Five Ways to Avoid the Job Fair Crush

A recent article in CNN Money pointed out something that job seekers may not know. People are getting hired – in fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over 4 million job seekers pulled the brass ring and found a job in January of 2011. What was interesting is the perspective of employers who have openings.

Because there are so many unemployed workers for each opening – about four to one – employers are deluged with resumes and overwhelmed at job fairs. That may be one reason why there are so few newspaper ads for jobs. Short-staffed HR departments aren’t equipped to handle the crush of humanity lining up outside their doors. An Internet job site, like Phillyjobs.com, is more likely to have an up-to-date list of open positions and is a great place to find jobs.

How can you uncover the available jobs and sniff out the hidden ones? Here are five tips to help you in your job hunt.

1. Check job postings daily. Jobs are opening up all the time. A recent statistic showed for those who are already employed, about 20 percent are looking for another position. That means that about 20 percent of all currently held jobs can be available at any time. Check at the end of the workday to see what may have been posted before HR closed, or first thing in the morning.

2. Network, network, network. Those 20 percent employed workers who are thinking of leaving probably confide in at least one co-worker. Those are the hidden jobs, the ones that get filled before they are posted. Someone gets a job and is going to give notice and tells her co-worker who knows someone who is looking for a job. You can be that lucky job seeker if you let everyone know you are available.

3. Do your homework. Not just what the job duties are, but how the company got started, its major products and services. Find out what type of customers they have and what they think of the company. When I was looking for a hospitality job, I went online and checked out review websites like Tripadvisor.com for comments from guests. If the hotel had mostly poor ratings, it said a lot about the company’s management, values and the possible stress level dealing with unhappy guests.

4. Use Social Networking for research. LinkedIn has a lot of special interest groups with lively discussions and insider tips for available jobs. More and more companies have Facebook pages, and you can learn a lot about a company’s culture and work environment through posts by employees and management.

5. Use your imagination. Some people never seem to be happy in a job because they want a job that hasn’t been invented yet. You may have a unique skill set that will fill a need about to be discovered. Steve Jobs had the unique ability to invent products that people had never imagined but that they instantly couldn’t live without. You may be able to fill an unrealized niche for a company. Instead of looking for a job, pitch your job idea to a company you want to work for.

Mary Nestor-Harper, SPHR, is a consultant, blogger, motivational speaker and freelance writer for phillyjobs.com. Based in Savannah, GA, her work has appeared in Training magazine, Training & Development magazine, Supervision, BiS Magazine and The Savannah Morning News. When she’s not writing, she enjoys singing with the Savannah Philharmonic Chorus and helping clients reinvent their careers for today’s job market. You can read more of her blogs at phillyjobs.com and view additional job postings on Nexxt.