Finding a Job
If you're trying to find a job, but you just keep hitting the pavement, or if you've just begun to play with the idea of career change, consider turning to the virtual world to assist you in your job hunt. Whether you're researching companies and job opportunities, perfecting your résumé and cover letter, building a positive online identity, putting your best foot forward in a job interview, or negotiating appropriate pay for your position, the Internet makes finding your dream job a breeze.
Expand All Guide SectionsThe Basics of Job Search
The Internet can help you speed through the career search process and find the job of your dreams. But a successful search requires you to do a little research about what you'd like to do for work and where you'd like to do it. Lucky for you, there are plenty of resources online that can give you all the information you could ever need about your job hunt and arm you with the tools you'll need to locate the perfect job.
Dulcinea's Insight
- If you're looking for a bit of lighter reading or just some job search-related entertainment, there are a few blogs that might be of interest: cheezhead, Jobster, or Job Search Engine Guide.
Dulcinea's Picks
The Riley Guide
walks you through the job search process. Get an idea of what to expect on your online job hunt, how much time to dedicate to your search, and where to find information about your career.
Forbes.com's “Business Basics”
offers job search tips for all levels of job seekers. Read articles like "How To Apply For A Job Online" or “A Woman’s Guide To Making More Money."
CareerJournal
has weekly columns for everyone, from the new job seeker to the CEO. It is created in collaboration with The Wall Street Journal.
Job-Hunt
offers "The Dirty Dozen Online Job Search Mistakes" to get you started. Browse the links in the "Job Search Advice & Tips" or the "Job Sites & Career Resources" sections, on the left.
WetFeet
provides career profiles, résumé help, salary data, and job listings. “Real People Profiles” offers an inside glimpse at what their jobs are really like.
International Association of Employment Web Sites
has tips for the job seeker. Browse its "Member Roster" of sites that have joined the association by industry or by location.
Creating Your Identity Online
Before you begin your job search you should know which details of your life are on the Internet and how you can go about creating your identity online. Many employers now look online to see what information they can find about potential employees. A rude entry in your blog about your former boss or an unsavory photo of yourself after a few drinks might not endear you to potential employers. Make managing your online profile part of developing your professional identity.
Dulcinea's Insight
- Most people won't find much about themselves online—maybe a mention or two on an old company or school Web site. If you do discover that your online persona appears less than stellar, there are a few things that you can do to avoid being skipped over in the application process. Take a look at this article from The New York Times: "For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume."
- Contact a Web site's administrator and ask them to remove outdated or misleading information.
- A lot of community sites will prompt you to put personal information in your profile. Most of the time, you should be able to find a way on the registration pages to limit the amount of information you share. Most online communities have "private" options for profiles so that only select viewers can see it.
- When you create material for people to find, you are taking control of your online identity. Help people to differentiate between the real you and another person who happens to share your name.
Dulcinea's Picks
To further explore your online persona …
ClaimID
has instructions on how to search for yourself online so that you’ll know what information is easily available to potential employers (or anyone else looking for information about you online). This site also helps you develop what it calls a "link résumé": an online profile that includes links to your other online profiles or Web sites, and links to the schools you attended or groups to which you belong.
ZoomInfo
is a search engine for people. Verify your identity (either with a company e-mail address or your credit card) and edit your details so that others will find only what you want them to.
Technorati
is a search engine for blogs. Enter your name in quotation marks to see if anyone's been blogging about you.
BoardReader
searches message boards and forums (part of the "invisible Web" that most search engines will not include). You can also search for images on message boards and forums here.
To clean up your online image …
ReputationDefender
has a "search and destroy" motto. For a fee, it will search the Internet for information tied to your name and send you monthly reports with what it finds. The fees vary depending on what you want, but it costs about $10/month to join, and about $30 per removal of negative information.
To provide positive information about yourself or put examples of your work online …
Ziggs
lets you create your own online image. This site specializes in self branding and networking. Create your own online profile, start discussion groups, connect with other professionals on the Internet, and much more.
iKarma
is a site for businesspeople to make comments about and give recommendations to each other. Develop a very thorough profile with all of your contact information, or a very basic profile. You can skip almost any step in the registration process (like importing your e-mail contacts) by clicking the "skip" link in the upper right corner.
Naymz
(pronounced "names") places your site profile in the top results of a Google search for your name. When you first sign up, Naymz does this for free. If you want more features, purchase the premium plan for $4.95/month (the first month is free) or $47.50/year.
Job Search Engines
A lot of companies post job listings on their Web sites, which is great if you know exactly where you want to work. But those of us who know only what position or field we want to work in need sites to help sift through all of the online job listings. Luckily, there are plenty of search engines that scan the Internet for job opportunities.
Dulcinea's Insight
- Here are some tips to help you search on many of the job search engines listed below:
- Search in your city rather than in your zip code to gather as many results as possible.
- Search only one or two keywords for the most results.
- Use search filters if your search gives you too many job postings.
- Sort jobs by date instead of by relevance to avoid outdated listings.
