How to Find Your Dream Job Online
Job Seeker Blog
Searching for your dream job? Don’t know where to start? Don’t fret! This week we’re looking at how you can use the web to find your perfect job.
Where do I start?
Not everyone leaves school with a solid idea of where their career path will take them, sometimes we stumble upon something and find we really love it and sometimes general life circumstances hold us back. This isn’t to say your dream job isn’t out
there and that you can’t do it. You just need to do your research and have answers to the following questions: What is the job called? What does the job involve? Is this type of job available in your area? Do you have what you need to be considered for the job?
When you’re in the know you’re in a better position to tailor your search and your CV for this so that when the time comes you will be ready and confident to apply.
Where do I find it?
The internet is a wonderful thing – use it. Companies utilise the vast reach of the internet to put their jobs out there compare it to traditional methods of advertising such as newspaper advertising. Traditional advertising was bound in ways that the internet isn’t, think of the geographical reach, the cost per print, the speed of expiry, the word limit. Now think of the internet and you’ll soon realise that all of these limitations have been dissolved.
Now we’re in the digital age you’ll notice how readily available smartphones, tablets, laptops etc. are and how instrumental they have become in our daily lives. This applies to job hunting too. That’s why everyone from big brands to small companies use it to advertise their job vacancies and attract top talent to their job roles.
The most popular method of internet job advertising is via online job websites (job boards) and there are loads you can choose whether your search is general or niche there’s a job board for you. But there’s a couple of other online channels you can utilise in your job search tool that will help you find your dream job.
Great channels you can search on:
• Job boards
Job board advertising provides a great source of jobs that you can filter as necessary to find relevant jobs for you. The search results on job boards show the initial information per job including location, salary, type of contract etc. This allows you to quickly assess the job before you click through to more details
TOP TIP: Don’t be afraid to use a couple of job boards in your search to widen your net and set up email alerts for your criteria – that way, only relevant jobs are sent to you and you don’t need to spend hours searching each site.
• Search engines (like Google, Yahoo and Bing)
Another good way of finding jobs is to do a general search for something like ‘Marketing Manager, Bedford’ on a search engine like Google. This will generate an array of results (1,550,000 results to be exact) for you to look at. You’ll find a lot of job boards listed here as well as other sources you might not have considered such as using an aggregator.
You can also set up saved search alerts on many search engines which will alert you when something new is posted that matches your criteria.
TOP TIP: You’ll find that using aggregator sites like Indeed are useful for finding jobs without going to loads of different places...though you will be transferred elsewhere in order to apply.
• Social media (like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter)
You can use social media to find jobs too – LinkedIn is probably better for more senior level roles but each social platform has something to offer job seekers. Social media is a great tool to start communicating with a brand and getting your name out there – blogging is also a great way of doing this.
TOP TIP: Think of how you’re presenting yourself – a professional profile picture is better received than that one from Gav’s stag do.
• Company career sites direct
If your dream job is to work for X company then be proactive – find their career page on their website and return to it frequently (or set up an alert) to see if they have something suitable for you. Not every company advertises their jobs externally (i.e. on job boards) so visiting their career site is a good way to keep track of what they’re getting up to and how you can be involved.
TOP TIP: Bookmark the career pages that you’re interested in so you can visit them easily – we recommend you also follow them on their social platforms too as their jobs are likely to be shared here too.
If you’d like to know more about what we’ve discussed in this blog, check out our other handy blogs here: