In “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed . . . Forever!, we reveal many of the “secrets” that “headhunters” use each and every day to effectively place top talent with companies. In this blog, I am going to share yet another “secret,” and this one deals with how you can quickly and very easily use the tremendous search power of Google® to find ALL (or at least most) open jobs in today’s job market.
(I say most jobs because, as I’ve pointed out in several recent blogs, not all jobs are in fact ever posted—anywhere. As a matter of fact, it is estimated that as many as 50% to 80% of all possible jobs are never posted, for a whole variety of reasons that are somewhat beyond the scope of this blog. This blog, then, will deal with those “real” jobs that are actually out there for today’s qualified job seekers.)
Here is the “secret” for finding all (or most) open jobs, by job type and preferred location, in today’s job market:
Go to www.google.com
- In the search cell, type this command: site:jobs (no space between the words), followed by the type of position you seek and then the preferred job location.
Here is how your entry should look in the search cell:
site:jobs position location
For example, let’s say you are looking for an accounting position in the Atlanta, GA, area. Here is the information you would type into the Google® search cell:
site:jobs accounting Atlanta GA
As this is being written, this particular search string returns approximately 72,000 results, quite probably a lot more results that you would care to deal with. Let me show you how to significantly narrow your search.
Let’s assume that you are a seasoned, experienced accountant and you are really interested only in senior accounting positions. Wading through 72,000 possible positions to locate the jobs most suitable for you obviously wouldn’t be very efficient—or very desirable! No problem, you would merely employ quotation marks in your search string to further narrow your search, as illustrated below:
site:jobs “senior accountant” Atlanta GA
This search will return approximately 4,400 results, a far more manageable and much more targeted number of potential, suitable position. (Significant to note, however, is that if you do not include the quotation marks, over 6,800 results would be returned.)
Of course you can also employ the various Boolean operators (AND, NOT, etc.) in your search string to construct and further refine your job search.
Theoretically, precisely just how much you can narrow your job search really is limited only to the creativity and ingenuity incorporated into your search string. For example, let’s suppose that you are searching not only for senior accounting positions in the Atlanta, GA, area, but, since it is part of your unique professional brand, you are also interested in locating open positions requiring experience with Sarbanes-Oxley (a Federal Act which introduced major change to the regulation of corporate governance and financial practices) accounting practices and principles. Here is how you would could create your Google® search string to locate such open positions in Atlanta:
site:jobs “senior accountant” Sarbanes-Oxley Atlanta GA
Only seven major results are returned for this search, which obviously significantly narrowed this search!
This little “secret” is simple, powerful and quite effective. Once you’ve identified positions that are potentially of interest to you, you can then begin applying online. But I strongly recommend that you NOT limit your activities strictly to online applications. You should also begin identifying the decision-makers for these positions, and there are effective ways of doing precisely that, but this topic, too, is beyond the scope of this blog.
Once you’ve targeted jobs you want to pursue using the Google® search featured in this blog, and once you’ve identified the applicable decision-makers, you should seriously consider using an approach that is working especially well in today’s job market—the direct mail letter campaign. (Go to this link to learn more about creating and executing an effective direct mail campaign: Frustrated by ‘Post and Hope’ Job Hunting? Try This!) This approach can brand you as a savvy professional, as someone who is ideally suited for the position, and as someone who can bring genuine value to the hiring company. It will also separate you from virtually all of the other candidates, most of whom will in fact only apply online!
Author:
Skip Freeman is the author of “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed . . . Forever! and is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The HTW Group (Hire to Win), an Atlanta, GA, Metropolitan Area Executive Search Firm. Specializing in the placement of sales, engineering, manufacturing and R&D professionals, he has developed powerful techniques that help companies hire the best and help the best get hired.
