Is LinkedIn the Best Place to Find a Job?

One of the best places to find a job may be the worst kept secret in America. The reason the word is out is because LinkedIn has moved aggressively to become the job board of choice.

Here are two ways that LinkedIn is helping you find a job:

First, LinkedIn is replacing traditional job boards like Monster.com as the go-to online resource for recruiters looking for candidates. After launching its Recruiter service in 2008 and Talent Pipeline in 2011, LinkedIn is now deriving more than half of its revenue ($138 million in the third quarter of 2012) from providing job services to recruiters. Recruiters like using LinkedIn and find it to be a cost-effective resource. The upshot? Make sure your LinkedIn profile is perfect, because recruiters are looking for you.

Here’s the second way LinkedIn is helping you find a job. On your homepage feed, they provide you with suggested jobs based on your profile. It’s almost like you have a recruiter working for you and you don’t have to do anything more than take a look at the suggested jobs. What could be easier?

LinkedIn is working hard to help find your next great job. Help them help you by keeping your profile up to date and looking good.

Your Elevator Pitch

I just came across this great list of job search tips for 2011. 

While some of the suggestions, like reaching out to your network and studying up on the company you’re interviewing with may seem obvious, job seekers frequently overlook them. 

I’ve been interviewing people the past couple of weeks for a temporary opening in our department and everyone has been great, but nobody has had a great elevator pitch.  Think about your elevator pitch this way:

This is who I am

This is what I’ve done

This is what I can do for you

This is why I’d like to work for you

This is why you should hire me

Write it down, then practice it until you’re comfortable with your elevator pitch.  Think about creating a condensed version for networking opportunities.  Good luck!

Job Scammers Proliferate

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times tells the story of an online job scammer who siphoned off $6.1 million from 80,000 job seekers, promising them bartending and secret shopper jobs that never materialized.

Online ads and emails promising work from home opportunities are targeting desperate job seekers.  Most are come-ons for “guides” or “starter kits” that will end up enriching nobody but the producer of those materials.

A word to the wise:  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  If a company asks you for money to help you with your job search, do your due diligence and check them out thoroughly before buying anything.

Good luck and be careful out there.

Avoid these Top 10 scams targeting job seekers

Avoid online scams

Job seekers see the posts almost daily:  Make money from home!  Mystery Shoppers Needed!  And the list goes on.

My advice:  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  When I was job seeking, I ran into a lot of well disguised job opportunities on Craigslist that were actually scams. 

Here’s a great article on the top 10 scams that target job seekers.  Seek, but seek with your eyes wide open.

Learn to Tell Your Story

I recently stumbled across this great list of top tips for job seekers.  If you’re looking for a job, I encourage you to give it a thorough read. 

Suggestion number two, “Learn to Tell Your Story Well,” is a summary of a conversation I had this very day with the recruiter who placed me in my current gig.  The upshot of the convo was this:  Many people who are well qualified for a particular position don’t get the job because they have not mastered “their story.” 

So what is your story?  The answer to that question may well vary between person and opportunity, but generally the “story” recruiters and hiring managers want to hear is what value you bring to the position.  It may be your unique experience, your skill at adapting to new environments and challenges, your approach to managing others or your raw talent in making money for your employer.  Whatever your value proposition, it’s important that you let that and other key reasons to hire you, shine.

So what’s your story?

Recruiters will lead the way

There’s an article in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune about the dearth of job opportunities in that market.  With unemployment now above 10%, there are far more job seekers in Southern California than there are jobs.

You can read the article (although I’ll warn you it’s a bit depressing), but here are my takeaways.

If you’ve been looking for a job for more than 6 months and haven’t landed any interviews, something isn’t working.  It’s probably time to consider a new strategy.  A job coach may be able to help, but there are now a lot of free job search resources out there, so be sure to scour them for new ideas.

In San Diego, they are starting to see an uptick in demand for recruiters.  This is good news because in most markets, the recruiting industry has been hit particularly hard due to the lack of open positions to fill.  When the recruiters go back to work, everyone else will follow.

Follow the recruiters, they’ll lead the way.

The Clock Starts Now

Open that window

An article in today’s NJ.com predicts that a job window will open soon and stay open for 90 days.  In other words, if you’re looking for a job, the next 3 months will provide a critical opportunity to find work and you need to be ready to hit the ground running.

