subject: 3 Great Online Ways To Get You Job Leads Outside Of Your Network [print this page] In the job hunting process, you often ask friends or past colleagues for leads for jobs, employers & recruiters. In fact studies show that more than 33% of all hiring is through leads from your network. HR & Recruiting departments have understood this & have encouraged this behavior by giving rewards ranging from $3000-10000 dollars whenever somebody joins an organization through an internal employee referral. However, in this tough job market, it doesn't make sense to rely only on your professional network. Your network may already be overloaded with requests for job leads from their contacts. Your professional network, sometimes works & sometimes doesn't & is largely hit or miss.
Whereas, in the past you asked friends or friends of friends for job leads, you can now leverage the scale of the internet to have perfect strangers working for your benefit. Just as EBay helped you move from selling your used items to your local neighborhood to the entire internet, you can now get help from the internet in finding you a job.
Given the scale & reach of the internet, here are three great ways to find job leads outside of your network:
1. Join member driven job posting services: When you join member driven job posting services members post job leads that they are aware of at their current employer or in their larger network. When other members sign up or apply to those job listings, the original job posting members get paid for their effort. These services often have more jobs than other sites since members pay each other to post jobs instead of charging employers.
2. Join local industry events & sessions: You can identify local industry events & get togethers via services such as Meet Up. Regular local Meet Ups occur in your professional area of interest such as Financial Accounting or Java programming. When you attend these meetings, you will often find people who are already in the industry with a similar background as yourself. Introducing yourself to this group, helps you stay in the loop & on top of mind when people have job openings & are searching for candidates.
3. Join recruiting mailing lists: Often recruiters interact with each other in various mailing lists & groups in Yahoo Groups or Google Groups, asking for leads for very specific opportunities. Even if you are not the perfect fit for current opportunities, you will be able to identify who the main players by the traffic that you see on these mailing lists. Once the right opportunity comes along you can then introduce yourself to the recruiters.
