DO MORE.

The economy is supposedly bouncing back but searching for jobs still doesn’t get any easier.

Depending on what you’re even looking for, the search can be a tough one. The web may still be booming and creating new jobs, but sifting through it all is still a long process and by the end of it, you might as well consider yourself a Job Search Analyst. In helping others out there search of a job of their own, I’ll compile what techniques I’ve been using to find myself a job. Hopefully you’ll learn something and find yourself a job!

Finding a place to find jobs

Finding a job is hard. Finding a place to find jobs can actually be just as difficult. The best tool I’ve found to find places to find a job (mouthful) is XMarks.com. This website is based off a plug in that aggregates people’s bookmarking habits to create a searchable database of sites around topics. Putting in the right phrase will show you a list of the best sites in that field based on the bookmarking and tagging habits of others.

So when looking for a place to actually find job listings, here’s some ideas:
http://www.xmarks.com/topic/job_boards
http://www.xmarks.com/topic/job_search_engines

Also keep in mind that every topic also has a great list of “related topics” under the search bar to give you other ideas to search for.

Tips on making your search easier

Sure, you can spend every day opening up your bookmarks and searching for jobs you want. Like the title of this post states, searching for jobs online is a much longer process than it seems. In helping to create productivity as well as sanity, there’s a great feature most job boards have, that you must use: saved searches.

Websites like Monster.com and Indeed.com allow you to not only set up saved searches, but they can also e-mail you fresh searches every day. Setting these up will decrease the amount of time you spend hunting to leave more time for writing great cover letters and jazzing up your resume (which we will discuss in the next section). Since the search may be long, you can expect that every morning, you’ll have a fresh batch of e-mails to tear through with plenty of job listings set up with your specific criteria.

Make sure to change up the listings or make your search term the root word. So instead of having saved searches for “blogging,” “blogger” and “blogs” you can just set up a search for the word “blog” and catch as many listings as you can.

Cover letters and resumes

The sad truth is, there are a lot of extremely expensive resume writing services out there. Thankfully, websites like JobFox will evaluate your resume for free when you post it on their job board. Within a few days, they will send you a few tips to clean it up before trying to convince you to pay for a professionally written one. While I would personally like a really great resume written for me, I can’t exactly spend money while I’m trying to find ways to make more of it.

Thankfully, you can go back to XMarks and find a few sites of your own, many of which will offer free advice. Compile a few notes and make your best judgments to really spice up both your cover letter and resume. The most basic tip I can give is be simple, be honest, use “action words,” not “passive words,” and make sure your cover letter is well thought out since that will be a stronger force than a standard resume. Any chance you have to make an impression before an interview is a good idea, so make sure you make a great first impression with your cover letter.

More on cover letters:
http://www.xmarks.com/topic/cover_letter

More on resumes:
http://www.xmarks.com/topic/resume

Keep on pushing on

It’ll be a long journey but if you put a lot of effort out there, there’s no way that some great opportunity will not come back to you. The best thing to do is be committed, be honest and try hard. Any good hiring manager will be able to spot determination and a good skill set. Make sure you put your best foot forward in the search. It’ll be long and it’ll be boring. Do well and your good work will eventually pay off.

I’ll let you know when I land a new job myself. So keep it strong and be sure to share this post with friends.

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