The article offers some great tips for preparing for your job search and then getting out there.  Many of these tips have appeared in this blog, but the article does a nice job of summarizing a few of them.

Bottom line:  I have no idea if this “window” is fact or fantasy.  But what if you decided to take the next 90 days and energize your job search by updating your resume and your Linkedin profile, by applying for one job a day, by going to one networking event every day, by making 10 calls to recruiters/friends/your network every day, by creating some “out of the box” job search tool like a personal newsletter, by joining one new group that may help with your job search and by taking advantage of some free or paid job search counseling.

If you did all of these things you just might find a job while the window is open.  And even if you don’t, what is the downside? You just might find the job on day 91 or day 101, but I’m willing to bet you will feel better knowing that you’ve done the best you can.  Now throw open that window!

Attitude is Everything

No Stress!

There is a great article in yesterday’s New York Times about the stress a person feels after losing a job and how that stress can help sink the job search process. 

This reminded me of my own job search stress.  I had been unemployed for a few months and my stress was growing daily.  One day out of the blue, a recruiter called and what seemed like the last company in town that was hiring had called them and wanted to see me.  I sweated through three interviews and sat on pins and needles for every piece of news, assuming the worst during periods of silence.  Finally, the day for my fourth and last interview came.  I was so stressed out I drove right by the company, and arrived a couple of minutes late.  Nervous and assuming I was cooked, I soldiered on and got the job inspite of myself.

So I understand how stress, anxiety, depression, a sense of self doubt and all the rest can play havoc on the job search.  These are real feelings and they shouldn’t be ignored.  But they can be managed. 

My advice is to ask others to help you:  friends, colleagues, family, healthcare professionals, recruiters, job search experts and anyone else you may respect.  In many cases, just talking about your feelings can help enormously.  When you’re in need and you ask for help, help can come from the most unlikely places.

GoSavant Job Search Tips

GoSavant (savant is the French word for “knowing” and has come to mean an “expert”) is a job search coaching site that offers a number of tools to help the job searcher.  Included among a host of other items are courses on “Job Search – Knock ’em Dead ($49.95),” Write Effective Resumes ($19.99)” and “Winning Job Search Tactics ($19.99).”

But what I like best are the free networking and interviewing tips.  I especially like the networking tips because I think good networking is the key to a successful job search.  Many job seekers don’t realize that they already know people who can be helpful in their job search.  Recently I told a friend about a business associate who I thought might be helpful in her job search.  It turns out she already knew him but not in a professional context. They’ve now connected professionally and it’s a valuable connection.

Mine your entire network, let them know you are looking for a job and ask them for leads or introductions that may be helpful.  You may already know the person who will lead you to that next great job.

Don’t Fall for a Hiring Scam

There are a lot of people looking for jobs, and there are a lot of people looking to scam the job seekers.  Two things are working for the job scammers.  First,  the number of people looking for jobs online is unprecedented.  Never before have this many people been unemployed at the same time there so many web-based job search resources.  Second, many of the people looking for jobs have not been unemployed during the era of the job board and are not savvy about the dos and don’ts of the online job search.

When I was job hunting, I found Craigslist to the be the most useless and scammer filled place to try and find a job.  The legitimate job posters are so bombarded with resumes yours has little chance of being seen and at the same time the scammers are quite sophisticated. 

The goals of job scammers are diverse.  Some may simply be hiding a come-on for some product or service, others may try to get your personal information for marketing or even criminal activities.  Many disguise “work at home” scams as legitimate employment opportunities.

Here are a few lessons I learned, mostly thanks to my experience with Craigslist.

I always suspect ads that make you follow a link to a website.  There are plenty of legitimate ads that want you to apply at a website, but you should proceed with caution.

Be careful when submittting personal information.  I wouldn’t divulge my birthdate or my social security number to anyone online.

Don’t pay for anything.  There are scams asking applicants to pay for credit checks in order to be considered for a position.  Don’t fall for it.

Grammatical errors, poor spelling and the like generally point to scammers, many of which are scamming outside the country.

If the offer seems too good to be true, it is.

Happy job hunting and stay safe out there.