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20 Places To Look For Work

16 May 2010

I’ve met people who have great CVs (see last week’s post for 10 Top Tips), I’ve met people who are great at interviews and yet I’ve never met anyone who has thought much about where to look for work. In my experience people often shut their eyes and fire off CVs to: Job search sites on the internet, or job adverts in national newspapers, or job adverts in local newspapers

There is a big problem with this approach which, when you think about it, is obvious; if everyone is also looking here, your chances of success can be dramatically decreased. Think of it like being on a treasure hunt, where you all have the same map and all know where X marks the spot. Can you beat the others up the beach to start digging first?

Don’t get me wrong here, people do find work by using websites and newspapers, but there are others ways that need to be considered. This is because a high proportion of jobs are hidden away out of sight and need to be winkled out.

If you’re looking to find your next role please read though this list and tick off all the places where you have searched for work and ask yourself which places you could also look in:

1. Local newspapers for a neighbouring county or district.
2. Trade magazines relevant to your occupation.
3. Local libraries, containing journals and magazines with interesting people you can send cold call letters to.
4. Local business networking clubs; the members will know lots of people.
5. National newspaper news or business pages; send letters to the people in the articles.
6. Twitter; you can let people know what you are looking for.
7. LinkedIn; now regularly used by recruiters to find people.
8. Trade shows; full of companies and you can collect a fistful of business cards.
9. Notice boards, at universities or in business/service organisations.
10. Social clubs; who knows you’re looking for work?
11. Recruitment agencies; high street and specialist.
12. Friends…you never know who they know!
13. Your family…ditto friends.
14. Competitors of businesses you used to work with; you were in the same market.
15. Local business directories; often found in libraries and full of people you can write to.
16. People who are already doing the type of work you’re looking for; do they need any help?
17. Your address book; people often overlook their email accounts, so it’s worth checking to see who you could write to.
18. Job search sites on the internet.
19. Job adverts in national newspapers.
20. Job adverts in local newspapers.

I’ve repeated our three favourites to highlight the fact that they are only a small part of a much longer list and, if we’re looking for work, then we can increase our chances of success by diligently exploring all the options that we have available to us. If we do, then we might sneak ahead of the competition and be first to the buried treasure. Happy digging!

Our Task For This Week

This week we can choose five new places to look for work and can have fun exploring them. There’s more information in the book Job Hunting 3.0 which is out on 15th June. Click here order your copy from Amazon.

Next Monday – Questions to Ask at Interviews

We often get asked ‘If we have any questions’ and there are bonus points on offer for having some good ones prepared. They can help us to sell ourselves effectively, so next week we will meet three helpful questions.

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Missed Last Week’s Post?

Last week was all about CV writing tips. If you would like to read 10 Top Tips then click here.

 

Thank you for reading all the way to the end! Good luck with your job hunting.

Tags: Job Hunting, tip