- Take note of the words employers use to describe the positions you like, then search those terms.
- You’ll get the best results when you search on a job posting site specific to your industry; look for lists of those sites in this section of the guide.
- Don’t rely entirely on these search engines; they should only make up a part of your career search. For more help on utilizing all avenues available to land that job, especially the importance of networking, you should definitely read the bestseller What Color is your Parachute?
Dulcinea's Picks
Indeed
uses a straightforward approach: it asks you what positions you’re looking for and where you’d like to work, then gives you results from other job posting sites like Monster and CareerBuilder, and from newspaper listings and company career sites.
SimplyHired
is a vertical (for example, topic-specific) job search engine. It has a simple design and is fairly user friendly. Filter your results by part-time or full-time, or the level of work experience or education required, for example.
JobCentral
not only gives you job listings when you search the site, but it shows the number of results you'd have gotten had you done the same search on another job site like Indeed or SimplyHired. Access those results by clicking on one of the other site names.
FlipDog
is less cluttered than most other job search engines and provides a job search tip at the bottom of your job search results. For example, in a search for New York City, it may give tips about the different boroughs and the city's top industries. You can search for jobs on the site, but you can’t post your resume.
Craigslist
is a particularly good source for odd jobs, temp jobs, and contract jobs. If you're willing to pick through the listings you might find the perfect opportunity; some of the folks at findingDulcinea found their jobs through Craigslist. Simply choose your location from the right-hand columns and begin your search.
Just-Posted
has a clean design and clearly lists what site each job posting comes from, which can help you pinpoint sites where you should focus your search. Use the "modify" link at the top of your search results to refine your search by keywords (200 characters max), salary, education, location, and job type.
Oodle
searches classifieds and job sites and gives you the option to narrow or widen your geographic search area by moving an arrow closer to or farther from your zip code (look for it on the upper left of your search results page). Sort your results by company, industry, category and more.
Vast.com
allows you to improve its search ability (and eventually your own results) by clicking on "Report Incorrect Results" when you get a listing that is not relevant to your search. Vast's results list salary but the site sometimes reads "401k" as a salary of $401,000 rather than as a benefits package.
Cool Works
specializes in finding you that seasonal job you’ve always wanted. If you’ve ever dreamed of working on a cruise ship, at a beach club or a ski resort, then this Web site is for you.
How to Write a Resume and Cover Letter
Your résumé can be the greatest asset to your job search. It is your first, and often only, impression on potential employers. Don't waste anyone's time—get right to the good stuff. Résumés are all about the individual; they should, and will, be different for everyone. Nevertheless, creating a good résumé is a fine art. The links in this section can help you hone your résumé-writing skills.
Dulcinea's Insight
- There are plenty of sites that can create your résumé for a fee, but if you have to gather your information to provide it to them, you might as well put the résumé together yourself.
- Avoid acronyms that people won't understand; write "Business Development Manager" instead of "BDM." If you don't know what an acronym stands for, look it up on Acronym Finder.
- Don't include personal information like your Social Security number on your résumé.
- Keep your cover letters short and sweet; some sites recommend you write three or four paragraphs but you might be able to get your point across in only one or two. You may also want to address your cover letter to a specific person if you can; call the company or check its Web site to find the name of the hiring manager if it's not mentioned in the job description.
- Make sure to send your résumé in the format requested by the company. If you send them a PDF when they want a Word document, your e-mailed application could get deleted before it’s even read.
Dulcinea's Picks
For help with your résumé …
Purdue University’s “OWL”
(Online Writing Lab) has a “Résumé Workshop” that walks you through every step of creating a résumé. It explains different types of résumés and when to use them, along with advantages and drawbacks of each type. The site provides sample headings and advice to improve visual appeal.
ExecutiveAgent.com's
career newsletter provides some useful résumé tips. Scroll down the newsletter page to see a list of previous newsletters, including "Cover Letters Made Easy" and "Five Tips From a Professional Reference Checker." ExecutiveAgent.com will also send your résumé to executive recruiters for a fee.
For help with other parts of your job applications …
CareerLab
allows you to browse its cover letter collection for free. To see all cover letter examples you’ll have to subscribe to the service (fee options include $14.95 for a six-month subscription).
Boston College
has information about résumés, cover letters, interviewing techniques, thank you letters, recommendations and more.
Job References.com
, a division of Allison & Taylor, will check your references (for a fee) to see what they are really saying about you. View a sample report to see the types of questions they’ll ask your previous employers. There are many pricing possibilities, but the fee for one personal reference report is $79.
Job Networking and Finding Employment Agencies
You might meet someone on an airplane or in line at the grocery store who offers you the job opportunity of a lifetime but it’s not very likely. You are going to have to make an effort to let employers know you are looking for work, by networking and/or signing up with an employment agency.
Dulcinea's Insight
- When perusing job search engine results, you’ll notice that many of the jobs advertised are offered through an agency. If you see a job that is intriguing, you may want to stop by the employment agency (if it isn’t too far away), sign up with them, and see what other availabilities they have. As there are so many employment agencies out there, this is a good way to find one that fits your needs.
