Job Search Links

I'm collecting helpful jobsearch links and sharing them as a "stack" using the delicious social bookmarking facility.

You can find it here:  http://bit.ly/neojobsearchlinks

I haven't found a way to suppress some of the distracting web site snapshots, so you may want to select the list view as shown below.  If you have a Delicious account, you can "follow" the stack to be notified of updates, or you can just check back with the above link.

Send any suggestions to me here.

More Job Fairs

The Career Place library site has added a list of jobfairs to their website. It is on their right sidebar about halfway down under the heading "CAREER FAIRS".

CVJS recently announced an open house at Comsys. This was kind of a jobfair with just one (big and quality) employer. It was very well run, not a mad house like employment guide's was.

The employment guide hosted two very crowded job fairs in the last two months. I'm not sure that their exhibitors were much to get excited about. Their jobfairs web site is here. They give some advice on jobfairs here. More advice on jobfairs and job searching can be found at the career center links in my previous post.

Job Fairs

So anybody at the Employment Guide mad house today... Jeez.

I've been to that location before and when I saw the cars circling, and the hundreds of people outside waiting to get in I knew it would be a mad house. But I figured I was there so I'll check it out.

Don't be discouraged, this was not what I'd call a tier 1 event. I usually advise people to go to the tier 2 or 3 events as a way to practice your pitch, but this was so crowded that wasn't easy to do unless you wanted to spend the full 4 hours. Lucky the fire marshal didn't show up, he would have closed them down.

I didn't see all the companies listed on their advance brochure. Usually this would be a blue collar event, but I was surprised to see the number of suits, made even worse by a long wait outside.

The CSU event in a month is more of a tier one event. It may be crowded, but its in a bigger venue, the likelihood of no-shows is less, and there is a higher caliber of employer there too. Although with unemployment so high, who knows, you may want to get there early.

The LinkedIn CCPL group has a discussion on the schedule for upcoming jobfairs. I'll repeat them here for those who aren't part of the CCPL Job Club with thanks to Bonnie.

1. Lakeland Community College.

http://www2.lakelandcc.edu/nora/events/announcements.asp?ID=15#1710

Mini-Job Fair
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
careerservices@lakelandcc.edu
Time: 10 am to 1 pm
Location: A-Bulding (between Bookstore & Counseling)

Their career center is here: http://careers.lakelandcc.edu/

2. University of Akron

http://www.uakron.edu/ccm/students/expoinfo.php

Thursday, February 12, 2009
10:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Student Union Ballrooms

3. Cleveland State University

http://www.csucareerfair.com/home.php

Career Services Center 30th Annual Spring Career Fair
Friday, February 27, 2009
9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
216-687-4858

Their career center is here: http://www.csuohio.edu/offices/career/

4. Cuyahoga Community College

http://www.tri-c.edu/community/keycareerplace/pages/careerexpos.aspx

Western Campus on Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Metro Campus on Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Eastern Campus on Thursday, April 30, 2009
Times are 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Their career center is here:
http://www.tri-c.edu/career/workforce/keycareer/Pages/Home.aspx

5. Idealist Nonprofit Career Fair

http://www.idealist.org/careerfairs

Wednesday, April 8, 2009
11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Case Western Reserve University Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Thwing Student Center

Status: Second Draft - CCC added 03/03/09

Organizing your job search

At today's CCPL Job Club meeting Jim brought up the topic of organizing your job search.

Web Sites

Jim mentioned an interesting online link that can help you called Jibber Jobber, that organizes your information in a spreadsheet like table. Click here to see videos explaining the service and here to read the FAQ. As with many web sites, there is a free portion and a priced portion. Click here for an explanation of their premium service.

Jibber Jobber Update: Its interesting to see the CEO noticed this post several hours after it was made (sounds like Google Alert) and commented here. Such personal involvement is rare. Click on his Blogger name to see his profile and the blogs he's involved in. Want to see what the press is saying about Jibber Jobber, take a look at the bottom of their home page and click on the trade press logos.

I am intrigued by this new web service, stay tuned for updates to this post and an upcoming post with more details. Thanks to Jim for taking the time to find this site and tell us about it. I'd like to point out the value of our LinkedIn discussion group as a means for sharing this information with members who missed the meeting.

Another web site Resume Spider was mentioned in a recent CVJS post. Stay tuned to that message thread for other people's experiences. If you aren't a member of CVJS, you should look into becoming one. CVJS (Chagrin Valley Job Seekers) is one of the oldest, largest, most organized job seeker groups in the area. After attending a meeting and filing out a registration you can be granted access to their very active discussion group and many informative files on their Yahoo Group site. Click here for meeting information.

