Do you stay abreast of important news? January 29, 2010
Posted by hardly Job Hunt Process
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While it is important to stay in touch with jobs that might be of interest to you on specific job sites, this is an information gathering task that is narrowly focused to one, or a few sites.
What if you want to know about something specific that might be talked about anywhere online?
Welcome to Google Alerts!
This simple tool lets you set up search criteria so you can keep track of the latest events about a given topic. For a job hunter, this is handy for the following:
- Staying up on the latest regarding people you are about to interview with (hiring managers, recruiters, etc.)
- Getting the news on the companies you are interested in working for.
- Technology updates in your field.
- Posts and/or news about people who are key thought leaders in your field.
- Whatever else you can think up that might be important!
Google Alerts - a great tool to give you real news that can help your job search
Do you stay abreast of important news? January 29, 2010
Posted by hardly Job Hunt Process
Digg! this story.
, add a comment
While it is important to stay in touch with jobs that might be of interest to you on specific job sites, this is an information gathering task that is narrowly focused to one, or a few sites.
What if you want to know about something specific that might be talked about anywhere online?
Welcome to Google Alerts!
This simple tool lets you set up search criteria so you can keep track of the latest events about a given topic. For a job hunter, this is handy for the following:
- Staying up on the latest regarding people you are about to interview with (hiring managers, recruiters, etc.)
- Getting the news on the companies you are interested in working for.
- Technology updates in your field.
- Posts and/or news about people who are key thought leaders in your field.
- Whatever else you can think up that might be important!
Google Alerts - a great tool to give you real news that can help your job search
Can you search linkedin? January 27, 2010
Posted by hardly Job Hunt Process
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Linkedin is arguably the pre-eminent social networking recruiting website today, especially for technology-focused companies. It must be a part of your job search!
One of the challenges in using Linkedin for job searches is that you always have to go log in, go to the job search function, type in your search parameters, etc, etc. And, if you don't have a paid account, some of the site's features are limited, hindering your search.
Not the best way to conduct a search!
One tactic that on-line recruiters use is called X-Ray Searching. The idea being to use better search tools outside a given website to look under its skin. Very powerful. Much faster than using Linkedin's UI alone. And, relatively simple to learn for what you need as a job hunter. The key is using the 'site' feature in Google search.
For example, let's say that you are looking for Director of User Design job in Seattle and Bellevue, so you type the following into Google:
site:linkedin.com Director UX "Job Description" "Bellevue" "Seattle"
This tells Google to go find all the jobs with the keywords 'Director' and 'UX' and 'Job Description' that happen to be in Bellevue and Seattle within the linkedin site. When I first ran this search, I hit three job ads and a recruiter profile. Obviously, I don't want the recruiter, so I modified it to reduce the by-catch:
site:linkedin.com Director UX "Job Description" "Bellevue" "Seattle" -Recruiter
Searching for a job is hard work, and you should use all the tools available to maximize the investment of your time in this very important work. Yes, a job hunt is work, but there's no reason you cannot reduce some of the frustrations of looking for that needle in the haystack!
Can you search linkedin? January 27, 2010
Posted by hardly Job Hunt Process
Digg! this story.
, add a comment
Linkedin is arguably the pre-eminent social networking recruiting website today, especially for technology-focused companies. It must be a part of your job search!
One of the challenges in using Linkedin for job searches is that you always have to go log in, go to the job search function, type in your search parameters, etc, etc. And, if you don't have a paid account, some of the site's features are limited, hindering your search.
Not the best way to conduct a search!
One tactic that on-line recruiters use is called X-Ray Searching. The idea being to use better search tools outside a given website to look under its skin. Very powerful. Much faster than using Linkedin's UI alone. And, relatively simple to learn for what you need as a job hunter. The key is using the 'site' feature in Google search.
