Posts Tagged ‘Google’

Don’t Send Me (or Anyone Else) Your Resume!

August 15th, 2011 by Susan P. Joyce

“Spray and pray” resume distribution (sending it to every email address you can find or posting it in every job board you can find) is a waste of time, and makes you look desperate and dumb.  Don’t do it yourself, and don’t hire a resume distribution “service” to do it for you.  

Not only do you look desperate, spray-and-pray may send your resume into the wrong hands, for example, to:

  • Your current boss, if you are employed, or someone else you work with, which can result in loss of the job you have.
  • Someone who will use your information for their own purposes completely unrelated to job search – selling your contact information to mass marketers, for example.  Need more spam, junk phone calls, or junk mail?
  • Someone intent on identity theft or other nasty action.

(more…)

50 Google Searches to Avoid Layoffs and Weak Employers

May 29th, 2011 by Susan P. Joyce

What you don’t know about your employer (or a potential employer) can hurt you badly!  Being uninformed today is a dangerous habit.  Companies go out of business or have layoffs.

If you are employed, stay informed about what is being published on the web about your employer.  Use that information for career management and for financial self defense.  If your employer seems to be having a tough time, start thinking about moving on to another employer.  Read Job-Hunt’s Layoff Self-Defense ebook for suggestions about how to prepare to move on.

If you are unemployed, stay informed about potential employers so you can avoid pursuing employment with an employer who may stop hiring or may offer short-term employment.

Below, find 50 search queries in 5 categories of information that can be strong indicators of pending layoffs.

(more…)

Find Jobs Using Google

May 15th, 2011 by Susan P. Joyce

Just typing “jobs” as your query in Google will give you nearly 3 billion results – a little time-consuming for you to check out each one, and not very practical or useful either. 

So, you need to do three things to help you find the job postings you want:

  1. Know the job you want. 
    An unfocused web search on Google is as useless as an unfocused job search, “IRL” (“in real life”).  “Anything” seems easy to find, but it really is not because no one describes their job opening as “anything.”  So figure out the job(s) you want to do next to have terms you can use in Google and also in your answer the next time someone asks.
  2. Modify your Google search so the results are more useful to you (see the tips and example below).
  3. Analyze pages like the pages you want Google to find for you.  Look for terms that are repeated on those pages, and then use those commonly-used terms in your search to find similar pages.

Tips for Effective Google Searches for Jobs
(more…)

Monitor Your Online Reputation with Google Alerts

August 29th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce
Related Articles :
Online Reputation Management: Unlock Your Job Search
Monitor Your Reputation with Google Alerts
More Information:
Guide to Using Google for Job Search

Job seekers can and should monitor their names using Google Alerts.  Someone else with the same name who has done something shocking, unusual, or disreputable can negatively impact YOUR job search.

The vast majority of employers (79%!) do Google job applicants, and they won’t know if you are the person who robbed the bank or posed nude, but they probably won’t want to take a chance hiring that person.  So, you will lose out, even if you were not the person who showed up in the Google search.

The best defense in this case is knowledge!  Put Google to work for you and your job search!

(more…)

Online Reputation Management for Job Seekers

August 8th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce
Related Articles :
Online Reputation Management: Unlock Your Job Search
Monitor Your Reputation with Google Alerts

Employers are Googling you.  Do you know what they are finding?

Recently a colleague shared a very scary story about one of her clients that many job seekers should know about because recent research has shown that this is very likely not an uncommon event.

My colleague prepared a very professional resume for her client which he used in several months of job hunting.

After absolutely NO response to resume submissions in 4 months, they decided to Google him to see if something there might be causing a problem.  BINGO!   (more…)