACTOID Where Recruiters and HR Professionals Plan to Post

WEDDLE’s consulting firm surveyed 3,900 recruiters and HR professionals in 2005. Of those,

11 percent said they plan to use “general recruitment” websites.

84 percent said they preferred niche job boards.

FACTOID
Where Companies Say They Hire

CareerXroads’ ninth Annual Source of Hire (SOH) study shows the following top five sources for hiring employees externally (that is, not promoting current employees):

Employee referrals	26.7 percent
Company websites’ career page	22.3 percent
Job boards	13.2 percent
Direct sourcing (recruiters)	6.9 percent
College recruiting	6.3 percent

CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com . . . industry-specific online forums and discussion groups . . . LinkedIn . . . about.com and career information sites . . . the Internet offers countless sites and pages that include job postings (such as local newspapers’ online classified sections), career advice, and how-to descriptions for every aspect of job seeking. The trick is to “search smart” and make your time online count.

In order to find the best sites and the best individual listings, you have to choose your search words and phrases wisely. You can use the database resources listed in the “Sources for Keywords” section of Chapter 4 to make a list of words to use in your Internet search.

“You have to find all the key terms that are going to deliver good search results,” says Damone Virgilio, staff development manager at Memphis (Tennessee) Public Library. “Online searches are about sitting and combing through results. It can be tedious—but if you’ve been looking for a long time with no results, maybe a broader selection of results is better for you.”

LIBRARY RESOURCES

Before you delve into hours of online research, check the website of your local public library. You might find that the experts there have already done some of the heavy lifting!

At Baltimore County (Maryland) Public Library, the Jobs and Info page gets about 1,000 hits a month. “People who know what they’re looking for don’t need the webpage, but those kind of new to job search will go online and find an overwhelming number of options, a mix of all kinds of sites that are rated by popularity rather than quality by the search engines,” explains Jim DeArmey, the library’s coordinator of information services. This webpage “takes one piece out of the process of the time-consuming and often overwhelming task of looking for a job.”

DeArmey adds, “Our goal is to have a site that is manageably small. People visit because they’re not the most practiced job-seekers.” The library staff reviews the sites listed on their webpage regularly and adds anything they find useful, such as résumé how-tos and the library’s Testing and Educational database.

Visit Baltimore County Public Library’s Jobs and Info page at www.bcpl.info/info/jobs—then see what your own library system might offer online.

Your online job search should include regular visits to job boards—sites that display job postings. There are so many . . . how do you choose which sites to bookmark? Your list of regular boards might include:

• The big national sites, which all allow you to post one or more versions of your résumé, so when you’re ready to apply for a job you can do so quickly and easily.

• Your local newspaper’s job listings. Yes, some employers still advertise job openings in the newspaper—and those ads are typically found online.

• Industry-specific job boards, which are a must for just about every job search. More efficient than wading through mismatches on the general national sites, and providing an at-a-glance overview of all opportunities within your profession. Simply plug appropriate words into your search engine to turn up sites for your career or industry, or try the Job Spider at www.thejobspider.com/job/directory/employment-resources.asp.

• Sites of professional associations. Websites for most large associations now include job postings, and these can be even more targeted than industry job boards.

• Craigslist, for the city or region where you want to work. Yes, there are “real” jobs posted on Craigslist all the time—many younger professionals consider Craigslist the go-to site for everything from selling furniture to buying event tickets, and that includes seeking job candidates. Plus, many employers love Craigslist because the ads are free!

• Aggregators. These sites can save you time and unearth more job postings than you might. They automatically draw job postings from numerous online sources large and small, including the major job boards and search firms, smaller niche sites, and corporate career sites. Damone Virgilio, staff development manager at Memphis (Tennessee) Public Library, prefers the aggregator Indeed.com. “It pulls job openings from different sites so it casts a wide net,” he says. “It’s also extremely easy to use; just enter your ZIP code and the job title.”

JOB BOARDS RANKED

If you’d like some help from expert opinions and job-seeker statistics to help you determine the best (or most popular) job boards, check out these sources:

WEDDLE’s User’s Choice Awards (www.weddles.com/awards/index.htm), published each year, lists the winning general and specialty sites nominated by job seekers and career activists.

