Hired Help - Job Search Made Easy - CareerAlley

Hired Help - Job Search Made Easy - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of do it yourself. Marshall McLuhan I traveled down to Wall Street in NYC from my midtown location the other day having not been down there in a few years. I was on my way to meet someone and was taking a stroll on John Street heading towards William Street. Taking in the sites on John Street, I thought back to the beginning of my career (some time before personal computers) and I remembered how John Street had been lined with lots of recruiting firms. In those days, job hunting meant that you would go from recruiter to recruiter, sit in their reception area, fill out an application and then sit through an interview with the recruiter. And, if you were interested in working for a specific company, you would have to go to that companys HR department, fill out an application and then leave a resume (which would have been offset printed on nice paper). Have I mentioned mailing (as in snail mail)? This meant typing your resume, having it printed (as in at a printing shop), typing mailing labels (as in on a typewriter) Job search has come a long way since I started working and, while the Internet has made job search so much easier, the shear volume of information and choices can be overwhelming. Everything is at our fingertips, yet job search can and does take a lot of time and effort. So, what if there were tools you could use to ease the pain? Better yet, what if these tools were free and would save you countless hours of research? Like everything else in life, there always a better way. Todays post will focus on tools to streamline your job search. Company Jobs: Save time researching and applying for jobs online. MyJobApps This website provides a central place to find specific jobs, companies or industries and job applications. The site is well designed, with multiple ways to search for your job. As an example, you can type a job type in the company search bar on the top right hand side of the page. If the job exists, the search will return a listing of each company with that job type. Click on any of the companies to see a full page review of the company, including types of jobs, company rating (from employees), salaries, benefits, how to apply and a link to the companies career site. Back on the Home page, there are links at the top of the page to search by company, sector or job type salary. Down the center of the page is a listing by sector and along the right hand side of the page is a sort by industry and alpha by company name. Scroll down the page to see helpful information on how to apply. The site is definitely worth a look. Company Research Although not even close to the integration that MyJobApps.com offers, Vault.com also offers company and employer research on their site. You can search by name, industry, state, country, number of employees, etc. (or any combination). There is basic information on each company on their list as well as the companys website (which will have additional information). Vault Rankings are on the main page (tagged as Best Companies to Work for). Cut Down on Repetitive Typing: If youve spent any time filling out HTML forms at company or recruiter websites, Im sure youve been wishing for some way to automate the process. Take a look at some of these tools to automate your job search process. Autofill 0.4 This tool, from Softpedia.com, can automatically fill out HTML forms for you. This particular tool is an extension for Firefox, but similar functionality exists in Safari (version 5.1 or higher) to auto fill information from your address book and other forms. Similar tools exist for IE like IE AutoFill (30 day free trail, $25 to purchase). Job Alerts: If youve not discovered automated job alerts by now, you are missing a big time savings tool. The flexibility, accuracy and value of Job Alerts varies from site to site but if you are diligent you can find the sites that work best for you and automate the job search function. You dont want to over-do this by setting up so many alerts that you are buried in emails. Similarly, you want to make sure that you have a good mix of company websites and job search sites. A few of the more popular Job Alert services are listed below. LinkedIn Jobs I wont go into my usual Youre not on LinkedIn? and just assume you are on the bus with the rest of us. LinkedIns Saved Searches (in the Jobs tab). Start with Advanced Search, enter your criteria and hit the search button. From the results page, modify your results (if necessary) from the left hand side of the page. Once you are satisfied, click the +Save link towards the top left hand side of the page, type in the name of the search and the frequency (remember, not too often but not too infrequently), hit Save and you are done. You will now get an updated of your results based on your criteria. Job Search Sites Most (if not all) of the major job search engines have some form of job alerts. You will want to pick one or two and try to mix the site types (like those that focus on company job sites versus those that may be more focused on recruiter listings). They are fairly straight forward. Ive listed two examples below. SimplyHired.com Click the Advanced Job Search link, enter your information, use the filters on the right hand side of the page, enter a name at the bottom under save this search as and hit search. You can then edit the details as necessary. You can also link your resume information by linking your LinkedIn account. Use the My Jobs link at the top right hand side of the page to see all of your saved searches and job alerts. Indeed.com Similar to SimplyHired, click the Advanced Job Search link, enter your information and hit search. Once you get the results, click get email updates . . . . You can then edit the details as necessary. You can also link your resume information by linking your LinkedIn account. JobApplicationDB.com is the largest direct application site. Theyve created a free resource to help candidates apply directly to over 1200 companies across 60+ industries and sectors with tips, information and guidance to give the candidate an edge. Unlike other job boards where several candidates are applying to the few listed jobs, they direct candidates to the companys internal career site where they can apply on jobs that are typically not posted on job boards giving them a competitive advantage. We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. Good luck in your search,Joey Google+ Job Search job title, keywords, company, location jobs by //