3 Must-Have Tools for Your Job Search
What are the three best tools to fuel your dreaded job search? Guest blogger Fatemah Mirza shares her secrets.
There are three vital parts of any successful job search:
1. Â Â Â Being consistent
2.      Doing targeted job searches
3.      Remaining up-to-date with industry news
Thanks to the rapid advance of technology, it’s easier than ever to include these three elements into your job search. Here are my three favorite, must-have tools that will help you take control of your search:
Increase Consistency Using Todoist
As Woody Allen says, “80 percent of success is showing up.”
If there’s any tool that will help you turn your job search around, it’s Todoist. It’s one of the simplest and most efficient task management tools online. All you have to do is sign up. (It’s free!)
My favorite feature on Todoist is the recurring tasks feature. So for instance, if every Tuesday, you want to follow up with the recruiters you’ve reached out to, you can check out the Date & Time section.
Secondly, if you’re extremely forgetful (like me), you’ll love Todoist’s timed reminders.
Putting this in:
Gets you this:
Todoist sends you an email 30 minutes before each timed task. In this scenario, I’d get an email 30 minutes before my interview with Amelie, and one two and a half hours after, reminding me to email her a personalized thank-you note.
Whenever I create a job search strategy for my clients, I create a “shared” project with them so they never forget to:
a.      Follow up with interview leads
b.     Attend networking events like conferences and seminars
c.      Go to their interviews! (We’re all guilty of forgetting our appointments.)
d.     Post in their favorite LinkedIn group
e.     Reach out to new people on a weekly basis
f.       Share valuable content with their new connections on LinkedIn
Speaking of new connections on LinkedIn …
Use LinkedIn’s Premium Advanced Search
Have you ever heard the saying, “Success is just a phone call away?” Well, you can use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature to find and connect with the one person that can open the door you’ve been hammering on.
It helps you find the right people to connect with fast. While it’s not free, LinkedIn often lets people use their advanced features for free for a month.Â
Here are some interesting pieces of information that should get you really fired up about finding people to connect with on LinkedIn:
·        40% of all hires are employee referrals
·        Only 7% of applications come in through employee referrals
·        Referred applicants have a 3-4 times higher chance of being hired than non-referred applicants.
In other words, while only seven percent of all applicants are referrals, they make up for almost one-half of all hiring.
If you’re nervous that you’ll annoy the people you’re reaching out to on LinkedIn, just keep in mind that companies offer incentives if their employees can bring in qualified candidates—sometimes up to $5,000.
Clearly the odds of getting your target job rise dramatically if you can get referred for the position. But in order to do so, you must first find the right people to connect with.
For instance, suppose there’s a position open at a company you want to work for. The next step is to find the right person to connect with.
Open up LinkedIn’s Advanced Search and use the filters. You want to keep the following points in mind:
·        Include a Title in the search parameters to find the right person. Hint: Search for the person you’d be reporting to if you worked there. Their referrals will have a lot more weight than anyone else’s. Plus, you can ask them questions about their specific department and the projects they are working on.
·        Make sure to select “Current” under Company.
·        Optional: Use Location to filter out people that you can’t physically meet.
You now have a list of people to connect with. You can check out their LinkedIn profiles, find contact information, and start drafting introductions via email or InMail.
Before you start reaching out, you must keep the following in mind: don’t approach new connections with an “I’m looking for a job, please hire me” approach. That will create the impression that you want to use them, and you’ll get ignored. It’s in your long term best interest to develop connections that will last for years to come. That is the essence of good networking.
And the best way to break the ice is to share new, relevant information that will help them do their job better.
Speaking of which …
Stay Up-to-Date Using Feedly
Staying up-to-date with industry news and trends is an important part of the job search process. It’s a way to demonstrate in your LinkedIn InMails and interviews that you are a well-read and intelligent candidate.
Going to multiple websites and sifting through articles in search of relevant information is really tedious. You can make this process a lot simpler by using Feedly.
All you have to do is put in a few keywords (like “Project Management” or “Accounting Shortcuts”), and it generates a nice list of articles that you can share with your new connections.
What really makes this free service stand out is that you can organize the websites you follow into smaller collections.
As you can see from the image below, I’ve got multiple collections set up so that Feedly has become my first stop of the morning.
Here’s a bonus reason to use Feedly: following the latest news can help you position yourself as a an expert in your field.
When you share the latest, most interesting discussion topics on social media, you’re creating a reputation in your network for being a leader. This is important because it: (a) creates a pipeline of referrals for you, and (b) when potential employers look you up, they can see that you really know your stuff.
As a result of using these three tools:
·        You become more consistent
·        You save valuable time
·        Research and information collection becomes the easiest part of the job search process
Fatemah Mirza and her team at CareerTuners have helped more than 2,500 professionals get unstuck and into their dream jobs since 2010. Fatemah loves creating resources for job seekers, like this free, 30-day networking course which includes copy-and-paste templates and tried-and-tested outreach strategies.
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