Here's a few of my ideas, I'd love to hear yours too, as a comment here, at the CCPL Job Club LinkedIn discussion or as a discussion on the companion group page.

PC files

Build a directory structure to hold your files, rather than have them intermingled in My Documents. Under the top level JOBSEARCH directory you may want to include the following subdirectories.

• Communication - resumes/letters sent
• Companies - info on target companies
• Contact/Network - info on people related to job search
• Jobs - job leads
• News - affecting the job search or target companies
  
• Resources - info on how to conduct a jobsearch, articles, etc.
• Skills - skills inventory, Success stories, info to draw on for cover letters and customized resumes
  

Word

Obviously you use word for your resume and cover letters. But you can use it for more things too.

Rather than print job descriptions from the web, I create a word document to hold the information. I copy and paste from the web site into a word document. I add an outline structure (using Heading n styles) so that I can expand, collapse or drill down. I indent, highlight, make bullet lists, change font size, so that the description is more readable than one large block of text. I add sections on company research, contact, and interview preparation. Rather than lots of different printouts that are hard to read, I have one comprehensive document to refer to before or during an interview.

Excel

Excel is a convent way to make a simple flat data base. If you define it as a data table, you can have auto filter headings that allow you to filter or sort the data.

Applications

I use an outliner application that runs on my PC and syncs with my smartphone/PDA. For any Palm users, the software I use is Shadow by Codejedi Inc.. This software allows me to easily make a hierarchical checklist with start/target/completion dates and easily filter the outline to see items I would like too. Updates and filters can be done on a PC or the PDA.

PDA/Cell

Today's phones are becoming smarter, many have calendar, todo lists, address books, etc. I set up a separate jobsearch category for my job search in my calendar, to do list and address books for quick and easy access. I also setup a Callback category in my address book to park contacts that need a callback.

Usability

The important thing is that it has to be your system, easy, convenient, low maintenance, and accessible.

Well that's a few of my ideas, lets hear yours.... Please!!!

Any experiences on those two web sites Jibber Jobber or Resume Spider would be very helpful.

Status: First Draft - Last update 01/09/09 10:30 PM

Free Job Search Makeover Ideas

Here is an interesting article. Follow the link for the original article that suggests the following three makeovers.

Attitude

No surprise, attitude is everything. Are you depressed, burnt out, angry? Any negative attitude will sink your efforts.

Resume

Your resume is your key to getting the interview. Any flaws will slam the door shut and stop you before you can get started.

Networking

Networking is key, but it has to be effective, it has to develop leads and contacts with hiring managers.

So make your jobsearch over for the new year. Read the whole article here.

Online Job Search

There are several major categories of job search resources on the web. By understanding these categories you can fully explore the resources that are available. Sometimes a web site may fit into more than one category.

Targeted Company Search

The best opportunity for the earliest lead is going directly to a target company. This is more work, but it yields the best leads. You can find the best target companies by noticing hiring trends in a local search engine.

Local Search

These sites focus on the local market, they are likely to have a higher "real" job content rather than recruiters trolling for resumes with bait and switch job lures.

In our area these two are the best:
CareerBoard - http://cleveland.careerboard.com/
Newspaper - http://www.cleveland.com/jobs/

Resume Posting

These sites allow you to post your resume where it can be seen by a large audience. Monster and CareerBuilder are two of the best known resume posting services. The advantage is an employer may find you for an opportunity you may never have known about. The disadvantage is control of your job search shifts away from you. You also loose the option of customizing your resume for a specific opportunity. Your generic resume may be reviewed and rejected by a perspective employer where a targeted resume may have survived the cut. Some of the local search engines may offer resume posting.

These resume posting services also contain a job searching advice section.

Integrated Search

There are super search engines that search many other job databases and return the combined results. Some Resume software (Winway and ResumeMaker) offer this kind of search. One of the best available on the Web is INDEED - http://indeed.com/ .

Advice

Some web sites offer very useful career advice. Some of these are:

About - http://jobsearch.about.com/
Career Voyage - http://careervoyages.gov/
Employment Spot - http://www.employmentspot.com/
Riley Guide - http://www.rileyguide.com/
Wetfeet - http://www.wetfeet.com/
What Color is your Parachute - http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/

Check out the Companion JebSeek Group Files section for over 100 pages of job search advice from one of the sites above.

So in summary, understand these various categories and seek out resources that are the best in each category to offer you the most in your search.

Status: Second Draft - Last updated 12/31/08 2:45 am