Who's looking for jobs?

A couple of newsletters prompted me to do some research and thus, write this blog post.  Do you ever check to see who is looking for jobs or what jobs people are looking for?  I did that today and I was very surprised by what I found.  Monster puts out a list every year about the top 50 job searches done that year.  I found several lists.

Jobs.com provides a list of the top 99 job searches.  This list provided me with information like sales, manager, part time, marketing, management, customer service, entry level, project manager, engineer and accounting are the top 10 job searches performed.  Sales doesn't surprise me. Neither does manager.  What I am surprises at is engineer and project manager.  Also on that list are many information technology type jobs.  

Do you know what types of jobs your jobseekers are looking for?  Does your job descriptions reflect "industry-relevant" keywords for your talent to find you.  The best way to ensure you have the best search engine optimization is to make sure your job postings have good strong keywords in them.  Teach your jobseekers to include a keyword rich resume or work descriptions.  

Now for the punch in the gut.  In the past 48 hours people searching for jobs ranked 215 out of 500.  Job search lost out to barbecuing, Facebook, hotels, Walmart & Michael Jackson.  Does this tell us that people are putting their job searches on hold for the summer?  Looks like it.

Using social (and “professional”) networks should be a common practice among recruiters. Just the other night I used my knowledge of social network sourcing to generate a handsome list of candidates for a client. I personally use LinkedIn as my professional networking site. You can say that Twitter is my a networking tool as well. Facebook is all about me and the friends and family I associate with. Very savvy recruiters learn to take advantage of these sites by joining groups and becoming fans of organizations.

There are many ways to take advantage of social networking sites. Here are some ways that recruiters can use social networks to their advantage:

• Establish your own business profile
• Build business-relevant networks
• Maintain a networking interchange
• Make new connections
• Conduct candidate searches
• Find new business
• Research people and companies
• Real-time communication
• Expand visibility and influence
• Develop information exchange portals

This list is not exhaustive by any means. With functionality and benefits like those on the list, it is no wonder social networking has been widely adopted by recruiters. Jobscience even integrates their ATS and strategic sourcing tool with today's most popular networks including: LinkedIn, MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.

You would be amazed at the amount of information that is accessible within seconds. Invest in yourself and career and join a social network. The experience and networking will be valuable.

Helping Employees Refer Applicants

I was watching a marketing video today and a great idea hit me. How about creating some links so your employees can put them in their Facebook accounts. Let them recruit for you. This way they can let their friends know about "hot" jobs that need to be filled. This sounds like a great idea.

I'm going to look on my Facebook account and learn more about the features of this social network. I'll keep you posted on what I find out.. Happy New Year!