How to Get a Great Job: Getting Down to Brass Tacks

Career

If you’re unemployed and looking for a new job, your job search is your daily work. If you’ve got a job but are looking for another, you need to set time and energy aside each week for your job search, or you’ll find you don’t get very far. Here are some basic tips to help keep your search on track:

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? 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.

“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

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…

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% said they plan to use “general recruitment” websites
84% said they preferred niche job boards.

Factoid: Where Companies Say They Hire

CareerXroads’ 9th 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%
Company websites’ career page 22.3%
Job boards 13.2%
Direct sourcing (recruiters) 6.9%
College recruiting 6.3%

Where to Look Online

Careerbuilder.com and Monster.com… industry-specific online forums and discussion groups… LinkedIn… about.com and career information sites… the Internet offers literally 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.

How to Search

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 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

Library 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 one thousand hits a month. “People who know what they’re looking for don’t need the web page, 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 web page “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 web page regularly and adds anything they find useful, such as resume 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.

Choose the Best Job Boards

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

The big national sites all allow you to post one or more version of your resume, 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 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 even 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. Virgilio 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.”

Online Employment Testing

When applying for jobs online, you may come across an employer that requires you take an online test as part of the application process. Pre-employment 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 importantly, 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.

Log in to Search Every Day

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

Damone Virgilio, staff development manager at Memphis (Tennessee) Public Library, 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 resume, and you’ll get multiple e-mail solicitations from resume specialists who want money to update your resume for you.”

Company Websites

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. But that is not always the case—so an organization’s own website may be a goldmine of information.

“A lot of times, businesses will post jobs on their site first, before they go to the job boards.”

— Barb Vlk, business librarian at Arlington Heights Public Library (Illinois)

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 Job Listings

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-test resume, as explained earlier in the series.

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 later in the series.

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%) of the total time you can dedicate to your job search.”

Beware of Scams

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 true; if you could make $100,000 working from home, we’d all be doing it already!

Best in Show – Online Job Search

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

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

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

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

Job-hunt
The Riley Guide's “Sites with Job Listings.”
Weddle’s
WetFeet

Job Board Examples

Big National Sites
www.careerbuilder.com
www.monster.com

Industry-specific Job Boards
www.accounting.com
www.hrcareersusa.com (jobs in HR)
www.dice.com (careers in technology)

Professional Associations
Automotive Service Association (car mechanics):
Marketing Research Association
National Association of Veterinary Technicians

Aggregators
www.indeed.com
www.simplyhired.com
www.topusajobs.com
www.linkup.com (aggregates only from company websites)

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 15 U.S. job search websites at http://blog.daype.com/tips/top-us-job-search-websites.html.

This article is adapted from the book How to Get a Great Job: A Library How-To Handbook by Editors of the American Library Association published by ALA Editions.