Usual job hunting methods failing

[frugalone]

I'm starting to wonder if it's my methods or if the market is that awful.

I have found every job I've ever had through a newspaper ad (I am not kidding) or by applying to jobs I've seen advertised on a employer's web site.

I've been trying to find something using flipdog.com, or indeed.com. Half the time, the search words I am putting in do not narrow down the search. It doesn't even tell me "nothing found." It just throws a bunch of totally unrelated jobs at me. I'm getting extremely frustrated.

My question is: What method do you use for finding employment? A combination of things? Do you have a surefire method?

I'm really starting to feel a sense of desperation here...

[gimmethesimplelife]

I'm starting to wonder if it's my methods or if the market is that awful.

I have found every job I've ever had through a newspaper ad (I am not kidding) or by applying to jobs I've seen advertised on a employer's web site.

I've been trying to find something using flipdog.com, or indeed.com. Half the time, the search words I am putting in do not narrow down the search. It doesn't even tell me "nothing found." It just throws a bunch of totally unrelated jobs at me. I'm getting extremely frustrated.

My question is: What method do you use for finding employment? A combination of things? Do you have a surefire method?

I'm really starting to feel a sense of desperation here...Hang in there is my advice! I just got a job offer for five months of work out of nowhere using the most basic of resumes and having no connections at all with this employer. True the job I applied for is as a server which is to many quite basic, but I still found work using the most rudimentary of methods. Don't get frustrated.....get on your game and keep going is my advice. Best wishes, Rob

[SteveinMN]

I have no idea what you're typing in as search terms. They may be too general. Is there an "advanced search" button or link on the sites you're using? Sometimes it helps to be able to search for phrases (for example, instead of searching for simple living, you can search for the phrase "simple living", which knocks out results like "Living with a teenager is not simple". Some searches also let you exclude certain words, so sales -cars -autos should result in selling jobs but not at car dealerships. If you see a common phrase in the results you don't want, excluding it thins the herd.

The other method to employ is networking. That may not be really easy depending on what you're looking for and where you're looking for it. But the more you can talk up your job search, through friends and relatives and current professional connections, or even through sites like LinkedIn, the more chances you have of getting wind of a job before it gets to the printed stage. You might look for Web sites or local meetings of professional associations or interest groups. That's a good way of extending your network and keeping your ear closer to the ground. Maybe talk with larger placement agencies. They charge their customers a fee for placing you, which can be a hard sell in this economy, but they can at least assess your skills and resume and tell you if there are some areas you might need to address to improve your ability to get a job.

Looking back on it, of the many many jobs I've held in 30 years, only two of them were landed without connections. The rest were all introductions by mutual friends, bosses seeking to keep me on after their contracts with me had run out, and so on. Might be worth taking a chance on it.

[iris lily]

I've never gotten a professional level job by knowing anyone. Never. But then, I've only had 3 jobs in my professional career, so perhaps I just haven't run up against it. All of those were ones I applied for outside of the state and through conventional means of resume response to job announcement. In each case I had done exactly the work mentioned on the job announcement.

I've hired scads of people over the years and I can't think of any time that I hired anyone from insider knowledge, although I certainly have interviewed a fair number based on someone knowing the candidate. I've hired candidates recommended by other people in my organization, candidates that interviewed for other positions but mine were a better fit. Does that count? Also have hired internal candidates already employed here so in that case they are "known."

[treehugger]

Is Craigslist active in your area? That is how I found my current job and my company still posts listings there. It's much more specific and targeted than giant aggregator sites like Monster (which I found had mostly temp agency positions anyway).

Kara

[ApatheticNoMore]

I'm on my 4th professional job (I expect many more, and that's not unusual). I landed 1 through a connection I met in a related class, 1 through answering an ad in the paper (over a decade ago) 1 through answering an online ad, and 1 through a company contacting me based on a resume posted on one of the online ad places. I've gotten interviews through recruiters but it hasn't led to a job. I don't think monster and stuff are exclusively temp stuff, although they have that. So gee, I don't know, are there patterns? I've never been able to network to save my life! The class thing was just a lucky break. Many companies I've worked at have had bonuses for employees who could refer people who ended up getting hired, so networking probably has it's pluses.

