Jobs Jobs Jobs and more Jobs!

Where do I start to look for Jobs?? Seems a simple question, but quite frankly if you are in the jobs market, how can you be sure you are looking in the right places to find the right job?

There are literally thousands of jobs posted on websites everyday, the big newspapers have big dedicated advertising sections with pages upon pages of jobs on certain days of the week, the local papers have their own healthy jobs section every week. Yet there are people who can't find a job in amongst all those thousands of job vacancies... Why? Are we looking in the wrong places for the perfect job?

Where should we turn our attention? The first place would be the Job Search websites, after all they are pretty much up to the minute up to date with the latest jobs, plus they have the advantage of being able to search back through jobs previously posted (unlike the newspaper from last week that my hubby threw out!).

Ok - so if we go to the web, do we start with punching our industry or job title into Google? In Australia most of us would "Seek" for jobs, as they are the biggest online jobs advertiser; but there's a multitude of other good Jobs sites too: My Career, Career One, Jobs Jobs Jobs, JobSearch and of course SMStheJOB! The Government even has their own jobs listing site. There are literally heaps of them and a lot of times you will find the same job is advertised across a selection of these jobs sites.

So there could be a downside here - if you are searching the online job sites as your first preference, is there a good chance people vying for your dream job are also doing the same thing? Perhaps this might be a catalyst for you to turn your job search to printed media.

Personally (being a Gen X and a little old school), I love the Courier Mail for their jobs section. I love to see the different fonts and colours, the newspaper layout appeals to me, BUT I should caution, I'm not looking for a job! I read it to keep up to date with the industry and to keep my finger on the pulse of what is going on in the jobs market (you can tell when there has been a drop in employment figures - the jobs section is thinner!). The issue with newspaper jobs sections are that it is easy to miss something, because there is no way to type in your keywords!

Ok - so I'm back to online Jobs... when it comes down to it, I do check Seek, it is nice to see what jobs the big player has on the go, BUT I recommend if you are scanning the jobs that you could give yourself an extra advantage by using other job search mediums. So get the paper on a Saturday and go get a coffee for 30 minutes of uninterrupted reading. Grab the local rag and check it out (the is a lot of appeal in jobs that are close to home!).

Finally, if you're searching for jobs in Australia I highly recommend registering with SMStheJOB that way the jobs with the criteria you really want come directly to you, no seeking over hundreds of web entries, no pouring through 20 pages of the newspaper. Just a plain simple SMS alert that gives you all of the job's details and speeds up your application process as you just send one SMS back if you want to apply - we do the rest for you!