Harnessing hi-tech in your job hunt

The days of flicking through vacancies in the local newspaper are long gone. Over the past decade, technology has completely transformed the entire recruitment and job hunting process. The sheer number of online tools at our disposal means it’s easier than ever to find open positions, connect with potential employers and apply for a job with just a click of a button.

So – whether you love it or hate it – it’s time to chuck away the newspaper and get tech-savvy if you’re after a new position. Here are our top tips to harness high-tech in your job hunt:

Make use of reviews

In the same way we check hotels and restaurants on TripAdvisor before spending our money there, we can check out potential employers on GlassDoor or Indeed before committing to a job there. A recent report on technology trends in hiring revealed that 47% of millennials have declined a job offer due to poor reviews – and who can blame them?

Carrie Walecka, director of talent acquisition at Brightcove, says: “Employer-review tools like Glassdoor really allow the candidates to go behind the walls and see what the culture and environments are like at companies, to an extent. In the age of technology, it is much easier to do reference checks and find out who is in your ecosystem. From both sides — employer and candidate.”

And there are more benefits to websites like these than just sussing out bad employers. You can find salary expectations which allow you to negotiate more and job-specific interview to help you prepare.

Link up on LinkedIn

Not on LinkedIn and looking for a job? Sign up right now. LinkedIn is the top professional social networking site, with over 400 million users around the world. Recent data shows that up to 87% of recruiters actively use LinkedIn as part of their search for the perfect candidate. With a strong profile, you can potentially attract hiring managers and recruiters, who could bring a job straight to your inbox.

LinkedIn’s CEO shared the following three tips to maximise the potential of your LinkedIn profile when looking for a job:

• Keep your profile up to date;
• Be comprehensive about current skills and objectives;
• Highlight your recent experience.

He also stated that ‘authenticity’ was one of the most important things about a candidates profile: “Be yourself, represent who you are. It’s not just your experiences; this is not a resume … This is a more dynamic approach to representing your experiences, your skills, your objectives, what you know, what you’re interested in within a professional context.”

He added: “It’s not just about the comprehensiveness; it’s also about freshness of the information, and the more complete and the more fresh, the more recent that that information has been updated, the more opportunities that are going to accrue to our members.”

Check job boards regularly

Job boards are an essential platform to utilise when looking for a new position. Sending your CV to one of the huge job boards like Indeed or Monster can be a black hole – your CV gets swallowed up and never seen again. But what they can do is give you an idea of who’s hiring and what positions are open.

Most job boards feature advanced searching tools where you can input things like job title, keywords, skills, location, salary and industry. If you’re unsure of what jobs are appropriate for your current skill set, just search for jobs using your skills as keywords to find a role that suits you.

Plus, if you’re interested in learning what salary to expect in a specific job or location, you can use job boards to aid in your research.

If you’ll be using job boards to apply for a job, Lance Savitsky, of Simply Hired, says you must react quickly when you see a job you want.

“Every position that you are interested in, you have to imagine that the teeming hoards of zombies, they’re all coming after that same position. You’ve got to be quick, you’ve got to be looking for the jobs on the go, you’ve got to essentially use every tactic that you can in that toolkit. Sometimes positions are filled within the span of hours.”

He also suggests using email alerts and filtering to get only the ones you want.

“I absolutely love email alerts because I can get exactly the jobs that interest me coming directly to my inbox every day, all the new jobs, and it’s really easy for me to basically discover what positions I might be interested in,”

“Put keywords in, how broad of a location you want to search and your experience and get exactly what you want. You want to maximise the value of the time you are putting into your job search.”

It’s simple – if you’re looking for a new job, get online and harness hi-tech in your job hunt. Still struggling to secure a position? Supertemps can help you – contact us today.