Sourcing Opportunities (Online Job Search)

Posted by Matt LeBlanc on June 18, 2009 on A Recruiter's Guide to the Universe

In
today's job-search world it's unfortunate that the Internet rules, even
though it is not a very effective way to land an opportunity. Since
most job-seekers will never change their habits and focus on networking it
is important to understand how to best incorporate online search into
your job-search plan (notice I did not say consume your job-search
plan).

Here are a few things  to consider to help improve your time spent online -

JOB BOARDS

• Everybody knows about CareerBuilder, Monster and HotJobs so we are
  not going to beat that dead horse anymore. Instead we are going to
  focus on several other places you should be looking for opportunities.
  
  


• Indeed(www.indeed.com) and SimplyHired (www.simplyhired.com)
  are two of the many job-search aggregators out there that index a huge
  number of job sites, including corporate employment pages, newspapers
  and Craigslist then makes the jobs searchable based on keyword(s) and
  (optionally) location.
  
  


• LinkUp (www.linkup.com) is
  a unique job search engine that lists jobs taken directly from over
  16,000 company websites (no third party recruiter postings). Some of
  the jobs posted here could otherwise be difficult to find because they
  are typically unadvertised outside of company websites.
  
  


• Search agents are a great way to keep up
  with what is getting posted on a continual basis to save you a lot of
  time and energy. Most job-boards allow you to adjust your settings
  within your account to have job-alerts emailed to you on a daily or
  weekly basis.

OTHER PLACES TO FIND JOB OPPORTUNITIES

• LinkedInhas a very useful job function (http://www.linkedin.com/jobs)
  that is powered by SimplyHired and allows you to search thousands of
  job listings that can be searched using keywords, title, company, and
  location.
  
  


• Professional association sites (both
  local and national) are a great way to find opportunities. Many allow
  their members to post jobs (or have jobs posted) for free. The real
  advantage here is that all of the jobs will relate to the profession
  that the association focuses on.
  
  


• TweetMyJOBS is a very interesting service
  that brings recruiters/employers and job seekers together on Twitter.
  The site has established Twitter channels for major cities and job
  types and once you create accounts on both job openings can be set to
  either be texted to your cell phone or emailed to your Twitter account.
  
  


• Facebook, LinkedIn, & Twitter status updates
  can be used in any number of ways, including to source opportunities.
  There are many companies that utilize all three to get information
  (including their job openings - click here and here for companies and here for recruiters that you should follow on Twitter).
  
  


• Google is a great place to search for
  opportunities. You can search out niche job boards, organizations in
  your area, recruiters, and a host of other things that would benefit a
  search. In addition, there are a set of Google search functions (click here for more information) that you can use to find specifically what you are looking for.

IMPROVING YOUR SEARCH RESULTS ONLINE AND ON JOB-BOARDS

• LinkedIn's JobsInsider is a great tool to use to utilize your network in your online search. Read our previous post about JobsInsider here.
  
  


• Boolean search is an effective way of
  searching through vast amounts of information built on a method of
  logic developed by 19th century English mathematician George Boole.
  Today, Boolean search techniques can be used to carry out effective
  searches, cutting out many unrelated documents and most online
  databases and search engines support Boolean searches. For more
  information on Boolean works and how to use in your search, click here.

Again, I am not a big fan of online job-search as it is less
effective than other methods but do feel it should be a minor part of
your plan to find work as long as its done when everyone else is asleep.

Now its your turn to contribute. Where do you go online to find
potential job postings - leave a comment and lets see how comprehensive
a list we can generate. Look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Until then, good hunting and good luck!