The Classifieds News Blog posts an annual ranking of the top fifteen U.S. job-search websites at http://blog.daype.com/tips/top-us-job-search-websites.html.

ONLINE EMPLOYMENT TESTING

When applying for jobs online, you may come across an employer that requires you to take an online test as part of the application process. Preemployment tests or assessments are used as a first step to narrow the field of candidates. These tests may contain questions about your personality and work style, or they could check your hands-on skills at clerical tasks or work-related knowledge.

If you come across an opening that requires a test, make sure you are ready. Check that you are using a reliable Internet connection, have ample time, and—most important—understand what the open position entails and have some knowledge of the employing organization.

Be aware that some Internet applications enable employers to check how long it took you to complete the test and see how you may have corrected or changed answers as you went.

Do your research: investigate all likely job boards, decide which are the best fit for you, check their privacy policies and security, and eliminate any aggregators that provide too many duplicates. (Note, too, that aggregators don’t pull job listings from Craigslist.)

Bookmark all the boards you’re interested in following and visit each one often to check for new listings—if possible, do this every day. It doesn’t take long to review only the latest listings, and you want to be able to respond to a job ad as soon as possible after it’s posted: “I generally go through applicants chronologically, so it’s good to be among the first to apply,” says Dionna Keels, a member of the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) staffing management expertise panel. “That means you need to search for openings every day.”

Many sites will send you regular updates with new listings via e-mail, but don’t rely on these—you’ll find many of the job mentions are off-target, because they are compiled by a software program.

LIBRARIAN’S TOP PICK

Virgilio says, “I love the extensive initial assessment you have to fill out on www.jobfox.com. You have to fill out a profile, which forces you to do some thinking about your skills and background—thinking that can be helpful to a job-seeker. One warning: you have to submit a résumé, and you’ll get multiple e-mail solicitations from résumé specialists who want money to update your résumé for you.”

You’d think that if an organization has a job opening, it would be posted on one or more of the job boards mentioned here. That is not always the case—so an organization’s own website may be a gold mine of information. Part of your job-search time online should be spent researching likely employers, and when you find one, visit their website and look for “careers,” “employment,” “career opportunities,” or a similar link to view open positions. You’ll find a lot more detail here than in a paid ad—possibly the full job description, salary information, and more.

LinkedIn has job listings, but the pickings are relatively slim compared to the types of sites listed above. However, time browsing on LinkedIn can definitely be well spent: if you find a LinkedIn job posting you’re interested in, you can apply using copy-and-paste sections from your plain-text résumé, as explained in Chapter 4.

Each job posting will reveal whether you are “linked” to the posting company. On the right side of the page with the job description, you’ll see any once-, twice- or three-times-removed connections. Click on one to see who you know that is connected. You’ll also see whether you share any LinkedIn groups with the company’s employees. Note that you have to view the actual job posting to see how you’re connected to the hiring company.

If you see any connections to the company you’re interested in working for, you can use LinkedIn to ask your connections for a referral (by clicking on the “Request Referral” button), which can greatly enhance your odds of standing out from other candidates for that job. You can also request an introduction to someone. If you want to contact a LinkedIn user who is two or three degrees away from you, you can request an introduction through one of your connections. Your connection will, in turn, decide whether to forward it on to the desired recipient (if in your “second-degree” connections) or to a shared connection (if in your “third-degree” connections). You’ll learn more about the networking power of LinkedIn in Chapter 6.

TIME IS MONEY

Be honest with how you’re spending your time online. You may plan to spend two hours browsing job listings, but if you find that your search has led you through multiple sites until you’re reading an article about how to dress for success, that’s not productive.

In fact, the comprehensive job-search site Riley Guide (rileyguide.com) dictates, “Limit your time online to one-quarter (25 percent) of the total time you can dedicate to your job search.”

As you browse job listings, keep in mind that there are job scams out there. Don’t answer any “employer” inquiries for personal information such as your Social Security number or bank account number—that goes for contact by phone, e-mail, on a website, or even in person. Sharing this information is never part of the interviewing process.

