Because let’s be honest, when mounting a job search, it’s very important to know “Where do I know the most people?”

We’re going to show you how to answer that question.

Step 1:Export Your Contacts

Home > Connections > Settings > Export LinkedIn Connections (right hand sidebar). Choose the Microsoft Outlook (.CSV) file.

Step 2:Open the data file in Excel

Step 3: Delete Superfluous Columns

All you care about is the person’s name, their email address, their company and job title.

Step 4: Format Your Data as a Table

(This option should be on the main Excel ribbon)

Step 5: Add a New Table Header: “Count”

What we’re going to do now is add a column where we can track how many times a company’s name pops up.

Note: While LinkedIn does a pretty good job of standardizing the names of companies, you might have to do a little bit of data cleanup. Give your spreadsheet a quick once over to ensure that you don’t have instances of “Joe’s Garage” and “Joe’s Garage, LLC” etc.

Step 6: Insert the Following Code

Look to see where your company header is. In my spreadsheet, is was under Column H, so I inserted the following formula in cell J2:

=COUNTIF($H$2:$H$2301,H2)

Where,

$H$2 = the first cell where a company name appears

$H$2301 = the last cell where a company name appears

Once I inserted that code, I dragged it all the way down to row 2301.

(highlight the J2 cell, hover the mouse over the bottom right corner of the cell – right click and drag it all the way down to row 2301 to copy that code into all the columns).

Note; it’s critical to use the dollar signs when doing this procedure.

Step 7: Sort Your Data

Now, Excel has gone through and populated the rows with the # of times that a company’s name appears. What we need to do now is to organize our data. First, we want to sort by “Largest to Highest”. This will put the companies that we know the most people at at the top. Then, we want to add a second level of sorting. This time an A-Z sort. This will group the companies together and make for a cleaner presentation of the results.

Step 8: Voila! You now know what companies you have the strongest network connections with!

The post Deconstructing Your LinkedIn Network appeared first on Job Search Hacker.

But if you don’t know how to properly format a search string, you’re going to get a lot of noise and a lot of junk. And since time is a precious commodity, we’re going to show you how to Google smarter, not harder. And that’s where Boolean operators come into play.

We’re not going to dive too deep into their mysterious ways, but instead provide you with a basic primer on getting cleaner, narrower, more refined search results by using simple Boolean operators.

What’s a Boolean operator?
Remember Venn Diagrams? Well, they simply provide a visual representation of three basic Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT. To help explain, look at the image.

The AND operator refers to the intersection between the two circles. In this case, it’s literally resumes AND CV.
The OR operator refers to the resume circle or the CV circle but excludes the intersection of the two.
The NOT operator limits the expression to either resume or CV.

Knowing this, it’s easy to start building search strings that will deliver more targeted results.

So let’s say you’re a project manager and you want to find resumes for other project managers.

But most resumes aren’t written in HTML, right? They’re either .doc files or .pdf files. So how do you we only select those? Google’s advanced search allows you specify search results by file type quite easily. Simply type: filetype:doc and it will return only results with that extension.

So, we’ll start our search string by declaring the file type:

(filetype:doc OR filetype:pdf)

That will return results in either .doc or .pdf format. Pretty neat, huh?

Now, what text are we searching for? “Project Manager” and “Resume” seem the obvious choices. So let’s add those to our string:

(filetype:doc OR filetype:pdf) AND (“Project Manager” AND “Resume” AND “CV”)

Now it’s time to try and out. Cut and paste it into google and see what turns up.

I scanned the first 30 results of 10,700. Of the first 30 I looked at, 27 were legitimate resumes. PERFECT! Just what we’re looking for. However, the other three were templates and that’s not we were interested in. Fortunately, Google allows you to exclude pages based on a word. In this case, we don’t pages returned that have “template” in them. So, we’ll “-template” to the string and run it again.

(filetype:doc OR filetype:pdf) AND (“Project Manager” AND “Resume” AND “CV”) -template

By removing all pages that referenced “template”, we were able to add three more legitimate resumes to our collection!

Stay tuned for more creative ways to use Google for your job search!

The post Booyah! Boolean Search Tricks for Finding Resumes on Google appeared first on Job Search Hacker.

That’s wasted effort and we’re going to show you how to automate the process by taking advantage of RSS Feeds.

