Making Your Job Search As Efficient As Possible

The unemployment rate in the United States has escalated and is now near record levels. The odds of this reducing drastically anytime soon seem to be long as there is no end in sight to the economic recession that has gripped the world and has seen record unemployment rates in a host of countries. The number of jobs available are wholly insufficient to satiate the desires of an ever-expanding prospective workforce. Every job that comes available is hotly-contested with men and women who once earned $100,000+ a year vying for jobs that pay less than $9 an hour. It is a humiliating experience but this feeling is exacerbated when they fail to land the job. Time wasted searching for employment in this economic climate is expensive which means it is important to improve job search efficiency.

Don’t Follow The Herd
First and foremost, do not waste your time queuing for interviews when there are 300 candidates for 10 jobs. Even if you feel you are the best candidate, it could take days or even weeks to be interviewed as companies labor through their own inefficient employee search. Although it seems counter-productive to ignore an interview, it will help you gain better employment quicker in the long run. Besides, you will give yourself an automatic advantage on the 290 or so people who fail to get that job.

The Online Search
Forget the traditional routes of looking for employment, speed is only achieved through the internet these days. Although job search sites such as Monster and Careerbuilder are good starting points, you may be better off looking for employment on sites such as Indeed.com or SimplyHired.com. These sites do a lot of the ground work for you. They look through the internet for job postings from online classifieds, job boards and other places. You can create an infinite number of job alerts on some of these sites. The other sites like Monster only post jobs from companies that pay for the privilege. Therefore, Indeed and SimplyHired offer a wider choice of employment.

Apply When Necessary
Ignore any jobs which ask for qualifications or skills you don’t have. It is a waste of your time because there will be dozens of candidates far more suited to the job than you are. Craft a template cover letter and doctor it to suit the specific requirements of each job you apply for. This enhances your job prospects because the employer is aware that you took the time to carefully read their posting before issuing a relevant reply.

Stay On Top Of Things
Whenever you send your résumé and cover letter to a company online, send as a single file and convert to PDF form in order to ensure no one can modify your information. Have a list of references that includes clients, work associates and personal references. Spend some time organizing all your files into separate folders with different locations for résumés, cover letters and references. This will save you time in the long run. Always keep your information updated as sites such as Monster allow profiles which are not updated to disappear into the crowd.

Finally, do not be afraid to use the services of a recruiting agency. They will do a lot of the leg work for you and pair you up with suitable companies. This can prevent you from wasting time seeking employment from incompatible organizations.