5 Alternate Ways of Job Searching
New here? Welcome! I’m Toni and I’m here to help you get your dream job – with the salary, title, fulfillment, appreciation and balance you deserve.
I also have the following blogs to help you crush your job search:
- Top 10 Things You Are Probably Doing Wrong in Your Job Search
- Workplace Sponsor Relationships – The Key to Boosting Career Success
- Interview Questions – Master Answers to These Top 5 to Nail Your Next Interview
- Interview Question: Tell Me About Yourself
- 3 Simple Ways to Stand Out at Work
There’s More Than One Way of Job Searching
Just about everyone has been there before. Spending mundane hours scanning through all the big job searching platforms hoping something comes along that aligns with your skills and interests. After all, searching for jobs on popular sites is straightforward.
Indeed, Monster, and LinkedIn each have high ratings and promising potential when it comes to connecting leaders to prospective candidates. In fact, Indeed accounts for 65% of all online sourced hires in the United States. LinkedIn is gaining its own speeding traction with its 55 million registered companies amongst its 740 million members.
To see the rankings of leading job searching platforms, you can find that here.
Now, this is all great on its own. However, millions of people are job searching across these boards constantly. It stands to reason why you may be getting the short end of the stick as you watch amazing opportunities get filled as quickly as they came in.
That is not to say to avoid looking at all. But it should be a reminder that this is not the only way you can discover jobs in this day and age. In general, there are several alternative ways to find a job in the flooded market. These include different angled approaches that may just land you that dream job you’ve been on the hunt for.
1. Job Searching by Leveraging the Power of Social Media
Social media nowadays can be used for much more than catching up with old friends. As of right now, there are over 200 million small businesses who use Facebook to promote and recruit. That’s because it is the ideal outlet for them to actively engage with potential candidates and get to know them more personally right upfront.
With that being said, scroll through different company profiles across Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok to see if they have any internal links to support your job searching mission.
Also interact in different Facebook groups dedicated to recruiting. That will help you get yourself noticed by talent seekers.
2. Job Searching through Networking
Believe it or not, 85% of open positions are filled through networking. In short, networking is a wonderful way to unlock new opportunities within a current company or inside a new one. Making meaningful connections and establishing working relationships with industry leaders and coinciding personnel equates to them knowing more about who you are as a person and what you can offer as an asset.
That, in turn, enables you to gain the upper hand if you wish to fulfill a role they have open or be directed to other “offline” opportunities that they personally referred you to.
3. Explore Job Fairs
This one may not be a new concept. But it one that can kick your job searching up a notch or two. Attend local job fairs to see what companies are looking to hire and what positions they have available.
All in all, in person or virtual job fairs are a great resource. You are able to meet the potential employer face to face, allowing them to see who you are. Also you can get a feel of your personality instead of just reading about you on your resume/job application. You may also get a chance to speak with them in a private interview room. That is an early benefit that you would not get if you just applied online.
4. Go Directly to A Company’s Website
When it comes to alternative ways to find a job, going directly to a company’s website to see their listings is a fundamental one. Not every organization or small business uses job searching platforms for advertising their openings. Knowing this, make sure to add the actionable step while searching for jobs because there could be a perfect role for you that you might miss otherwise.
If the website is not updated or no listings are shown, you can always call and ask if they are hiring. If so, request if they could send you the job requisition(s) via email for you to review and/or apply for.
5. Taking Advantage of the ‘Stop and Drop’ Method
Lastly, consider doing a stop and drop. That means going to organizations that you would like to work for and simply handing them (in personal or virtually) your resume/cover letter in hopes that they will call you in for an interview when a position opens up that aligns with your qualifications.
This may not be a favorable alternative way to find a job because it does take some extra time to plan out, but it does hold its own set of advantages. Why? Because you are showing initiative to that company or companies, and that ambitious nature of taking the first step to contact them first could very well become your ticket to getting your foot in the door.
Summary – Know Your Options
Let’s face it, job searching all on its own can feel like a full-time gig. Between the intricacies of finding, applying, and selling yourself at interviews, it can quickly become quite a challenging yet worthwhile journey. Sure, popular sites can help streamline the process and connect you with the right employers to support your career objectives. However, the best and most effective way to make job searching go faster and more seamlessly is knowing all your options.
The truth is that you are only going to be noticed by employers as much as you want to be, and branching out across all your primary and alternative paths is the sure-fire way to get yourself out there from various angles. In summary, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and thinking outside the box when searching for jobs has become quite necessary to make the effort a successful one.
Because who knows, utilizing one of those alternative ways to find a job could be the very thing that helps you finally transition your job searching endeavor into a closed chapter.
