Job Search for Professionals
Once I decided to go back to school and get a Master’s degree I discovered that searching for professional managerial and executive-type positions or jobs in academia was very different from the advice that I have given to most of my clients in the 14 years I have been a workforce development professional. Jobs in my future profession do not always appear in the local job search internet portals and I don’t see many of them in the classifieds either. But since my interest is in giving advice to job seekers, I have discovered many of the ideas below from my own trial and error and reading the professional journals and literature for my field.
1. Actively consult the school’s career center and professors. Universities are in business to train students to fill jobs. They are held accountable by statistics that are readily available to government entities and prospective students that show the percentage of their students that find work after graduation. They are in contact with alumni that are eager to help.
Don’t forget the university library. The online card catalog probably has several “Careers in….” books that cover the industries represented at that school. Once a person finds something in the general area, look at the bottom of the record for specific subject headings. Librarians have controlled vocabularies that are not exactly like the keyword way we have come to think. Search the subject headings for more ideas on how to bring up more books on employment in a particular field. If necessary, use the link that leads to the other consortiums that library belongs to for books at other college libraries for interlibrary loan.
2. Start early with professional associations. Most association websites have an area on careers and job searching. In many fields this is the single most effective way to find job openings. Often this is the first resource employers use to find skilled professionals. Association websites also often link to the most highly regarded jobs information listservs, blogs, and industry-specific job search sites. Association publications are another place to look for job listings. And don’t forget those associations’ state chapters as well. Best places to find professional associations would include:
Scholarly Societies Project
www.scholarly-societies.org
Internet Public Library (IPL) Association List
www.ipl.org/div/aon/
Weddle’s Association Directory
www.weddles.com/associations/index.cfm
3. Read listservs and frequent Usenet groups for that industry cluster. Listservs are email discussion lists and in professional industries there are always listservs that serve up jobs announcements. Many universities make listservs easily available to students. Usenet used to be similar email bulletin boards and are now available online through Google Groups. Google maintains a link on their home page to the Groups directory. Also Yahoo has a different set of groups created more recently but the concept is the same.
4. Consider creating, as well as a regular resume, an electronic portfolio detailing association memberships, articles written for industry publications, attendance and presentations to important association conferences, as well as any service to the association through committee involvement. This can be more detailed and creative than the usual 1-2 page resume and will prove to employers that you are becoming an expert if not already there. No one has to know html anymore. There are plenty of sites with simple templates that will walk you through this process. There is more information on creating internet resumes and portfolios at jobsearch.about.com. If you plan to go into academia as a professor you will need a different kind of resume called a CV or curriculum vitae. There is information at the above site on these as well.
5. It is important to keep up on the cutting edge of change in the profession. The best emerging way of doing this is to read trade or association publications or read blogs on that industry. Check the university library for current publications. The quickest way to keep up with the blogs you decide to follow is to create an RSS feed that will aggregate the blogs you are following and alert you when there is new information posted. Many industries have blogs that report job openings.
Every blog has running along one side a blogroll, or a list of links to other blogs that writer considers important. The most popular RSS reader is Bloglines at www.bloglines.com. The law library blog LawLibTech at the University of Wisconsin has posted a very good PowerPoint tutorial on how to set all this up at Bloglines as well as add your listservs and email newsletters. The terms are new and foreign sounding to many of us and it sounds difficult, but you will see that just about anyone can follow the slides and do this.
http://library.law.wisc.edu/elecresources/databases/quickguides/LENewsblog.ppt
Besides the search feature at Bloglines there are several blog search engines and more everyday. Since Google has bought into the blog arena, just do a search there with the industry and “job listing blogs” or “recruiting blogs” for keywords. Technorati.com is also the self-proclaimed authority on the blog world, or blogosphere so that is a site to become familiar with.
6. Of course the mantra network, network, network is still true today. Job seekers should ask for advice from those professionals they have met through classes, research, or internships. Make sure your clients know about the form of networking called Information Interviewing, where basically you go out and hire yourself an employer. The best tutorial on the Net on this subject is at Quintessential Careers, www.bloglines.com.
But there are also new social networking phenomena springing up on the Internet. The current leader in terms of social networking for professionals is LinkedIn.com. Quintessential Careers’ Tools for Career Networking on the Internet lists many more, some of which have been abandoned of late. And don’t forget more general social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as the photo sharing site Flickr and even the goals’ check-list site 43Things. The Internet is fast becoming more of a social-gathering arena and job seekers should take advantage of this by meeting new people and doing research with real people. One of the recently recognized advantages of the Web is the way it brings people from all over the world together around shared interests.
If you are still having problems using that newly minted degree, many colleges have advice on ways of brainstorming other ideas in the field through the internet file What Can I Do With This Major? Here is one such link.
What Can I Do With This Major?
http://career.utk.edu/students/majors.asp
Flo Williams
Site Manager
Missouri Career Center
http://www.ozarksjobpath.com/
© 2008