Feature Article: The Long, Slow Death March of Job Boards -- and What Will Replace Them: A Quintessential Careers Annual Report 2009
Special Feature: SEO for Job-Seekers: 10 Tips for Building Your Brand and Being Found Online by Employers and Recruiters
Bonus Feature: 10 Deadly Sins of Job-Hunting: Top Ways to Bomb Your Job Search -- and How to Avoid Them
Recession Series Feature: Do's and Dont's for Keeping Your Job (In Good Times -- and Bad)
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Editor's Note: About this Issue...
It's always exciting to research, write, and publish our Annual Report on Internet job-hunting.
We learn so much about the trends that will shape online job search for the near future, and
we delight in bringing that information to you.
This year, our delight is multiplied several times over because the report is tied to a no-cost e-book
on using Web. 2.0 techniques in the job search. We also offer three articles that accompany the annual
report -- one that gives examples of what a well-branded digital presence looks like, one that tells job-seekers
how to optimize their digital presence for search engines, and one that offers do's and don'ts for optimizing one's presence.
Still, the recession continues to bear down on job-seekers and workers, what with the announcement that the U.S. lost
more than half a million jobs in January. Thus, Dr. Randall Hansen's additional two articles -- the latest in our recession
series and one on the 10 Deadly Sins of Job Search -- are here to address our readers' needs.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: 2009 Online Job-Hunting Report
The Long, Slow Death March of Job Boards -- and What Will Replace Them: A Quintessential Careers Annual Report 2009
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
In every QuintCareers annual report on the state of job-hunting on the Web, job boards have played a
prominent role. We've talked about job-seeker and employer frustrations with job boards, strategies
for choosing and leveraging job boards, and data security (or lack thereof) on job boards. What is
striking in this year's research is the marginal role job boards play. Hiring decision-makers are talking
less and less about job boards and more about new strategies for sourcing candidates.
This year's annual report offers another difference from past years. The 2009 edition
is tied to a Quintessential Careers no-cost e-book, Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through
Online Social Media. You can learn more about any topic in our annual report by clicking on the
corresponding chapter in the book. You can also
access the full ebook here.
And see our related next feature below on how job-seekers can increase their
chances of being "found" online through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
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succeed in their career goals.
SEO for Job-Seekers: 10 Tips for Building Your Brand and Being Found Online by Employers and Recruiters
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
SEO. Search engine optimization. A fairly common term in Internet circles and one you've perhaps
heard in passing. But what does a job-seeker need to know about SEO? Why should you care -- and how will it benefit you?
For years now, Quintessential Careers and other career sites and experts have talked
about the growing importance for job-seekers to begin building an online presence, mainly
centered around the question, "have you Googled yourself?" The question is often
asked as both a warning and an opportunity. It's a warning because of the fear that some
digital dirt is lurking somewhere on the Internet, waiting to bring down your chances for that
next great job offer. It's an opportunity because of the power you have to proactively sculpt and
manage the information that's available about you online -- the ability to build your career persona,
your personal brand, your digital presence.
AND ... see also our Job-Seeker Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Do's and Don'ts
Search engine optimization (SEO) is both an art and a science, but the most important thing that
job-seekers need to remember when developing a digital presence by creating a personal Website
or blog is to develop a clear strategy for building your online brand so that employers who
Google you -- or search for people with your skills, abilities, and accomplishments -- find your site first.
In support of the new administration's push to create jobs, QuintCareers has added a new section
with a collection of green and green-collar job sites.
10 Deadly Sins of Job-Hunting: Top Ways to Bomb Your Job Search -- and How to Avoid Them
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Are you in the market for a new job, but find yourself struggling to find job leads or obtain interviews? Are you getting job interviews, but no offers?
The vast majority of job-seekers we talk with who are having a hard time finding a new job typically
are making one or more of what the QuintCareers team refers to as the 10 deadly sins of job-hunting.
Do's and Don'ts of Keeping Your Job (In Good Times -- and Bad)
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Whether you love your job, hate your job, or simply see it as a means to an end, there are
times when your focus is less on job satisfaction and more on job preservation. When your
profession or industry is on the decline or when the economy is in the tank, and employers
are cutting jobs at a dizzying pace, it's time to hunker down and focus on protecting
your position within the organization.
With this goal of job preservation in mind, here are some crucial do's and don'ts (rules)
for keeping your job -- and these techniques can be used both in good times, as well as in bad times.
VisualCV is a true Web 2.0 job-search tool with which the user can turn a traditional resume
into a multimedia presentation with video, audio, charts, graphs, presentations, scanned documents,
pictures, and a portfolio of best work samples, and other supporting documents. Says the site: "Informational
pop-ups provide background data on the companies you've worked at and the colleges you've attended.
You can securely share different versions with your own network of employers, colleagues, and friends,
and control who sees what." The site even contends that a VisualCV can serve as "a proxy for that first
interview."