What are RSS Feeds?
Wikipedia offers a more robust definition, but for the purposes of this article, all you need to know is that RSS stands for “Real Simple Syndication” and it’s a web technology built to push content from websites to the user’s desktop. Traditionally used by blogs, magazines, news outlets and other sites that provide regular and timely updates (including this one!), RSS Feeds can also be hacked to deliver job search results right to your computer. No longer will you need to visit the site and key in your search terms. RSS Feeds will save your searches and constantly provide updates in your browser or in MS Outlook.

Let’s get started. For the purposes of this demonstration, we’re using Mozilla’s Firefox. Our opinion is that it’s a superior alternative to Internet Explorer. While the details might be slightly different for setting this up in Chrome or Safari, the steps will be generally the same and you should be able to figure it out without much trouble.
Step 1.) Point your browser to indeed.com
Step 2.) Type in a search term. We chose “Nurse” in “Phoenix, AZ”
Step 3.) Once you receive the results, look towards the bottom right of the page for this link: “RSS Job Feeds”

Step 4.) Click that sucker

Step 5.) The next page will ask you how you wish to subscribe. You can choose either “Live Bookmarks (if using Firefox), Outlook, Choose Application (if you’re running a RSS reader, you would choose that here), Google, or My Yahoo!”

We’re going to select “Live Bookmarks”

Step 6.) Next, you’ll be prompted to enter a name for this feed. You choose anything you like. I just kept the default “nurse jobs in Phoenix, AZ | Indeed.com” and I selected “Bookmarks Toolbar” for the folder. Click subscribe and you’re done!

Step 7.) If you look on your toolbar, you’ll see this:

Pretty easy, huh?  This is what it looks like when you click on it:

With one click, you’re able to see all the results of a search for “nurse” on Indeed.com and the results are delivered in real-time.

But the real value of this comes from scaling it up. But before we start cluttering up the toolbar, let’s create a new folder first. In Firefox, this is easy. Just point your mouse on the toolbar and then right-click. You will be given the option to create a new folder. Select that. I have have chosen to name mine “RSS Job Search Feeds”.

Now, left-click (but don’t release) “nurse Jobs in Phoenix” on the toolbar and drag it over and drop it into the new folder that you just created it.

Now, repeat this process for all the search terms that you regularly run on Indeed, and then drag and drop the RSS feeds into the folder.

I’ve gone ahead and added the following searches:

“RN”
“psychiatric nurse”
“medical surgical nurse”
“new grad RN”
“critical care nurse”
“pediatric nurse”

Now, every time I fire up my browser, I click on “RSS Job Search Feeds” and I can quickly scan all those search results without ever having to visit the site!

The post Use RSS Feeds to Better Manage Online Job Searches appeared first on Job Search Hacker.

It’ s a simple truth of human psychology – we like those who are similar to us. Knowing this, it’s critical when applying for jobs to align your communications style with that of your target company. The fact that humans are susceptible to liking those that they perceive as similar to them is something that the clever job seeker would be wise to capitalize on.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to parrot the language of the organization. Seeing as your first interaction with your target company will be via an application or an emailed resume, how you write and the words that you choose to convey your message carry tremendous importance. Not just in the points that you are conveying, but even more so in the way that you are conveying it.

A helpful trick for easily spotting buzzwords and favored expressions of a company is to create a word cloud.

A number of websites offer free, easy-to-use services that will create these for you instantaneously. For ease of use, we recommend WordItOut. Cut and paste the job description into the box and voila! A nice visual display of the vocabulary used in the job posting will appear. The bigger the font-size of the word – the greater its frequency of use in the text.

By analyzing the frequency of word use, you can improve your resume’s chances of being found once it’s been submitted to an applicant tracking system. If the recruiter wrote the job posting, then there’s a good chance that the search terms they enter to sort through the applications will be the same terms that they used liberally when they drafted the job posting. Once again – human nature.

The above word cloud was created from a project manger job description from a major career online career board.

The image above was created from a job posting in Phoenix for an account executive with an ad agency.

Also, while you’re at it, it might be helpful to cut and paste some text from various pages of their website to get a deeper, more nuanced sense of their communication style.

Additionally, word clouds can be helpful to review if you’re suffering from a case of writer’s block. Seeing word associations can help find that perfect word that you’ve been agonizing over.

