Job Hunting in a Down Market

Bryan Alden: Hi I am Bryan Alden, Founder and CEO of job.

com and today we are going to talk about how you can find a better job in down economy as well as how to get a better job in any economy. Right now I would like to discuss some great jobs searching tips foe you to find a better.

For the job seeker before they begin their job search should make sure the kind of assess what they really want out of a job and out of a career. A job seeker has to look back and look inside themselves to see as the job that they are currently in whether they like it, what do they enjoy about it, what do they not enjoy about it. Can they do a job of a larger commute, can do they job of a less commute.

They have to really look and find out what they want to do in life. For the job seeker who spends 40 hours a week at least in a job you want to make sure that you are happy there, the job is challenging, and you find it very, very rewarding and still have enough time to do extracurricular activities, spend time with your family, with your favorite sports or whatever.

With the unemployment rates going up, there is going to be more candidates available for a potential employer to hire from. So it's very, very important that a job seeker understands that the employers are going to hire the best of the best candidates that are available. So they have to going to make sure that their background is pretty clean and their references are all in order, they need to make sure that their resume is up to date.

They also need to make sure they are utilizing all of the resources available to them, because the employers have more of a selection in the choice which would be more competition for a lot fewer jobs. A lot more companies now are using background checks that are not national security type checks, but background checks for any type of job and any type of employment, it could be an accountant, it could be a sales rep.

They are using a lot more of that. So a person may want to check their own background to find if there is any thing in that might comeback and might invite them during interview process. A job seekers is going to need to make sure they have an up to date resume, they don't want to use a resume that is old, that doesn't have current information on it.

They are also going to make sure they want to take a look on their social networking page, and kind of clean that up. Employers don't want to see you doing a keg stand on your social networking page. Again as the employment changes and now there are more candidates available, employers are going to be much more original their standards.

You can better believe that in this day and age they are going go get back to check your social networking page. So you got to make sure that you clean it up. Also you want to have a professional sound in voicemail if your cell phone or your home phone. Don't use your cutesy voicemail and you also want to have a professional sounding email address. The best one you can use is probably your first name and last name and then whoever your internet service provider is. You don't want to use something which is very funny and cutesy because employers are looking for more professional people instead of less professional people.

Tadd Price: Hi Christine Reed?

Christine Reed: Yes.

Tadd Price: Hi, Tadd Price.

Christine Reed: Nice to meet you.

Tadd Price: Pleasure, pleasure, thank you for coming for the interview this afternoon, we appreciated it.

Christine Reed: Thank you for having me.

Bryan Alden: The internet is by far is the best resource to use when searching for a job in 2009. Not only are you going to have almost all of the jobs that are currently available on the internet you are going to have a lot of different tools that you can use and you can get a lot of different advice for career experts and people who are done a job research. Whether it's posting your resume on career site, like a job.

com or whether it is using a social networking type or professional networking site.

The internet is just chalk full of resources. The best tool you probably can use always the one that's called a job finder. These are typically free with most career sites and what you do is you sign up and you put in all of the information about the type of job that you really are looking for. That kind of goes back to when you are assessing what you wanted out of your career, and what happens with these job finders is that the computer, it searches the available jobs in that data base on that companies website. And then send you those jobs in your email.

So in a sense you can be looking for a job while you are sleeping. And hopefully the jobs that come to you in your email will be ones that you will find interesting and then go ahead and apply to. As we are using the internet in general there are certainly some job search safety tips for people who are using internet to search for a job.

One, never provide anybody over the internet, your social security number. It's very, very important that you keep that private that's one ways these people will use your social security number to have a identity thefts scam on your some type. Another thing to make sure you are looking out for is, you never should have to pay a fee to get a job.

If you are buying a kit or something about franchising or whatever that is different, but you should never have to pay a fee to get a job. Thirdly, there is a type of job that is a scam where people are having you ship goods overseas, and utilizing somebody else's credit card and things like that. You probably seen this on the news couple of times what they call it shipping scams.

Make sure you evaluate a company and that you can find out and learn a lot about a company before you accept any position. These shipping scams are wide spread throughout the internet, So don't get involved in one. Searching for a job while you are employed is certainly harder than searching for a job when you are not employed.

However it's not an insurmountable task. One of the things you do have to do though is make sure you maintain your confidentiality, because you don't want your current employer to know that you are looking for a job and by doing that you don't want to use the resources of your current company to look for a new job.

Don't be searching for a new job on company computer, don't be using the company fax machine, don't use your work email to apply for the jobs and so forth. Another thing that you can do when you post your resume to some of the resume databases is use their confidential features. Mostly every resume database does have a confidential feature.

So at least that way you can maintain some confidential ability in your job search. Also as you are talking to your references and people that you are going to use for references during your search make sure they understand, and appreciate and maintain your confidentiality. Again you don't want your current employer may find out that you are looking for a new job.

If you are working with an executive recruiter or what's known as a headhunter realize that they will maintain your confidentiality that's part of what they do as they try and place candidates with their current employers. If you use these tips that we have talked about we think that you are going to find that you are going to have much more productive and successful job search.