Job-Search Tips

Here's what we'll cover on this page:

• Managing your job search and avoiding becoming overwhelmed
• Tips for more easily finding the jobs that you are looking for
• Telecommuting
• Freelancing

There is an entire universe of job-related websites. You know about the big ones like job.com, jobs.com, monster.com, indeed.com, jobrapido.com, and jobscore.com to name just a few. But there has also been an explosion of more specialized job websites catering to specific niches. How do you find them all and how do you manage all of that information without being overwhelmed? Here are some tips:

Maintain a Spreadsheet
This sounds obvious but it will help a great deal to keep your head straight. By the time you have applied for a few jobs you will not be able to immediately recall details about communications, what was said, status of your application, which version of your resume you submitted, and a whole bunch of other stuff including vital information on your references. In your spreadsheet keep track of the status of each application, other essential information, and any key points that are critical.

There are online tools that can help you manage your job search, such as validatejob.com (Validate Job). In addition to a wide range of useful management tools, they have a free resume builder.

Talking of resumes, Resume Rabbit takes the pain out of submitting your resume to multiple job sites: they will submit your resume to over 75 job sites at once, and this represents a substantial saving in your time, which you can better use looking for jobs.

A Search Engine Trick
Here is a tip that will save you a lot of time searching for particular types of job that you are looking for. Instead of typing, say, “English teacher jobs,” use a more appropriate phrase like “English teacher position available.” However, if you just typed this into a search engine you will get a lot of results that will take you time to sift through. You can do better and prefix your search in Google with allintitle:, so you would use the phrase: “allintitle: English teacher position available.” What this does is that it finds web pages that specifically have that phrase in the html title tag and this considerably narrows down the search and will take you to website pages on various websites that fit your query.

There is one more caveat however. If you only do the above you will get jobs that were already filled months or years ago. So after the intial search results are displayed go to the top of the search page and select Search tools. This will display some more links, one of which will say Any Time. Click and hold down on the arrow in the link and you will see a drop-down menu showing various time frames. Select past month since anything more than that is likely to have been filled already (but if you want to be sure not to miss anything, select past year).

You can drill down even more and save time if you have a specific geographical location in mind, which you can work in to your search phrase. However, this may be too restrictive because the location is not always included in the html title tag.

Go to a Salary Information Site
Here's another trick to cut down the time you spend looking for up-to-the-minute job opportunities in a specific niche. Go to a salary information website such as salary.com and search salary information on the employment category or niche that you are looking for. You will find that the results pages will have ads for jobs catering to that niche, and as a bonus you also get the salary information.

Telecommuting Jobs
You may be surprised how much the telecommuting job market has exploded in recent years. → Learn more.

Freelancing
Freelancing is also becoming more common and perhaps you are considering this as a long-term alternative, or as a short-term solution to generate income while you find the job that you are looking for. Either way, you should be aware of the challenges in terms of acquiring clients, and the fact that you have to deal with taxes and healthcare yourself. Websites that assist you in promoting and/or listing your services are very easy to find by internet searches (elance.com and odesk are of course well-known), but below are a few pointers that are not so well known.

Most people have heard of fiverr.com but it is perhaps not so well-known that there is now an entire cottage industry of fiverr clones, as they are known, because anyone can buy the script and set up their own website with a unique name. The key is that some of these other fiverr clones do not restrict themselves to charging the low fee of $5 to clients so you could potentially earn more. However, bear in mind that these other websites are less known and marketed than fiverr so you may not get as much business. Here is a list of 25 fiverr clones. However, be aware that it is a high turnover industry and by the time you read this some of those websites may already be defunct.

Another website worth checking out is donanza.com. You can subsribe for free to receive alerts of jobs that are available in categories that you specify. There is also a premium service that sends you exclusive alerts with less competition than the free subscription.

If you enjoy writing and are good at it, there are actually a lot of writing jobs available (but there is also a lot of competition). In addition to the websites already mentioned there is a plethora of others, but one that has a very simple logistical structure is HireWriters.com.

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