The post Build a Word Cloud to improve Your Resume’s SEO appeared first on Job Search Hacker.

 

Created by: HackCollege

The post Google Search Hacks [InfoGraphic] appeared first on Job Search Hacker.

You might have the best resume in the world – but if your email is never read, all the time you spent tweaking bullet points will be wasted.

To learn what time of day is optimal for sending an email, we’ll go to the people that do this for a living – email marketers. They live and die by “open rates” and have done extensive testing on what it takes to get people to click “open” when their inbox if flooded.

We turned first to Constant Contact, an email marketing firm that specializes in helping small businesses develop and implement email campaigns. Their FAQ section provides some general information about email trends:

• Tuesday through Thursday have historically been the best days of the week to send an email
• However, recent trends have shown that Monday is beginning to emerge as a day with better than average open rates
• 10am – 2pm are the hours where email volume is at its peak

So, trusting Constant Contact’s recommendations, you’re best strategy should be to focus on sending resumes Monday – Thursday, early in the morning or later in the evening.

So that’s a good starting point. But leaves us with large time window still.

Next, we’ll turn to Dan Zarrella, a social media expert with HubSpot, who delivered an interesting webinar titled “The Science of Email Marketing“.

In his presentation, he noted that 100% of respondents reported reading emails in the morning and afternoons, but that number dropped off to 70% at night. So while people are still reading emails during after-work hours, the numbers are lighter. Plus, and this is very important, think about their frame of mind. They’re probably scanning these emails on their blackberry or iPhone while they’re cooking dinner or watching TV. Sure, they might open and read it – but you’re unlikely to get a response that night because they’re not sitting at their desk. The danger in that is that your email will be read, but forgotten about.

And since there will inevitably be a fresh batch of new emails with resumes in their inbox when they arrive at work the following morning, the email that they read the night before will likely be forgotten as they begin their morning triage and start reading and responding to the emails they just received.

Avoid Late-Night Submissions:

Dan Zarrella’s webinar also showed that emails sent after 11pm displayed very low click through rates and very high-unsubscribe rates. My interpretation of that data is by the time 11pm comes around, people are burned out from reading email. They don’t want to engage with any more messages, and they’re easily annoyed. Hence the high unsubscribe rates. You don’t want to be that email that comes in late night that reminds them to turn their ringer off on their phone. If they get out of bed grumpy to check an email, you don’t want to be the reason they had to crawl out of bed.

Leverage People’s Rituals:

Think about how you structured your morning at your last job. What was one of the first things you did when you got to the office? If you’re like most of us, you spent some time drinking coffee and scrolling through your email box, scanning the morning mail. The morning is unique – phone calls, meetings, and unexpected drop-ins by colleagues is relatively low. Recruiters and hiring managers have more time in the morning to read, review and respond to email in the morning. Exploit this by sending your resume between 6:30am-7:30am. That way, your resume will be towards the top of pile when a recruiter logs in to review their inbox.

As Dan Zarella notes, getting your email in early is crucial “because you’re going to get in front of people’s faces when they’re doing their email ritual in the morning. You’re going to be in the inbox. You’re going to be in that to do list of tasks to do when you send it early in the morning.”

Apply Early In the Week:

For years, Monday was THE day to apply for jobs. The Sunday newspaper came out the day before, and job seekers had all day to look for and identify opportunities that they wanted to apply for. Then, come Monday morning, they faxed over their resumes. While posting jobs in the Sunday Classifieds has largely fallen out-of-favor, the cycle appears to still be entrenched. I conducted a quick survey on Craigslist – Phoenix to see how the frequency of job postings varied throughout the week. I looked at two random categories (Accounting & Finance, and Admin & Office) and counted the the number of jobs that were posted. Not very scientific, but it satisfied my curiosity. This is what I found: Monday and Tuesday had the highest # of job postings compared to the rest of the week. Friday universally had the lowest # of postings. I’d like to dive deeper into this, but for establishing a working hypothesis, it was effective.

So knowing that the majority of jobs are posted early in the week, you’d be wise to be emailing your resumes in at this time.