[Tradd]

Frugalone, do you have a LinkedIn profile? I see lots of jobs in my industry posted there, as well as lots of recruiters. My current company, in looking to replace my dept's open manager position is using LinkedIn as a search tool.

[frugalone]

I'll try and answer each of these individually:

Stevie: I'll use search terms like "copy editor," which is pretty specific, IMO, and get stuff like "Avon representative" and Cable TV installer. WTH?! Maybe I am doing something incorrectly. Regarding networking...well, I'm not in any professional organizations, and as I'm at a career crossroads, I'm not even sure how to go about networking. I have tried the "tell everyone including your hairdresser" that you're looking for a job approach, and it's gotten me a job once or twice, but not in the last decade or so.

treehugger: Craiglist...oh, Craigslist. While it seems to be a good place to find a job in metro areas, around here, it seems to attract scammers and people looking for you to blog for a penny a post (well, not quite, but you get what I mean!) It's a shame because a friend of mine near NYC gets jobs (she is a freelance writer) on CL all the time.

Tradd: I am on LinkedIn and all it seems to attract is junk/spam. Also, the jobs suggested are all over the U.S. not ever in my area.

Edit: What mystifies me is when the search word I used doesn't even show up in the results!

[oldhat]

If you are looking for a copy editing job, have you tried mediabistro? They have a pretty comprehensive job list, organized by region. I'm an editor, and my last job came as a result of a mediabistro ad.

Other possible resources:

The American Society of Copy Editors has a job board--mostly newspaper jobs.

Copyediting.com has a job board.

If you are on LinkedIn, you might find it useful to get involved in some of the writing/editing discussion groups. Jobs are sometimes posted there, and if you put out the word that you're looking, you might find some help.

If you are interested in freelance, if only as a stopgap, the Editorial Freelancers Association has an extensive job listing, but you have to be a member. I think it's around $100--not cheap, but I found them to be a very helpful bunch.

My current job came through an ad, but the one before that came through a contact in the company. Networking can be tough (I am lousy at it), but statistically it's the most effective way to find a job.

A lot depends on the kind of editing work you're looking for. If you're outside of a major city, your chances of finding a FT job probably aren't that good, and you may want to concentrate your search on jobs that allow you to work remotely, or on freelance work.

Good luck.

[kitten]

You are SO not alone...The New York Times has this wonderful new series called Anxiety which I've become addicted to, and today there's a moving essay by a woman who was recently unemployed. I loved this sentence: "Job searching involves an uncomfortable mix of constant public self-aggrandizement and the private loss of self-respect. It is tedious and strangely surreal to listen to yourself talk, in a tepid charcoal suit, about achievements and skills while you watch yourself get sucked down a drain." Anyway, full article here - http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/the-hand-that-feeds-us/?hp
I'm starting to wonder if it's my methods or if the market is that awful.

I have found every job I've ever had through a newspaper ad (I am not kidding) or by applying to jobs I've seen advertised on a employer's web site.

I've been trying to find something using flipdog.com, or indeed.com. Half the time, the search words I am putting in do not narrow down the search. It doesn't even tell me "nothing found." It just throws a bunch of totally unrelated jobs at me. I'm getting extremely frustrated.

My question is: What method do you use for finding employment? A combination of things? Do you have a surefire method?

I'm really starting to feel a sense of desperation here...

[kitten]

(Starting another reply because I'm having paragraph formatting trouble) I'm sure you're not doing anything wrong. It's really really tough right now. If I were looking for a full-time job right now, it would have to require a totally new way of going about job-hunting I think. It does sound like responding to ads and doing stuff online is going to be of limited value right now. I'd say keep doing that, but mix it up with other approaches - cold-calling businesses you're interested in, signing up with a temp agency, telling everyone you know you're looking, using social media to help, blogging about your search, and finding something, anything, to bring in a little money while you're searching...And I say this knowing I might be doing these things pretty soon here myself. Wishing us both good luck!

[decemberlov]

I have actually gotten 2 jobs (both in the printing industry) by just looking up local printing companies, walking in and introducing myself. Yes, it's time consuming but I prefer to speak with people face to face. Sometimes it's possible they aren't even aware that they need you until them meet you :)

[frugalone]

I was unfamiliar with some of those sites; thanks for passing along the information! I am familiar with mediabistro as well as journalismjobs.

