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02.09.09 Expanding And Enhancing Your Career Search  By Dan Morrill Your new job search needs to incorporate much of the new technology as possible. While Dice and Monster might be good, to find real viable jobs, it is time to expand your search and how you search for your next gig. These are alternative ways of finding real jobs that people are looking for. While these are also just examples (there are many like this, far too many to list), adding groups and sites like this to your job search might make it more fun, and a lot easier to find your next gig. FriendFeed - FriendFeed has multiple "Jobs" rooms like the Web 2.0 Jobs room that links right here. To use this, you need to start social networking, and getting involved in many of the social systems out there. FriendFeed is a great way of using social networking tools to land a new gig, or at least find out about jobs that will not be posted on any of the majors, Monster, Dice, Career Builder. The good part is that these are real jobs and not "open till filled" positions that do not really exist. Twitter - using the twitvenn diagram system you can search on job,open,seattle and find the number of tweets about open positions. You can also modify the keywords to be more specific about what you are looking for and search through twitter for people who are talking about open positions within the twitter universe. Linkedin - Linkedin is also quickly becoming a way to find open positions or find out what your linkedin contacts have open. You can also (although not recommended unless you know them really well) hit them up and see if they know anything. Word of Mouth and recommendations will also help you on this system. WorkSource - Work source is a program here in Washington state (Full Disclosure, I am building programs for work source) that provide the unemployed training in skills. These kinds of programs will vary by state, but most states have some form of retraining program that people can use to build skills while they are on state unemployment. Some of the programs are very cool, and can teach you just in time basic skills that you didn't have time for when you were employed. This is a great way of getting free to you training to help you find your next gig.
Changing Careers - this might be the time to change careers and see what other alternatives are out there. (Full disclosure, I work for the school I am about to mention here). Many schools have programs that are state funded, or federally funded to help you change careers. If you are at the point in your career that you just want to do something different, or do a little pay it forward good deed, programs like teacher training will pay your full tuition, as long as you give the state/government part of your life afterwards teaching disadvantaged or remote kids. This is one of those "build good karma" changes that might change your life. You might also try seeing if you like teaching, right now higher education is booming as people go back to school, while you will not earn 100K+, you might earn enough to pay the bills. You will need at least a masters degree to teach college, but then this might also be a great way to get a higher degree and have some fun while doing so. Volunteer - not that this will bring money in, but volunteering might help you in a number of critical ways. One if you stay within your current field (whatever that field is) find volunteer gigs to help keep that gap shorter in your resume. You also get feel good work out of this, help volunteer organizations, and otherwise keep your skills current. This kind of volunteering also can help you explore new career options that you might not have had time to explore before. Specialized Lists - every day job openings cross my desk from various groups, like the Seattle STS list, or via Problogger job boards. Sign up for these kinds of systems or groups to help you learn what is available in your area. These groups and lists can seriously help you reduce your time to search, and who knows, you might make a great startup employee, or a great blogger. While some of these depend on web 2.0 skills (which you need to have beyond "I have a Facebook account"), some of these are more traditional alternatives. You never know what you will find out there, but if you are relying solely on the major job boards, you are missing the entire underground job economy. This is one way of helping you find your next gig, and who knows, maybe even change careers. Comments About the Author: Dan Morrill has been in the information security field for 18 years, both civilian and military, and is currently working on his Doctor of Management. Dan shares his insights on the important security issues of today through his blog, Managing Intellectual Property & IT Security, and is an active participant in the ITtoolbox blogging community. |
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