For example, let's say that you are looking for Director of User Design job in Seattle and Bellevue, so you type the following into Google:
site:linkedin.com Director UX "Job Description" "Bellevue" "Seattle"
This tells Google to go find all the jobs with the keywords 'Director' and 'UX' and 'Job Description' that happen to be in Bellevue and Seattle within the linkedin site. When I first ran this search, I hit three job ads and a recruiter profile. Obviously, I don't want the recruiter, so I modified it to reduce the by-catch:
site:linkedin.com Director UX "Job Description" "Bellevue" "Seattle" -Recruiter
Searching for a job is hard work, and you should use all the tools available to maximize the investment of your time in this very important work. Yes, a job hunt is work, but there's no reason you cannot reduce some of the frustrations of looking for that needle in the haystack!
Using the recruiter’s tactics to help your job hunt January 25, 2010
Posted by hardly Job Hunt Process
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Ever wonder how recruiters succeed at their job? Or, maybe, how the evolution of on-line technologies has helped or hindered their work?
No? As a former professor of mine used to say, "Oh, you go to movies Mr. Coleman, you never become C++ Programmer".
With a few small lessons in the online tools recruiters use these days, you can turn their tactics to your advantage, in a good way, a way that gets you a job, and helps the recruiter, too.
Let's start with something basic, using job ads to help you know when jobs are posted, and also get the bigger picture of what the market is looking for in the broader market place.
We're going to use two online tools in this example, Craigslist and a blog reader.
Let's say that you live in Seattle, and are skilled in three programming languages, Java, Python and C++. What you want to do is create a search string for each of these that you can add to your blog reader so you can be notified whenever a job posting goes up that might be of interest to you. For you hiring managers, this is one way the third-party recruiting firms know that you've posted an add, resulting in their call to you about two minutes later. Back to our task, here are the steps to get this set up:
- Go take a look for Software QA jobs in Seattle: http://seattle.craigslist.org/sof/
- Do a search for Java.
- Copy the resulting URL, and then go to your blog reader and add it to your feeds. The url should look like this: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=javacatAbbreviation=sof
- Now, do the same for Python: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/sof?aquery=pythoncatAbbreviation=sof
- Next, C++: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=C++catAbbreviation=sof
- Check your blog reader every day for updates to these queries.
BTW, did you take a look at the number of hits from each of these search strings? If not, do that now. The results will give you a clear sense of the demand for different Development skill sets.
In summary, using the tools recruiters use can give you the ability to reduce the administrative time of your job search, and give you more time on higher-value activities, like going to coffee or lunch with folks who can help move your job search along. Next post will be about another notification tool to help you stay current with changes in the job market.
Using the recruiter’s tactics to help your job hunt January 25, 2010
Posted by hardly Job Hunt Process
Digg! this story.
, add a comment
Ever wonder how recruiters succeed at their job? Or, maybe, how the evolution of on-line technologies has helped or hindered their work?
No? As a former professor of mine used to say, "Oh, you go to movies Mr. Coleman, you never become C++ Programmer".
With a few small lessons in the online tools recruiters use these days, you can turn their tactics to your advantage, in a good way, a way that gets you a job, and helps the recruiter, too.
Let's start with something basic, using job ads to help you know when jobs are posted, and also get the bigger picture of what the market is looking for in the broader market place.
We're going to use two online tools in this example, Craigslist and a blog reader.
Let's say that you live in Seattle, and are skilled in three programming languages, Java, Python and C++. What you want to do is create a search string for each of these that you can add to your blog reader so you can be notified whenever a job posting goes up that might be of interest to you. For you hiring managers, this is one way the third-party recruiting firms know that you've posted an add, resulting in their call to you about two minutes later. Back to our task, here are the steps to get this set up:
- Go take a look for Software QA jobs in Seattle: http://seattle.craigslist.org/sof/
- Do a search for Java.
- Copy the resulting URL, and then go to your blog reader and add it to your feeds. The url should look like this: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=javacatAbbreviation=sof
- Now, do the same for Python: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/sof?aquery=pythoncatAbbreviation=sof
- Next, C++: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=C++catAbbreviation=sof
- Check your blog reader every day for updates to these queries.
