Secrets Of Successful Job Hunting . . .

I originally posted this article almost five years ago (Spetember of 2011).  At the very recent suggestion of Adam Seabrook of BetterTeam (https://www.betterteam.com), I want to update some of the information.   Adam pointed out to me, "Hotjobs.com was acquired by Monster.com and the site was actually shut down."  I re-read this article and thought it was really pretty good.  Most of the advice and/or suggestions mentioned are still valid now.  So, I thought I'd re-post it.  You might pass it on to friends of yours who might be looking for that next career opportunity!

The first half of this year exhibited many signs of economic improvement, including increasing hiring activity in the regional marketing industry. Now that Summer's "officially" over as of last weekend, we have President Obama making a major speech on the economy and job creation this evening. We're obviously not out of the woods yet. Unemployment runs high and many are frustrated. I found this excellent article with ideas on job hunting. I wanted to share it with those of you who need a little new inspiration and/or direction!

This article was written by Jessica Stillman and originally published online on the BNET blog:

"As BNET’s sister site MoneyWatch pointed out recently, in a climate where it takes the average job hunter more than seven months to find their next position, big job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder are of only limited use. The post’s author Eilene Zimmerman writes:

     "Forget CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and all the other mass job sites. While these boards seem like a good place to start, how many people     do you know who actually found a job that way? Even hiring managers don’t want to sort through the hundreds and hundreds of     resumes they get for each position they list on these sites, so they’re increasingly turning to industry-specific job portals, says Debra     Yergen, author of Creating Job Security."

And Zimmerman isn’t the only person pointing out that job boards are often a waste of time. Everyone from the WSJ to Ask the Headhunter’s Nick Corcodolis has written posts advising that there are probably more productive ways to spend most of your job search hours. But if job boards are on the wane, how are companies and recruiters finding people to hire? And how can you best position yourself to be found?

Writing on recruiting blog Fistful of Talent recently, Kelly Dingee, a “professional stalker” with Staffing Advisors, lets the cat out of the bag and offers up seven things employers should tell job seekers about how to get considered. Dingee isn’t convinced job boards are totally over saying, “there will be people looking for you on there. At least for a little while longer.” But overall Dingee agrees with consensus opinion that too much time on job boards isn’t productive and offers tips to help you get hired in a post-job board world, including old standbys like networking — “Find someone who works at your targeted company who can pass your resume along” — as well as less well known advice:

    Make yourself findable first. Google yourself right now. Did your LinkedIn profile come up? No? Build one, make it public. If you have a     preferred method of contact, note it. Use inmails. Use a separate (non-employer or school) email.

    Make yourself even more findable. Post your resume, or your bio, or whatever you want to call it. Use Posterous, use WordPress, use a     .iCloud site, use doctoc or slideshare… use something.

    Make sure when you build those profiles you use every keyword that applies to you. I like to say I’m a researcher but my title is     Strategic Recruiting Manager… and if I was anticipating a job hunt and tweaking my profile I’d make sure every word related to     recruiting and research both are enmeshed in my online profile.

    Respond to recruiters. Third party or corporate I don’t care. If you don’t deal with contingency staffing firms, fine, send ‘em a quick     note of thank you/no thank you, get removed from their mailing list. But do your due diligence, because you want to work with a     retained search firm…. There’s a significant difference between retained and contingency search firms. You can go around me and     apply directly through our client, but they are still going to route you my way because our firm has been hired — and already paid — to     alleviate their staffing burden."

LinkedIn is a valuable tool, and is used by both internal and third party recruiters as their "go to" database for identifying possible hires. It's worth your while (it's essential) that you build out your LinkedIn Profile with as much detail, as possible. My suggestion is to get several recommendations from your superiors, or clients.