I'm actually more of a writer than an editor, but hey...the two seem to go hand in hand.


If you are looking for a copy editing job, have you tried mediabistro? They have a pretty comprehensive job list, organized by region. I'm an editor, and my last job came as a result of a mediabistro ad.

Other possible resources:

The American Society of Copy Editors has a job board--mostly newspaper jobs.

Copyediting.com has a job board.

If you are on LinkedIn, you might find it useful to get involved in some of the writing/editing discussion groups. Jobs are sometimes posted there, and if you put out the word that you're looking, you might find some help.

If you are interested in freelance, if only as a stopgap, the Editorial Freelancers Association has an extensive job listing, but you have to be a member. I think it's around $100--not cheap, but I found them to be a very helpful bunch.

My current job came through an ad, but the one before that came through a contact in the company. Networking can be tough (I am lousy at it), but statistically it's the most effective way to find a job.

A lot depends on the kind of editing work you're looking for. If you're outside of a major city, your chances of finding a FT job probably aren't that good, and you may want to concentrate your search on jobs that allow you to work remotely, or on freelance work.

Good luck.

[frugalone]

Dear kitten, thanks very much for your encouragement as well as the link. I'm off to read the article now.

As for temp agencies, they are a nightmare. At least around here they are. Last I checked, all they had were call centers for $10 an hour. Used to be you could get temp secretarial work pretty easily. Legal secretary was a respected field and it was easy to find work. When I tried to go back into that field out of desperation, I was told there was an attorney who wanted to pay $8.00 an hour. He was the only one. He kept bugging the temp agencies in the hope they'd find someone to work for him. The story was that after he paid $8.00 an hour thru the temp agency, he'd offer the employee "permanent employment" for $7.00.

Heavens help us as my grandma used to say.

[Tradd]

Frugalone, search in Google for "X job city name" - that gets me stuff I want. I think you can set a Google alert for whatever word combo works for you.

[SteveinMN]

Tradd: I am on LinkedIn and all it seems to attract is junk/spam. Also, the jobs suggested are all over the U.S. not ever in my area.
IMO, the jury is still out on LinkedIn. I think the LinkedIn folks would like to see it become Facebook For Workers. I think it will be a failure at that. I don't think I'm that unusual in not having much overlap between my professional and personal lives. I've also noticed over the past several months far more "uncustomized" job offerings (no, I'm not interested or qualified to become a DBA in San Diego, thank you) and non-specific inane questions from "organizational developers" and "quality coaches" ("How important is ethics to your business?") who have only the most tangential relationship to the organizations at which I've worked.

That said, it's a low-investment outlet that can't hurt short of spending a little time ignoring what is of no value to you. And different professional groups likely have different (and more positive) dynamics than the few I've tried.


Edit: What mystifies me is when the search word I used doesn't even show up in the results!
I suspect that's because whoever is posting loads up the post with enough key words to make their own dictionary. I'll guess that, hidden deep within the ad for "Cable Installer", is some boilerplate about how "Acme Corporation supplies America's biggest companies with a wide range of temporary workers, including Cable Installers, Nurses, Customer Service Agents, Copy Editors, Paralegals, Movie Extras, and Zookeepers". Or they just load it up with hundreds of "key words" designed to meet just about any seach term and hide them in the bottom of the posting or in minute text or in yellow on white text (craigslist "dealer" posters are good at this, too). Searching for the phrase "copy editor" may help if you're not already doing that, but, if you are, I think you're encountering people gaming the system.

oldhat provided a number of useful resources. You might also try approaching professional organizations in fields which are not tied specifically to copy editing, but use editors, like public relations, or newspapers/informational Web sites, or technical-writing freelance firms -- organizations like the Society for Technical Communication (STC) or the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Or even the local chamber of commerce (in larger towns/small cities) or <location here> Business Association. Attend a meeting or just shoot a quick question to them asking if they see a need for copy editing among their members. Again, low-investment but it could turn up something if the usual channels are coming up dry.
.

[frugalone]

Wow, I never thought about yellow-on-white text! Yowza! That totally stinks that someone would do that.