No cost to users for basic services. The site plans to later add fee-based premium services.
faayda.com: India Job-Search Engine --
a great tool for Indian job-seekers, where you can use this site's powerful search
engine to browse or search job postings (by keyword, job title, location) from more than 200
job portals and company Websites, as well as register for email alerts of matching jobs.
Coming soon -- you can also post your resume. No cost to job-seekers.
medreps.com -- a job site for job-seekers searching
for jobs in sales management, marketing, pharmaceutical, and medical sales jobs. Job-seekers can
browse or search job listings (by location, compensation, job function, market segment), as well as register
for a job-search agent. Fee-based.
QuietAgent -- a passive job-search site
for job-seekers. To get started, you simply provide information about your past experiences and
describe the type of job you are seeking -- which you do anonymously. You will only receive an
email when employers want to contact you about a job. No cost to job-seekers.
Vitruva -- a job site that provides
job-seekers with a ranked list of job postings that fit your profile, so that you
don't have to do the searching and sort through hundreds of irrelevant job listings. Results are
based on an information job-seekers enter as part of professional profile. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Find Your Career Future. Learn More About Yourself
Career Maze is designed to help every job seeker, at every level, make smarter
career choices. Individualized to reflect your unique personality and written in
"plain English," it is thorough and easy to complete.
Once completing the assessmemt, your 2-part report includes:
A specific, career-relevant discussion of your workplace personality
A list of job types compatible with your personality
Career Maze encourages you to think about tapping your full potential to find your future.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
One kind of employment seems to flourish in a recession -- temp work. The Freeport, IL, Journal-Standard quotes
Robert Wilson, president of Employco Group, a Human-resources outsourcing firm that works with
more than 400 small to mid-sized companies across the country, who says the number of part-time and
temporary candidates has risen 27 percent since last year. "And there has been a dramatic increase
in part-time hiring from the temp division -- up 40 percent from last year," reports
Jessica Young of GateHouse News Service.
"This shift is occurring in spite of the downturn," says Wilson, who deals with companies in 40 states.
"Across most industries, new hiring has come to a screeching halt as bottom lines are being
scrutinized, so work is being outsourced to temps as the financial landscape continues
to deteriorate."
Willy Franzen of OneDayOneJob.com and Jason Seiden, a leadership and communications
consultant, have launched a 21-day, online course for early careerists (grad students, recent students,
upcoming grads, and other recent arrivals into corporate America). The curriculum is based on
the training structure Seiden has used successfully for the last 8 years and covers transferable skills
such as goal setting, project management, research, communications, and sales. "We show how to tailor
these skills to the job search so that job-seekers are constantly honing key competencies even
during their search," Seiden says.
The content includes 41 lessons organized into 7 Foundations, time-released over 21 days. There is nightly homework. Cost is $152.
Janet White, author of Secrets of the Hidden Job Market, is offering
a no-cost 28-page book, Your Layoff and the Law of Attraction. "You'll learn what
[the law of attraction] is, how it works and how you may be unknowingly using it
right now to keep you unemployed, regardless of how hard you are looking
for work or how desperately you want to get hired," White says.
White notes that "the e-book will teach you the power of your thoughts and the
power you have to change your life when you change your thinking and take action
inspired by your new thoughts and intuition."
To get the book at no cost, e-mail White at janet@jobmarketsecrets.com
and use "Your Layoff Ebook" in the subject line. Also include your full name, city, and state.
Quintessential Careers Press Announces Our Latest Book: The Quintessential Guide to
Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media.
The
Quintessential Guide to Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media,
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., and Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., provides six chapters to guide you
through the next revolution in online job search. Since job boards, vestiges of the first
revolution in online job search, should still be part of the job-seeker's toolkit, this
book helps you navigate those while also considering the future of job boards. The book
looks at building your personal brand, teaches you to make the most of social-media venues
in the job search, guides you in creating a digital presence, suggests you consider blogging,
and discusses ways to integrate multimedia elements into your job search.
QuintCareers Network of Empowering Blogs
What are QuintCareers empowering blogs?
The Career Doctor Blog:
Especially for those who miss our former regular feature, Ask the Career Doctor, this blog each day features a question and answer from The
Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD.
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Web site, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers.
If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we
appreciate it. If you don't have a link to us, please
send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our
Link to Us page.
Need a career expert for a story or article you're working on? Searching for college,
career, and job news? Interested in learning more about Quintessential Careers?
Our Press Room
is your one-stop location for getting the information and resources you need.
QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming issues of QuintZine:
* How Job Search is Like Online Dating
* The Confidence Factor
* Green Jobs
* 10 Deadly Sins of Job Interviewing
* Body Language in the Job Interview
* De-Stressing Before an Interview
* The Interview as Presentation
* Cover-Letter Components
* Storytelling in Cover Letters
* Finding Your First Real Job
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* Getting in to Prep School/Boarding School
* Top Presentation Tips
* Quiz: What Kind of Co-Worker Are You?
* How to Stay Motivated at Work
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...
