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Five Ways to Generate Job Leads
When you’re looking for
a new job, it’s never enough to simply check newspapers and
other publications—the local paper is no longer the best place
to look, and many positions are filled without even being
advertised, so it’s important to develop alternative methods of
generating leads.
1. Networking
This might just be one
of the most effective ways to find out what jobs are available
in your field. Networking means making contact with family,
friends and neighbors as well as work colleagues and associates.
The more people who know you’re looking for a job, the better.
This is such an important point that it’s good to create these
kinds of contacts even if you’re not looking for a job—the
contacts you make may benefit you in the future.
2. Professional
and College Organizations
Most professions have
organizations with web sites or publications that include job
postings. Annual conferences can be great places to network and
make professional contacts, too. If you have a degree, joining
your college’s career or alumni association can be equally
effective.
3. Cold Calling
Cold calling—and even
“cold emailing” can still be an effective way of hunting down
those “hidden” jobs that don’t get advertised. It’s often fairly
time-consuming, however, since it involves creating a list of
employers, researching each one (including the name of the
hiring manager), and sending a cover letter and resume to the
hiring manager for the relevant position.
4. Career Fairs
Job and career fairs are
held fairly regularly, and many companies send one or two
employees to these fairs to network and recruit the best
candidates. Attending career fairs requires extensive
preparation, since you’ll need to find out what companies will
be sending people, research those companies, and then create
strategies for actually getting to talk to their
representatives. These are usually very crowded events, so you
really want to make sure that they remember you, too.
5. Online Job
Listings
Online job sites can be a
great resource if you use them effectively and selectively -
however, the larger sites are not always the best. In fact, a
study carried out by iLogos Research suggests that many Fortune
500 companies tend to publish job ads on corporate careers sites
rather than the larger job boards and many companies in the
health care sector, as well as IT and other industries tend to
use corporate sites too.
Also, please review our Tools
to Find a Job section.
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