BTW, did you take a look at the number of hits from each of these search strings? If not, do that now. The results will give you a clear sense of the demand for different Development skill sets.
In summary, using the tools recruiters use can give you the ability to reduce the administrative time of your job search, and give you more time on higher-value activities, like going to coffee or lunch with folks who can help move your job search along. Next post will be about another notification tool to help you stay current with changes in the job market.
Working with the flow January 20, 2010
Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns
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Over the last two or three days, there's a meme that's popped up that needs to be held up to the light to be pondered over.
It's the concept of working with flow.
Here's one post by Kris Dunn, Google: Now Passing On Great Talent to Help Al Gore Stop Global Warming... in which he points out that a Google Engineer made the statement that they should not go head-hunting several GREAT engineers because having them outside Google is better for Google than having them inside Google. He also gives props to Microsoft for being on the other side of such a statement, kind of a DNA thing.
And then, there's this post by Paul Krugman, Is China an Enron (part 2). In this article, he points out that there are two large economic forces in China, one of which is the Communist Party (think: Controlling Command Economics), and one of which is the collection of entrepreneurs, largely in Hong Kong and Shanghai who work on flows of business knowledge.
Then there's Scott Brown, who is the new junior Senator from Massachusetts, filling the seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy.
In each of these cases we see examples of the status quo getting their clocked cleaned by those who are in the moment, watching the flow and exerting their energies to take advantage of their adversary's weaknesses. In the Microsoft case, going against their nature to control and capture everything and using everyone else against them (yeah, I disagree with Kris on this one). In the Chinese case, it will be the slow and steady business pressure that will win the day because good business makes everyone look good (and not lose face). And in the Massachusetts's election, we see how one candidate captured the themes of the moment and won against his opponent who decidedly stayed the course.
Welcome to the age of OODA loop. Step lively!
Working with the flow January 20, 2010
Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns
Digg! this story.
, add a comment
Over the last two or three days, there's a meme that's popped up that needs to be held up to the light to be pondered over.
It's the concept of working with flow.
Here's one post by Kris Dunn, Google: Now Passing On Great Talent to Help Al Gore Stop Global Warming... in which he points out that a Google Engineer made the statement that they should not go head-hunting several GREAT engineers because having them outside Google is better for Google than having them inside Google. He also gives props to Microsoft for being on the other side of such a statement, kind of a DNA thing.
And then, there's this post by Paul Krugman, Is China an Enron (part 2). In this article, he points out that there are two large economic forces in China, one of which is the Communist Party (think: Controlling Command Economics), and one of which is the collection of entrepreneurs, largely in Hong Kong and Shanghai who work on flows of business knowledge.
Then there's Scott Brown, who is the new junior Senator from Massachusetts, filling the seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy.
In each of these cases we see examples of the status quo getting their clocked cleaned by those who are in the moment, watching the flow and exerting their energies to take advantage of their adversary's weaknesses. In the Microsoft case, going against their nature to control and capture everything and using everyone else against them (yeah, I disagree with Kris on this one). In the Chinese case, it will be the slow and steady business pressure that will win the day because good business makes everyone look good (and not lose face). And in the Massachusetts's election, we see how one candidate captured the themes of the moment and won against his opponent who decidedly stayed the course.
Welcome to the age of OODA loop. Step lively!
Why you need to stand firm on NO! January 16, 2010
Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns
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There are a few things in life that REALLY make my blood boil.
#1 item: Tyranny
Latest, greatest example, China's Government. Read this next post by Mark Anderson about what happened after his What is China post.
And my prior two posts about the Google China dust-up, and then on Mark's earlier post.
Why you need to stand firm on NO! January 16, 2010
Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns
Digg! this story.
, add a comment
There are a few things in life that REALLY make my blood boil.
#1 item: Tyranny
Latest, greatest example, China's Government. Read this next post by Mark Anderson about what happened after his What is China post.
And my prior two posts about the Google China dust-up, and then on Mark's earlier post.
