SEARCHING FOR A JOB?

by Lindsey Pollak

Remember the days when looking for a new job involved the Sunday newspaper classified section and a black magic marker? Thanks to technology, looking for a job today seems to require an advanced degree in data analysis. There are millions of positions posted online across an ever-changing landscape of job boards, company websites, social networks, apps, and more.

What's a job seeker to do? You have to become a curator of your own personal job feed, narrowing down all of the various websites and listings to a truly personalized stream of opportunities. The best way to do this is to set up a select group of bookmarked websites and email alerts that you view every day. Here's how:

1. Get specific. If you were searching for a pair of shoes online, it wouldn't be a very good strategy to go to Google or another search engine and type in "shoes." You'd more likely visit the website of a retailer that caters to your specific style and budget, then search for the type of shoes you want — the style, the price range and perhaps the color or heel height. The same goes for job hunting. A common mistake among job seekers using the biggest job boards — such as CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, Indeed.com, and SimplyHired.com — is to search too broadly.

Your first step in cultivating a personal job feed is to get clear on the exact terms that best match the jobs you want. If you cast too wide a net, such as searching on "marketing" or "Atlanta" or "writing skills," you'll receive too many results that waste your time and energy.

Always use the Advanced Search page for any job board you visit, which allows you to enter multiple search criteria (such as marketing jobs in Atlanta that require excellent writing skills), and be as specific as possible in terms of industry, location, experience level and other factors (such as specifying "online marketing" or "copywriting skills." Yes, you may occasionally miss out on a listing here or there, but you'll make up for it in the time saved culling through hundreds of postings that don't fit your needs.

2. Increase your niche know-how. The term "hyper-local" doesn't just apply to news; it also applies to jobs. Many employers want to weed out unqualified candidates, so they only post jobs on dedicated job boards for their industries. One of your tasks as a job seeker is to find the niche job boards for your field.

The easiest way to do this is to perform a Google search on the name of your industry and the word "jobs." Examples of niche industry job boards include Mediabistro.com, Insurancejobs.com, HRJobs.com, and Idealist.org (for nonprofit positions).

Industry jobs can also be found on the websites of the professional or trade associations that serve that field. For instance, the Society for Human Resource Management has a job board, as does the American Marketing Association. If you're not sure of the association(s) that serve your industry, check out the American Society of Association Executives' Gateway to Associations Directory, then visit the websites of the associations to see if they offer job postings.

Industry is not the only niche, of course. If you want to work at a company specifically seeking diverse job candidates, a Google search on "diversity jobs" yields sites such as DiversityJobs.com. If telecommuting or having a flexible schedule is of utmost importance, a Google search on the term "flexibility jobs" delivers FlexJobs.com. Typing in the phrase "executive jobs" results in sites such as 6figurejobs.com and TheLadders.com.

Once you find the job boards in your desired niches, bookmark those sites for easy daily reference and, when available, also sign up for daily email alerts that you will receive when new jobs are posted that fit your search criteria.

3. Take social media seriously. Contrary to popular opinion, social media is not all about viral videos, Lady Gaga, and cats. Many top companies take social media very seriously as a recruiting tool. You have to do the same, specifically when it comes to Twitter and LinkedIn.

The most effective way to use Twitter for your job search is to keep your job search-related activity separate from your other Twitter activity, such as following the tweets of your friends or breaking news tweets.

First, create a list called "Jobs" on your Twitter.com profile page (you can opt for your list to be private so only you can access it) or by using a third party application such as Tweetdeck.com or Hootsuite.com. Once you've set this up, go to Twitter's Advanced Search to find the kinds of job postings you're looking for based on keywords, location, and other factors. Doing a sample search on "online marketing jobs Atlanta," for instance, I came across over twenty positions tweeted out in the past week. Each tweet includes a link to find the full job listing on a website, which is another good way to discover niche sites in your industry.

Next, scan down the list of tweets that show up in your results and "follow" the Twitter feeds that provide the best job postings. In the above example, I found LinkedIn Jobs, Atlanta Jobs, and MBA Highway, among others, so if I were looking for an online marketing job in Atlanta I would start following those Twitter feeds.

Bookmark your "Jobs" list on Twitter and the page of your Advanced Twitter Search. Visit both of these bookmarks every day and continue to click "follow" on the Twitter feeds that post the best jobs for you.

LinkedIn, unlike Twitter, is entirely focused on professional networking so there is no need to separate your job hunting activity. Your starting point for finding listings on LinkedIn is under the "Jobs" tab in the top navigation. At first glance, LinkedIn's Jobs feature appears similar to other job boards in your ability to search by various criteria, but it offers another important element: the ability to search jobs based on how connected you are to the employer. After filling out your criteria on LinkedIn's Advanced Search page, you'll receive a list of results along with, on the left side of your screen, a list of ways to refine your search. When you refine by "relationship," you can see job postings based on whether you have first, second, or third degree LinkedIn connections into that organization. This is crucial information for determining whether you might be able to ask someone in your network to personally introduce you to the hiring manager or recruiter at that organization.

In addition to searching LinkedIn's job listings, check out LinkedIn Groups, which also feature job posting areas. Go to LinkedIn's Group Directory and seek out groups for your industry or other niches. Then, for each group you join, click on the "Jobs" tab within that group. If the group is private, these postings won't appear in a general Google search, so you may find opportunities that aren't posted elsewhere.

To add these LinkedIn opportunities to your daily "rounds," opt in to receive daily job alerts (available from LinkedIn's main Jobs page) and to receive daily group digest emails from each group to which you belong.

Once you have all of the above alerts and bookmarks set up (a process that could take an hour or two), I recommend scheduling a specific time in your calendar every day to check your websites and email alerts all at once. If you're not finding the opportunities you want, go back and tweak your keywords or search criteria until you feel you are receiving a truly personalized feed of opportunities.

Good luck!

SOURCE: http://hbr.org