If you're reading this blog, then you're probably one of the 7.4% of us that are currently unemployed. It's very easy to panic when you are not working and the prospects of finding work are grim, but not impossible. Believe it or not there are lots of jobs out there, but you have to be focused, do your research and make sure your skills match the job you are applying for. This sounds easy and by now you're probably wondering why you're even reading this blog, but let me share some tips with you that I think can be critical to help with finding your next job/career.
First the bad news. For every job posted on Craigslist, Hotjobs, Monster, Career Builder, The Ladders, etc. employers are receiving over 100 resume's. Think about that for a moment. 100 other people just like you are applying for the same position. Some will be less qualified and some more, but the numbers suggest that the HR generalist or recruiter reviewing resumes isn't even looking at all of them. So how do you get better results. Well most people will tell you to contact people you know, "your network". Some of you are thinking that maybe you don't have this so called network, but believe it or not we all do. Some of us are on LinkedIn which is a business to business social networking site. You post information, find business associates and connect with them. You can then contact your "connections" and ask them about opportunites at their company or even have them reach out to their "connections" on your behalf. This works OK, but this is only one avenue. If you have a Facebook account contact your friends. This may be uncomfortable, but trust me it works. The best way to contact everyone is to tell them right in the "what are you doing" section that you are looking for work and you need their help. These methods should help somewhat with your job search, but there are other things you can do as well.
Join a job board, in fact join them all. Most are free and give you access to hundreds of positions. What you'll find is that there are a lot of jobs that list the company name as confidential. Consider this a black hole. If you don't know the company, you can not be sure what you're getting into and worse, how do you know if this isn't the perfect company for you or the one where your brother-in-law works. What you'll find for most of these ads is an overview of the company, without the company name. Something like, "Fortune 500 company, leader in the field of software development...." Cut this text out, paste it in Google and usually you'll find the name of the company somewhere in the search results. Once you know who the company is you can target your response when replying. Using this search method along with LinkedIn or Jigsaw you can get close, if not pinpoint who the hiring manager is. Now your email, or phone call can go directly to the person hiring as opposed to a recruiter or HR person. It may not land you the job, but you certainly stand a better chance of getting the interview.
As this is my first post, please feel free to comment with some of your job search tips or things that worked or didn't work. I will try and post regularly and share any good ideas in forthcomming posts.