And don’t believe the job description that’s too good to be true; if you could make $100,000 working from home, we’d all be doing it already!

Step away from the computer to find more opportunities to research, find, and apply for jobs. Remember that face-to-face networking is an important component to any job search (covered in Chapter 6). Here is a look at other “off-line” resources and events to include in your search:

Job fairs are hosted by colleges and universities, communities and profession-specific groups, or consortiums. Many job fairs are extremely general, with a wide range of employers and positions. Others are targeted to specific industries or professions, such as a Technology Job Fair.

If you’re plugged into the job-seekers’ network, you’ll automatically learn about upcoming job fairs through online forums and groups; they’ll be advertised on career sites, and fellow members of your job support group or networking circle will tell you. You may also find out through local newspapers, bulletin boards, and your local unemployment office.

It’s important to do your legwork in advance of showing up at a job fair. This includes more than just preregistering and ironing your best shirt:

1. Find out which prospective employers will be participating and select which you want to be sure to meet. Take time to do some online research to check out each one before the fair.

2. If a map of the fair is available, literally plan your route.

3. Know what you want from this particular fair and have an appropriate elevator speech prepared. (For an explanation of elevator speeches, see Chapter 6.)

4. Have plenty of copies of appropriate résumés and business cards ready.

5. If you have a portfolio, prepare that, as well.

6. Rehearse your elevator speech and practice answering interview questions.

7. Select the business attire you plan to wear, clean and prepare it, and try it on to make sure everything is ready.

8. Have a professional-looking briefcase ready to hold résumés and portfolio and use it to carry the materials you gather at the fair.

If possible, get to the job fair early, get through registration, and start working your map route by visiting your list of “top picks” first. (Don’t forget to check at registration to see if there are any last-minute additions of hiring companies.) At each table or booth you visit, try these strategies:

• Pick up the handouts they provide and review them if possible before engaging in conversation.

• When you’re ready to talk—or when the recruiter makes eye contact—greet them and give a firm handshake along with your elevator speech. Keep in mind that the employees working the job fair are probably not the hiring managers; they are HR professionals who are screeners for the company.

• Take notes during each conversation or interview so you’ll be able to keep them straight when you get home.

• Make sure you get business cards or contact information for everyone you might want to follow up with—and give them yours.

• Take advantage of the pool of job seekers and network with them, as well. Find out what’s working best for them.

When you get home from the job fair, organize the business cards and information you collected. Input all relevant details into your job-search organization system. And be sure to write thank-you e-mails or notes to each recruiter you talked to—and send those thank-yous within a day or two.

The printed page still plays a role in your job search. Browse these sources—at least some of which may be found for free at your local library—to look for job openings, keep up with industry and business news, and find key players you might contact for an information interview or even a job interview:

• Your local newspapers

• Industry trade journals (Midwest Engineer, Journal of Hospitality Financial Management)

• Association newsletters and magazines (Professional Photographer magazine, Interior Design in Practice)

• Your college’s alumni newsletter or magazine

Every community has public and private agencies that serve job seekers. Ask the reference librarian at your public library about resources (and job listings) offered by your local unemployment office, state and local government agencies, and nonprofit offices. You might get advice from these groups on interviewing, résumés, and much more. And each will have compiled sources of job listings that may be new to you. Look for agencies such as:

Signing up for temporary work is a great way to look for a job. Many companies will hire a temporary worker who has proven herself on the job, despite an often-hefty fee they must pay to the temp agency. Even if a temp assignment doesn’t lead to a permanent job, you’ll find it has other benefits:

1. Working at a company for a day, week, or many months will help you clarify your employment goals. Which type of corporate culture do you prefer? Which type of boss do you work well with?

2. You’ll pick up new skills with every assignment, whether it’s mastering a telephone system or getting training in specialty software.

3. You can broaden your network with every assignment. Connect with your coworkers and let them know you’d like to find work in their industry.

4. Temp agencies often do general recruiting, as well. You can prove yourself with an agency—especially if you didn’t sign on with a strong background—and increase your chances of landing an interview for a permanent job.

