Classifieds, Job Boards & Print Ad’s

One of our first go to stop’s may be ad boards or online classifieds I guess you’d call them, one of the most used around here in my area is craigslist.org https://dallas.craigslist.org/ , then there’s job boards, many of those are large national companies with a long reach like monster.com  https://www.monster.com/ , glassdoor.com  https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm , careerbuilder.com  https://www.careerbuilder.com/ , and  ziprecruiter.com https://www.ziprecruiter.com/ , to name a few, oh and Indeed.com, https://www.indeed.com/  it may be the most well-known of all.    In a lot of areas, it may be easy to find a printed classifieds paper, in my area we have things like the Thrifty Nickle and the Green sheet, you can find them at local convenience stores, carwashes, and a lot of apartment complexes carry them around the mail box area’s too.  I’m sure there’s something like that in most neighborhoods. Another good printed source is our local, city, town or even neighborhood newspapers, most of them still have a classifieds section where we can sell things we no longer need or maybe our old bike, car or motorcycle’s.  I sold a boat once through the classifieds ad’s in our local paper.

Online Classifieds

So, let’s talk about the online classifieds first.  I know for me this was my go too place for advertising about positions in the past, really up until about 2 years ago and I think it’s still a great place to start.

Typically, a company or recruiter will write an ad with a brief description of the position there hiring for, the shift and pay rates and maybe a little bit about their company.  Usually it will tell us everything we need to know about the job and qualifying requirements of the position also.  The ad will list the employer contact information such as the address, phone number or hours and days that applications are being taken too.  Sometimes we’ll have to email our reply for information back through the ad’s publisher though, maybe we can attach our resume or work history to it and send it that way.  I’ve hired many an individual utilizing this process and it worked ok but it can be burdensome for us as job seekers having to search through the 100’s or 1000’s of positions listed.  I think they all have a search function that we can use key words like forklift, order selector, warehouse, transportation or really any position we’re looking for.  It helps to narrow our searches quite a bit, but we’ll still possibly have to scroll through several different industries worth of stuff that may be using the same key words. I think these online classifieds are probably stronger in smaller cities or townships, well maybe not stronger, that’s the wrong word, I’ll say a great place to start with though.  It’s important to remember we need to really describe our work history, what we are good at and how we’re going to be an asset to their company, we want them to call us and set up that interview!

Job Boards

Job Boards are a great online tool also.  These are companies our prospective employer can subscribe too to post their open positions too.  We’re probably all familiar with the larger one’s as you may see tv commercials and bill boards promoting them to employers and applicants all the time. They work in much the same way as the online classifieds sites, but they are much dressier or streamlined and may give us much more search criteria to really drill down to the positions we’re actually seeking or looking for.  Again, as with the online classifieds these are typically free to job seekers with the prospective employer paying for the advertisement. These ad’s may even use sharp looking graphics and colors to produce an ad that really reaches out and grabs us or sucks us in and gets our attention.  With Job Boards we can usually get to a lot more information about the positions, either by clicking on a link within the posting or actually having the opportunity to complete an online application right from the website!  Let’s be sure to use this opportunity and fill in every blank on the forms, sell them on us, make sure they know their search for an employee is over.  I’ve seen recruiters skip over incomplete applications, and we can’t blame them.  There’s 100’s of applicants filling out applications every day.  If they have to hunt down our phone numbers or email addresses it’s just not going to happen, they truly don’t have that kind of time.  Some of these sites may repost or distribute an ad to many other smaller or community sources also.  One thing we need to remember is that the original advertisement may have been filled and the posting has been removed from some sites but may stay up on others for a long time or maybe forever.  Just this week I heard about an applicant that got really upset over a posting with a recruiter over hearing the position had been filled already.  The gentleman just didn’t understand that She didn’t know where he had seen the post, she’d taken down her original offering but even she doesn’t know what all boards may have picked it up and left it up.  That’s one of the downfalls with internet searches, some sites may not keep their servers as up to date as others, it may not be the person’s fault that actually advertised the job, it’s just gotten dated somewhere out of her control.  Anyway, I think job boards are a great resource and I find them much easier to reply too & usually easier to upload or attach our resume and work histories too, getting them directly to the recruiter or hiring agents.  Some of these job boards have apps for our phones too, when someone post’s a position that meets our qualifications we may be able to receive a notification immediately and can review it right then, putting us first in line to summit our interest in the job.

Print Ads

I mentioned print ad’s earlier.  These advertisements are usually smaller and get right to the point, I mean we may see the position, like order selector, a pay range and the contact information to the company or agency hiring.  It’s usually going to require a little more action from us as applicants, we’ll probably have to call and speak to someone to find out the shift, hiring requirements and qualifications needed for the position.  I’ve found the printed ad’s really productive in smaller communities or cities, maybe not so much in larger environments or large metroplex areas.  Calling someone about all the advertisements we’ll find can be a lot of work and then we’ll probably still have to get an email or fax number to send our resumes or work history in for their review.

So, what brought all this up this week, I was asked what’s the best platform to look for a job with.  The individual knew there were online classifieds, she’s used them before, and had of course seen advertisement about job boards online, and stated a friend had found her new job in the paper.  She wanted to know which was the best or quickest way to find her next employer!  I personally believe we, as applicants have to utilize every tool at our disposal, I mean we’re not presently employed and we want to be right?  You know I almost forgot about another great resource, one we don’t think about every day is our friends and family, a lot of times information about positions may be setting right beside us, remember to put the word out and let everyone know we’re looking for a new or different job!  Looking for work can be rough, and I like to look at it as a full time job in itself.  In my experience we’ll need to seek out and apply to every posting we can find, that we qualify for of course and that we believe we’ll enjoy doing. Throw those hooks in the pond and be ready & prepared to catch whatever tugs on the line.

I want to go back to ready and prepared for a minute, this is where we have to shine.  We’ve talked a lot here at WAOC about being prepared for those phone interviews and face to face interviews in earlier episodes, we’ll need to be ready, have our experience on the tips of our tongues and make the hiring agent understand we’re the right person for the job, that their search is over!

Resume

That makes me think about our resume, our resume is our introduction, it’s really important we have our work history and our accomplishments written out, using those keywords that an HR generalist or computer system is going to be looking for, we want to have ours pulled out, reviewed and for them to feel like they just have to speak with us.  It needs to read as they’ve found the perfect person for the job!  Check out episode’s 4 & 5, The Resume and The Interview if you missed them, oh and I believe it’s episode 59 where we interviewed Sharon and Michele on Thoughts on Recruiting and Benefits.  I think we covered just how important those things can be a couple of different times, you may enjoy reviewing them again.

Social Media

One platform I left out today is Social Media, we’ve briefly discussed it a few times and I tell you what, I’ll reach out to some pro’s and we’ll take a deep dive into how recruiters are using those platforms to engage with us applicants and job seekers.  Maybe we can get some insite on what we can do differently or do much better to help ourselves.  I’ll see if we can put that together here in the next few week’s!

Thanks for checking in with us this week & so until next week please take care, think Safe and work Safe