Job Search - Tips and Tricks

I have been in full job search mode for just under 6 weeks now and have had 10 interviews. I have been very aggressive this time with cover letters and follow ups. All this at the hands of a wonderful coach, Liz Ryan of Ask Liz Ryan (http://www.asklizryan.com/) With her in your corner you cannot help but get motivated and stay focused on the goal of a full time position.



This is about some of the ways that I find contacts at my target companies. Even works for blind ads to find the companies behind the ads.



1. Networking Web sites - LinkedIn - show you are searching in your profile. Mine has one of my resume summary's as my profile.

Jigsaw.com - good for finding company's and people

ZoomInfo - Same

Meetup.com - Finding peoples interests and finding groups that interest you



2. Use Google.com it can be your best resource. To find a person in a company I use Linked in and look for the company name in my area (advanced search). Then if they do not have an e-mail address in their profile, Google their name and the city the company is in. Many times you can find them from posts they have made to a forum on a web site. Goggle searches all of them!



3. If you still do not find an e-mail address - Go to the company website and do a search on the website for their name, see if they wrote an article for the company newsletter, quite often these list e-mail addresses, look in the about the company section of the website for names and e-mail addresses. If not there, see if you can find any ones e-mail address. Companies usually follow a standard format (firstname@company.com, lastname@company.com, lastnamefirstinitial@company.com) you see what I mean. Compose your cover letter and send it to your target based on the format the company uses. The worst thing that will happen is if they write back and refuse to help and you are no worse off than you were before. I have never had that happen.



4. No luck on the company website, go back to Google, only this time search with *@companyname.com. This will show you e-mail address's from that domain, with any luck you might find your target there. If not, pick another name and try again.



5. For blind ads, I take keywords from the ad and again use Google to search on the keywords plus the city or any other identifying information that might be posted. Try different keywords and a description of the industry, etc. I have gotten an interview just because the company wanted to find out how I found them from the ad!



6. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone. I am going to networking events in my area (try meetup.com) and making it a goal to strike up a conversation with at least one person a night. Not a "I need a job conversation" but a "Hi how are you? Tell me about yourself conversation". Meeting new people is not only good for the job search, but good for the attitude and gets you out of the house!