- Be wary of services that will "post" or "blast" your résumé for you. Posting will put it on a number of job Web sites, and blasting will send it out via e-mail to recruiters. These methods might get you more spam than legitimate job offers.
- Consider using just your e-mail address as a contact when you post an online résumé. Set up a free e-mail account with hotmail.com, gmail.com, or yahoo.com that you only use for your job hunt to keep your personal e-mail address secure.
- If you decide to post your résumé to a job site, remove it once you've finished your job search.
- The only way to cancel a Monster.com account is to call 1-800-MONSTER.
- To cancel at CareerBuilder.com follow the steps here.
Dulcinea's Picks
For networking …
WhoToTalkTo
is a place to post job leads and to get job leads from others. The site works on a point system: you have to post your own leads in order to request one from someone else.
Jobster
is a search engine and networking site in one. Create a profile, add "tags" (keywords) to your profile, and network with other users. If you are just searching for jobs, you can do so without creating a profile. When job results are returned, read what other users are saying about that company.
LinkedIn
is a networking site that allows you to set up a profile, then connect with colleagues (past and present), old classmates, or search for other people in your industry. LinkedIn alerts you if other people from your company sign on so that you can connect with them.
Ryze
(pronounced "rise") can help you create networks with others in your field, search for jobs using its "Classifieds" section, or check out the career-related events going on in your area.
For choosing references …
CVTips.com
provides this concise summary on how to obtain employment references. Among other tips, the site suggests that you should always ask for permission from those you list as references beforehand.
To find a headhunter/employment agency …
Vault
provides a listing of reputable recruiters with contact information and firm descriptions. Look for recruiters that deal with finance, legal, and executive staffing, all searchable by state.
Chippewa Valley Technical College
has compiled links to a broad range of staffing agencies and recruiters, “offering temporary, direct-hire, short-term, long-term, and permanent employment.”
Spencer Stuart
is aimed at senior executives. Register and submit your resume for free, then Spencer Stuart will determine if you are a good match for any of its clients. Also read articles and studies or the latest issue of Point of View, the Spencer Stuart periodical.
Glocap Search
is a search firm serving a variety of industries including hedge funds, real estate, advertising, general corporate, and legal. Its search consultants have extensive experience in the industries in which they place job seekers, and can offer insider advice on compensation trends and organizational structure.
How to Interview
Just being offered an interview probably means you are qualified for the position. Think of an interview as the employer's test drive of you as an employee. They want to know whether you’ll be a good fit for their company.
Dulcinea's Insight
- If you haven't already done so, research the company with which you are interviewing. Here are some tips to help you:
- Try entering the company's name in a general search engine to find the company's Web site.
- Look on some of the networking sites for employee opinions about a company. Jobster is just one of the sites that provides employee commentary about the work environment of a company.
- Some things to consider before the interview:
- Prepare yourself for the questions you might be asked and think of some potential answers.
- Think of a few questions that you would like to ask about the job or company.
Dulcinea's Picks
For information about a company …
Hoover’s
is the place to go to find basic company information. You’ll also find industry facts and figures, a few of a company's top competitors, and links to media related to the company you search. Search Hoover’s database for free but be aware that there are additional perks for subscribers.
Vault
has company profiles as well as salary and job search information in its “Research Companies” section. Vault gives you a brief history as well as stock market info, employee count, revenue, and more, plus comments by employees. The downside of this site is that it excludes lots of smaller companies.
The New York Public Library
offers a guide called “Searching for Company Information” that helps you navigate through the abundance of company information available online. The site offers search strategies based on your answers to a few simple questions about the company you’re researching.
For job interview tips …
Emily Post
, the queen of etiquette, provides “Job Interview Tips 101.” It covers everything from what to wear and grooming tips to shaking hands and saying thank you.
JobWeb
has interview and résumé tips for new college graduates, as well as a section on what to do if you're asked an illegal question in an interview.
Salary Information
When the job offers start coming in, be prepared to ask for what you are worth. There are a few sites that can tell you what salaries others in your field are making.
Dulcinea's Insight
- Looking up wages is much easier if you use your exact job title. Many of these sites also allow you to factor in how much previous experience you've had, which can greatly affect potential wages.
- When you are looking up your potential position's average wage, keep in mind that it is just an average and isn't a guarantee of how much you might make.
- Cost-of-living calculators are also just averages. Consider any extra expenses you have or (if you are lucky) expenses that will be significantly less for you.
Dulcinea's Picks
Salary.com
is the place to go to find out how much other people in your location and industry are making.
MonsterTRAK
has a cost-of-living wizard for those considering making a move. Enter your current city and salary and then enter the city you are thinking of moving to; it will let you know how much you need to make to maintain the same standard of living, as well as what you are likely to make in your field. Look for the cost-of-living wizard in the “Salary Center” at the top of the homepage.
Economic Policy Institute
tracks job and wage trends in its “Jobs Picture” feature. For more wage and employment forecasts, browse “Related Publications” on the left sidebar.
© 2009 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
