Using RSS to Job Hunt

So a little while back, when this recession became apparent to me and everyone else in the US, I was charged with the task of figuring out how to utilize ‘new’ technology to make the job-search process a little less painful. What I am going to blog about today is a workflow that I came up with the help my fiancee search 4 times as many job feeds in 1/4 the time.

What you’ll need:

-a Google account – it doesn’t have to be a Gmail account, you can sign up for a Google account with your existing email address. But I strongly recommend that if you are still using Hotmail/Live or Yahoo Mail you might just want to get with it and get a Gmail account instead. We’re going to be using this account for Google Reader.

-an updated resume in .doc format. If you need help with that I recommend visiting Resume Bear.

-A basic understanding of what RSS means and how to use it. If you are already lost, follow this link to see what RSS is all about.

-A web browser capable of viewing RSS feeds. I recommend Firefox or Safari (even Opera)…PERSONAL OPINION RANT: Definitely DO NOT use Internet Explorer, for no other reason than I hate Internet Explorer and it’s a plague on the internet and web development community. Support Open Standards. OK, I’m done ranting.

OK, so here’s a brief rundown of what we’re going to be doing. The idea was to look on numerous job posting sites and cull all of that information in one place. Then, in that one place, you will be able to select postings that you find interesting and flag them. Any items that you flag would go to a seperate area for you to go through systematically and send resumes to and then follow-up on. By doing this you can ensure that you know what jobs you’ve applied to and they can all be in one place. You can even add “tags” so you know when you sent your resume or any other information you want to tag the listing with.

So here’s how you do it.

Step 1:

Start by opening and signing into your Google Reader in one tab of your browser.

Step 2:

Next, open a new tab and navigate to www.simplyhired.com. Enter your criteria (keywords) for your job search. For example if you were in law you could type “associate” or “partner” or “legal”. You decide what’s right for you, but you don’t have to limit your search. Remember we are aggregating numerous feeds into one feed, so you can do 50 searches if you want, you may just see overlap in results.

Step 3:

Next, refine your search by selecting any appropriate filters from the left hand side. For instance, if you type legal, you may get results for paralegal and you may be looking for an associate position. You may want to adjust the minimum salary or make sure that you are looking at “Full Time” positions only. You determine what’s right for you.

Step 4:

Click on “view as RSS Feed” at the top of the search results. What happens next is a result of which browser you are using. Since Firefox makes this part of the process easier* I’m going to assume you are using Safari, which is a slightly more manual process. When you click on the RSS icon or a link that says view as RSS you will see a list of results, and the web address in your location bar will likely end in .feed or .xml or .atom or .rss. This is the URL of your RSS feed. Select it and copy it.

Step 5:

Go to your Google reader and click “Add Subscription” at the top left. Paste the address you just copied. This will add the RSS feed for the job search to Google Reader.

*If you use Firefox, you can change you RSS subscription to always subscribe with Google.

Now once you have done this, simply repeat the process to add as many unique job feeds to Google Reader as you want. I would recommend organizing them into folders. To do this click “manage subscription” at the bottom left of the left hand navigation bar. Under the “Subscriptions” tab, simply add each feed to a folder.

Now if you click on the folder containing the feeds, you will get a combined view of all of the job feeds.

Step 6: Click the Star to the left of any job posting that you want to apply to or look into.

Now you have a list of your top picks. You can go right down the list and send your resume to each company systematically. Another benefit of this system is that after you send your resume to a company, you can go into your Starred Items, change the view at the top right to ‘Expanded’ from ‘List’ and you will see options beneath each item in the list. Select the job posting that you just applied to and click ‘Add Tags’ and add the tag ‘Applied.’ Now you can keep track of what jobs you have applied to. Just click the tag ‘Applied’ in the left nav and you’ll see every job you’ve applied to.

I would also recommend saving a pdf or print each job description just in case the job posting is taken down and you get a call. You want to be prepared, right?

Finally, I’d like to recommend a few sites for job hunting. All of these recommendations support RSS feeds.

www.simplyhired.com

www.indeed.com

www.craigslist.org

Monster RSS Page

Career Builder RSS Page

[And of course, PhillyJobs.com - Create a Job Search alert and subscribe via RSS feed]

I hope this helps someone find a job….Good Luck, it’s a jungle out there!

by Jeff Gibbard

I’m passionate about social media, creativity and leadership. I am the Director of Social Media Practice Group for Devine + Powers, a Public Relations Firm in Philadelphia. I’m very active on Twitter and have a strong commitment to providing value for my readers. Don’t be shy to ask a question.

http://www.jeffgibbard.com/about-me/