The unemployment rate is between 9 and 10 percent and whether you are employed or unemployed you should be part of the growing number of people are who search the Web for work opportunities. However if you are restricting your surfing mainly to one or two of the big job boards like Monster.com are facing a steep climb. Follow some of the following steps for improved results.
Your strategy must be to cast an intelligently constructed wide net. For example, personal referrals are the best way to gain entrance to a company or to stay abreast of specific company specific opportunities. The next best company specific opportunity source are the company Web sites, according to CareerXroads which says that the top 3 sources of hiring in 2010 are Referrals 26.7%, Career Sites 22.3%, and Job Boards 13.2%. No other source breaks 7%, which includes College Recruiting, Print, Career Fairs, etc. The message here is if the professionals say this is how you get hired then don’t fight the changing tide. Ten to fifteen years ago only employee referrals were in the top three. Times have changed.
For job hunters casting a wide net I recently came across LinkUp.com, which aggregates postings from company sites only—and more importantly updates them automatically saving you valuable time by not applying to closed positions. Many companies also allow seekers to sign up for extra services; employers like the accounting firm Deloitte send out e-mail job alerts and offer an online RSS feed that provides real-time updates directly from their sites. Being in the know for potential opportunities has never been easier.
Even though I still come across many professional job seekers who don’t have a proper LinkedIn profile they do understand the importance of the site in an online job search strategy. But it doesn’t stop there as a growing number of employers are also diligently searching for hires on traditionally nonprofessional sites such as Twitter and Facebook, where they can also take advantage of the added benefit of posting jobs for free. Another positive unintended consequence is that by keeping in touch with friends employers are now trying to mine their employees’ personal networks for talent by adding tools that allow them to post listings to their own social-networking pages. Why? Smart, intelligent, hardworking, and successful people tend to know others like themselves.
Smart entrepreneurs know they need to understand their target market or niche and then service it. The job search is no different utilizing job boards that target specific niches or industries are a good use of your time. One such site is InternetInc.com, which compiles a list of boards by career field, is one place to get a sense of the niche options. I don’t recommend pay-for-use job boards unless you can be guaranteed specific results. There are plenty of excellent free sources such as the ones mentioned here you should not need to use a pay service. If you are going to pay for a service better to use a career coaching service such as the Five O’clock Club which offer high quality career coaching and career management services at reasonable prices.