5. At the end of a long-term temp assignment, ask your direct manager for a letter of recommendation. This can help fill a large unemployment gap if you’ve been job seeking for many months.

WHAT RECRUITERS SAY

Two professional recruiters reveal how they search for the best candidates . . .

Jill Silman, SPHR, vice president at Meador Staffing Services and a spokesperson for the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM):

“Our number one method has always been referrals. But we’re finding that social media is becoming more effective and efficient. That’s quickly becoming number two: as individual recruiters and as an organization, we’ll use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to look for candidates.”

Dionna Keels, a member of the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) staffing management expertise panel:

“I’ve been in recruiting for about ten years. Over the past four to five years, online resources have been huge for me. The big online boards are a really good tool. I’ll search the online résumé banks by skills, job titles, and even by company.

“I use the big job boards—Careerbuilder and Monster—but I definitely use more specific ones also. Dice is a good one for IT positions. I also look at association job boards. Being involved in an [industry-related] association is a great way to look for a job.

“How do you stand out in a group of 500 résumés? Well, if you’re applying for a position that looks like a perfect match for your skills and experience, you can also do some research on, say, LinkedIn, and maybe shoot a separate e-mail to HR or the hiring manager to highlight yourself. In one case where I had 500 résumés to look at, I got separate e-mails from ten or fifteen people. I was more likely to look harder at those résumés.”

As you begin your job search, keep track of everything. You’ll be glad you did—especially when you get a call from a company you don’t remember applying to or meet someone for the second time at a networking event.

You’ll need to devise a system that keeps track of details on all jobs you apply for—at every stage, your networking contacts, and your prospects for hiring companies. You’ll want to note at least the following information:

• Where you found the job posting—list the specific job board or publication

• The job title and any identifier code

• The company name and address if available

• Contact names and titles, with phone number or e-mails

• The date and time you applied or responded

• Which version of your résumé and cover letter were sent or used to complete the application

• The names and titles of everyone you spoke with

• The date and time of your interview

• Notes you might need to refer to for a follow-up interview

• What follow-up you took and when—thank-you notes sent, phone calls, etc.

Here is an example of what your “jobs applied for” tracking might look like:

What follow-up you took and when e-mail sent, information interview requested, etc.

If a networking contact becomes a “job applied for,” simply copy the information to your other tracking sheet.

You can record your entries on paper if you prefer—dedicate a notebook or file to your job hunt—but using computer software like Microsoft Excel will be better. That’s because you will be able to search on a company name, sort your search chronologically or alphabetically by any field, and easily add or revise information.

Primarily, your tracking system will help you remember when and where you applied for jobs and possibly connect some very important dots: when you realize that the person you met at a fund-raiser last week works at a company that just posted a promising job, for example. But it can also help you in other ways:

• You can use your tracking system(s) to set and check your job-hunting goals. For example, you may decide that you must attend at least one networking event every week and collect at least five relevant business cards at each. Your tracking sheet will hold you accountable!

• By logging where you’re finding job openings and which ones have netted you results (a phone interview, for example), you can see at a glance which resources are the best. When you take a little time to look at all the data you’ve collected over a month, you may see that while the majority of jobs you applied to all came from one major online job board, the two interviews you had were for openings you found through a professional networking group.

• Your list of networking contacts may come in handy throughout your career. Save it, update it, and keep adding to it even after you land your perfect job. These people may be resources for future projects or future employers—or future employees, when you’re ready to hire someone in your own department!

Before you set up your perfect tracking system, check out Jibber-Jobber. This is a free online service that provides all sorts of tracking functions, including tracking expenses for your job hunt, interview prep, a calendar, and a contact management function. Basic membership is free, but the premium package will cost you. It’s definitely worth a look: http://jobhunt.jib-berjobber.com/index.php.

Be prepared to remain ignorant. That’s because many hiring companies simply don’t contact job applicants who don’t make the cut. Some don’t even contact those who make it to the interview stage to let them know “Thanks, but no thanks.” You’ll send out many résumés, fill out many applications, and shake many hands with absolutely no idea what happened . . . The only thing you can do is follow up if possible and bide your time. Keep your records of jobs applied for, in case the Silent Company does indeed contact you down the road.