By Kevin
Purdy, 9:00 AM on Sat Feb 21 2009, 16,036 views
Top 10 Tools for Landing a Better Job
Top 10 Tools for Landing a Better Job
From the first Google search to the last interview, you can boost your odds at landing a better job with the right preparation.
Here are our ten best tools and tips for job-seekers and career climbers.
Photo by lewis chaplin.
10. Cover all the search sites
It's not exactly a "hack" to suggest hitting Monster.com,
or your LinkedIn network, to check out job offerings and
work your connections. Each site amongst our five best online job search sites, however, puts
you in a different pool of possibilities, and each has its own quirks and tools.
They're somewhat perfunctory and broad, but wouldn't you feel bad knowing you
missed a great opportunity simply because it wasn't in your super-specific
Craigslist search? There are a host of salary-obsessed sites that use a combination
of math and insider info to compute what workers with certain skills and
experience levels can expect in different cities and corporate firms. The most
prominent among themGlassdoor.com, PayScale,
SalaryScout, and Indeedhave their
own strengths and weaknesses, as we've previously
detailed. If you're lucky enough to have an informed
source inside a firm you're looking to jump ship to, or can cultivate one, that
might be your best bet.Photo by AMagill. From covering an oldie-but-goodie list like the 50 common interview questions and answers to
mastering a few conversational Jedi mind trickshow you prep for
your job interview depends on how geeky you want to get. If you bore even
yourself with your answers to 1950s HR Manual standards like "What's your
greatest weakness," consider turning the interview around by talking about your
first 100 days on the job, or tell
the story of your career, and future. If you managed to
escape without squirting mustard on the interviewer's shirt, dash off a
quick, effective thank-you note. For more ideas,
visit our tips for talking your way into a job. Unless your interviewer is Mark Zuckerberg, your newest sandals
and fleece just ain't gonna cut it.
Here's the shorter, job-focused version of our tools for dressing sharp:
Some large-scale employers deposit every single resume and CV
into a giant, OCR-scanned database; others merely search out candidates on job
sites using specific word criteria. Either way, having the right words on your resume prevents being cut in
the first round like some warbly-voiced would-be Idol contestant. On
the other hand, the humans who actually read through your cover letter, resume,
and application want to see real numbers and results, not Career Services
blather. So take a good long look at your text and kill at least six words from your resume.
A while back, we suggested just a few tools to nab a job with feeds and email alerts. Our
commenters, though, had a wealth of links and suggestions that worked for
them:
SimplyHired and its RSS feeds, which 72ba digs for its aggregation of the big job
sites and local players, as well as the customized feeds.
By and large, no one-person blog is going to replace a salary,
but it can help you find a new source of income. Blogger Adam Darowski believes
the blog is the new resume, and at least one
Lifehacker editor is really glad he built his up to help land a new gig. Write
and post material related to the field you work in, and generally work it as if
you were already employed in it. Your resume and clips can spell out that you're
a great with Photoshop, but your blog's slideshows will definitely sell your
clients or employers a lot more emphatically. Go aheadtell us which tools or skills were conspicuously absent
from our Top 10. Tell us your experience on any of the above from the
perspective of employer, employee, or current job-seeker, or offer up some links
in the comments.
9. Cover Craigslist like a
glove
The same types of skills and always-there alertness that
make someone a Craigslist power user can give them the edge on
the site's job board, which has the benefit of (sometimes, not always)
attracting relatively tech-savvy, with-it employers. Once you're getting text
message and RSS alerts whenever "Micro-brew taster" shows up, browse these
tips for applying for a job on Craigslist,
written by someone looking to hire through Craigslist and looking for only the
honest, direct, ready-to-work types.
8. Take the guesswork out of
salary demands
7. Leave without burning any
bridges
If you have a great estimate of exactly how many seconds
are left until you can leave, it can be really tempting to email
all@youroldcompany.com with exactly how liberated you feel. But if your dream
job doesn't turn out quite so ethereal, or you ever find yourself needing a tip,
lead, reference, or maybe even someone to hire at your new digs, you'll wish
you'd kept things civil. To fake it until you make it, crib from eMurse's
sample resignation letters, read from wikiHow's
guide to
resigning gracefully, and keep in touch over social
networks like Facebook with the co-workers in the same realm you find yourself
in. You never know when one of them might hear about a sudden job opening;
alternately, you can ditch the civility and think about offering cold, hard cash rewards for job leads.
6. Walk into your interview
without fear
5. Look the part
Give the shoes a solid shine: In five minutes or so.
4. Use search-friendly words; skip
vague generalities
3. Get better, faster, smarter
alerts on job openings
2. Build your personal brand with
a blog
1. Write a killer resume for a new
career path
With the economy lurching about like an over-tired
Capoeira enthusiast, we recently decided it was a good time to look at taking
the first step toward escaping one's endangered (or just plain boring) career
for another, no matter what your experience level. We rounded up our favorite tips from our own resume
posts and experience, and talked to a career specialist about how to score a
great gig, even if you lack the supposedly mandatory "minimum requirements."
Check it out, pull out the heavy-stock paper, and get to writing. Photo by
emdot.
-----------
