Search for people not for a job!

June 22, 7:42 AMNY Career Search ExaminerJulia Levy

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If you are looking for a job right now, chances are you are going to websites like Monster, CareerBuilder.com CraigsList, SimplyHired.  You are looking at job description after job description and applying to as many jobs as you can find online with hopes of getting a call from a recruiter.

While the large job boards are great for getting a pulse on what is going on in your industry or city, searching and applying for jobs utilizing them can be daunting.  Most likely, you are one of 1,000+ people applying for the job. If you apply for the job with a large corporation that has a state of the art application tracking system (ATS) and your resume has enough “key words”, you might make it past the recruiters first pass and get a phone interview.  If not, you will likely get lost in the shuffle or no more than a 10 second glance.

It’s a very reactive approach to finding a job.

Many jobs are not even posted online. Industry statistics show that companies find 20-30% of their hires through employee referrals. Best in class employee referral programs can yield 40-50% of their hires through employee networks.

Many times, a hiring manager already has a few candidates in mind before the job is even posted.  Recruiters make a living searching for candidates, why shouldn’t candidates use similar methods to search for the people they want to work for?

The first step in the process is knowing yourself.  Do you know what kind of job you want? Who are the key players in your industry or city? Once you have an idea of what kind of job you want, and who the key players are, develop a top list of the companies you would like to work for.  A list of 10 is a manageable number to focus on at any given time.

Once you have identified the Top 10 list of companies you would like to work for, you need to begin to search for people that work at those organizations. If you want to work at a company like Microsoft or WalMart, then you need to search out people who work for those organization and network with them.

Recruiters use many different resources to find candidates.  Get familiar with some of the applications like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as well as search engines such as bbing.com and Google.

You can use similar search techniques when looking to network and connect with people.  Find people who work at your Top 10 wish list and follow them on ttwitter.com, join a company page on Facebook or join a LinkedIn group and start a discussion.

Find out who is blogging from your Top10 list and follow their blogs.  Share your Top 10 list with your friends and family, ask them if they know of anyone who works at your list of favorite organizations, and if so, will they make an introduction. 

Google. Bing. Ask away.  Learn some simple Boolean search tecniques and take your search engine results to the next level. Some basic examples are

• The Boolean search operator OR is the default setting of most search engines. They will automatically return all the words you type in.
• The Boolean search operator AND is equal to the "+" symbol.
• The Boolean search operator NOT is equal to the "-" symbol.
• The Boolean search operator NEAR is equal to putting a search query in quotes, i.e., "Vice President of Finance". You're essentially telling the search engine that you want all of these words, in this specific order, or this specific phrase.

Once you have begun to identify people who work for your Top 10, begin to contact them directly.  Use social media to your advantage as you don’t need to have to have the CEO’s phone number, you just have to follow him on Twitter and reply to one of his posts.  Just be sure to keep in mind that you are looking for a job and be appropriate in your communications.