A Sunday to Connect and Share Your Job Search: Three Ways to do it Today!

www.clicktogethired.com

After the kids have been dressed for church, the big lunch eaten, and a long nap on the way, you may be reflecting on your week searching for work. You already know that it takes support from your family and friends to help you during your search, but how strong are those connections outside of your immediate circle?

A Facebook report estimated that the median 'Friends' count on Facebook is 100--this means half of Facebook users have 0-100 'Friends' and half have 100 plus. How many 'Friends' do you count on your profile? How many of these would recommend you for a job? How many would send a personal email to a hiring manager on your behalf? How many would send you a job they found was opening at their company and hadn't been published yet?

The 100 plus connections we develop outside of our immediate circle of friends and family can be the deciding factor when a hiring manager chooses one candidate over another.

Here are 3 ways you can build your connections today and share your job search:

1.  On LinkedIn ask for a recommendation of your work not just from coworkers or past supervisors, but also friends who know your professional skills. Don't be afraid to send the recommendation request--it's a simple form to quickly send. Just remember to reciprocate and write a recommendation if the connection also asks for one. This process might seem like an exercise in vanity, but employers do look at these recommendations and they only add value to your candidate profile.
2. On Twitter create a hashtag with your name and the word resume (example: #johnsmithresume) and when tweeting to friends or colleagues, incorporate the hashtag into your tweet. Make sure to include your skills and experience in this. This allows you to organize your search so that others can easily 'see' the conversations that mention you and your search.
3. On Indeed upload your resume to the site so that its stored there electronically. Take the resume link and add it in multiple places where you are represented online. For example
   :
• Add link to your email signature line
• Add link to your Facebook profile
• Share link on Google+
• Share link on LinkedIn as a new discussion item

We hope these strategies can help you share your job search successes with your existing and future connections.

Visit us at www.clicktogethired.com for more.

Until next time,

A Better Job Search...Indeed!

A better job search...Indeed! (www.clicktogethired.com)

There was news recently that the popular job search site Indeed.com now accounts for half of all job search traffic online, accessed by 100 million visitors monthly. That's over 30 million people a day either looking for work or the next opportunity for work. How do you stand out from the masses and effectively find a job that fits your particular skill set and is close to where you wish to work?

By knowing how to search better than the rest. Lots of folks use job search sites like www.indeed.com, but few know how to dive deep into the site to gain a job search advantage.

The general and advanced search capabilities of a powerful metasearch tool like Indeed.com will give you many options for finding relevant jobs and links to where you can apply, but there are also other features within the site you should explore to aid your search. Here are a few of the most significant additional tools:

• Salary Search. This search feature found on the Indeed.com site at www.indeed.com/salary, is a good resource alongside searching for a current job listing as it can provide added insight to the particular job or field you’re pursuing. Enter the job you want in the “What” field and where you wish to work in the “Where” field. The resulting information displayed can tell you some of the following:

• Average salary of jobs that match your search criteria and in the location you’re searching. Using this information, you can get a good idea of what to expect in earnings from the job you’re pursuing. You know your budget and the bills that are due, and now knowing what your desired job could possibly earn can help you plan better.

• The national salary trend for this type of job. This information can be used to benchmark what the job might be paid elsewhere. You can use what you learn here to help you negotiate your starting salary or possibly reach the decision to relocate from your current area to where there may be better opportunities and income.

• The average salary of jobs with related titles. This trove of information does the hard work for you by grouping together related jobs you might not have considered. Use these suggestions to explore other jobs that might employ your skill sets and click on the job links to go to the job listing.

• Trends. This search feature found on the Indeed.com site at www.indeed.com/jobtrends can give you a snapshot of how many postings your job or projected company has had over time. The information enables you to determine what the need is for your potential job or skill set and/or the company’s hiring strength. If you see for example that the postings for “database administrator” jobs spiked in 2009 and have since declined steadily, could tell you that the demand for this job might be waning and you might consider another route. (Or use the “average salary of jobs with related titles” option we explored earlier.)

• Forums. This search feature found on the Indeed,com site at www.indeed.com/forum gives your search a personal component as it allows you to search actual user comments and postings about jobs or companies. Much more job-specific than the forums section on the Amazon.com website we previously explored, these forums can help answer questions you may have regarding a job, company, or particular field.

• Email job alert. The last additional Indeed.com feature we’ll explore is the option to have Indeed.com send you jobs that match your search criteria. The “Email job alert” is a simple tool that pays dividends in that it saves the kinds of jobs you want and location where you wish to work and automatically emails you a list of jobs that meet those criteria as soon as they are posted by agencies or employers. One key benefit to this is you always have the most up-to-date job listing--a plus when you are racing against time to find work.

Use these additional Indeed search tools and features to separate yourself from the millions of people searching the site each month.

Best of luck with your search.

Until next time,

www.clicktogethired.com