Key Take-aways:

• Avoid last-minute submissions if possible. If a deadline is posted for 5pm on Friday afternoon and you sneak your resume in at 4:58pm, that will be noted, and not positively. If your first interaction with a company involves sneaking something in at the 11th hour, your ability to meet deadlines and plan accordingly will be called into question. Does a company want to hire someone who’s routinely getting things in at the last-minute? Probably not. Get things sent in early. Plus, you never know when a job posting will be closed early. Don’t take chances!
• Avoid Fridays
• Avoid late-night submissions

In closing – when’s the best day and time to email a resume in response to a job posting? The research shows that Monday or Tuesday morning, sometime between 6:30AM –  7:30AM looks to be the optimum time.

What do you think? Think we nailed it, or do you vehemently disagree?

The post When is the best time to email a resume? appeared first on Job Search Hacker.

Couple things:

• 51% of respondents wanted  job alerts sent to them either via email or SMS. This surprised me. Hasn’t this technology has been available for years? Whether it’s a job alert from Careerbuilder or from Charles Schwab, emailed job alerts have been a common feature to most Fortune 500 businesses. Heck, I received job alerts from the USDA Forest Service for years after I stopped working for them. And this was 5+ years ago. If the government has been doing this for a decade, these people must be sleeping under rocks.
• 33% of respondents wanted increase access to the recruiting team. Yeah – that’ll never happen. Recruiters get bombarded from all angles from applicants trying to gain the upper hand by pitching themselves over the phone, via email, facebook and twitter. When recruiting volume is high and they’re dealing with a lot of applicants, the last thing they want to do is explain to an applicant why they’re not going to be selected for an interview.
• I think location-aware technology offers a lot of promise – and also a lot of potential for abuse. An evil, bigoted organization could very well push low-wage, general labor jobs only to visitors from a certain area (insert any economically distressed urban area here) while pushing other better paying opportunities to others from more affluent areas. Customization and personalization are great, but we must always be wary of when personalizing gives way to outright exclusion.
• And sharing! I thought this would be higher up on the list of people’s concerns. It’s so EASY to enable multi-platform sharing, yet so MADDENING when websites fail to offer it.

The post What Mobile Job Seekers Want From Companies appeared first on Job Search Hacker.

• 8.3% of searches were for finance-related jobs
• Over half of all users were searching for work in the Manhattan area (that fact no doubt drove ‘finance’ related searches to the top of the list)
• 21% were for San Diego
• Answers to the question: “Why are you using a job search app?” 1.)Quickly react to new job posting. 2.)Able to job search any time anywhere 3.)It’s a discrete way to search for a job.

My take: Job searching is one thing. And since it’s the primary focus of this blog, it’s a HUGE thing! But you can’t ignore the second part – applying to jobs. And this is the anchor that will slow down adoption of this technology. What’s the value in discovering your dream job while you’re riding the  subway in Boston if you can’t apply for it immediately? Sure, you can just send over a generic resume and cover letter, whatever you’ve got on file  – but that’s not going to get you the job. Not in this job market. You need to review the job posting and review your resume and modify it accordingly. As long as word processing continues to be a cumbersome, error-prone and generally frustrating experience on mobile devices, people will be hesitant to commit to it.

There’s also a constriction point on the business end. With a rise in job seekers using mobile devices to monitor job feeds, you’d expect to see a rise in applications from mobile users. But how many company sites are accessible to mobile devices? And when I say “accessible” I mean truly, 100% navigable. More and more companies are using applicant tracking systems (ATS) and require candidates to fill-out applications online. How many of those are mobile-enabled? Many of these applications can take upwards of half an hour to do on a desktop with broadband – how long will it take to complete on a 3G smartphone that’s attempting to render a page that’s not optimized for mobile devices? I’ve never done it – primarily because I would worry that my application would get screwed up.

Companies, in their quest to attract mobile applicants to their site need to be sure that the infrastructure is in place to handle these applicants without making it a miserable experience.

Now Don’t get me wrong – the rise in this technology is great for increasing awareness of opportunities. And it’s the first step. But until we see greater adoption of iPads and other devices that truly allow you to do some real word processing on the go, and until companies finally take seriously mobile traffic and improve their accessibility, mobile job searching will be like window shopping at Tiffany’s. You can see it – but you can’t get it.

The post Mobile Job Searching – The Next Big Thing? It Already Is. appeared first on Job Search Hacker.