A Phone App Toolkit…

Your smartphone can do more than just cruise job boards. It can also help you network, stay organized, and prepare for interviews. Dan King, principal of Career Planning and Management, Inc. in Boston, suggests creating a “phone app toolkit” that includes the following:

LinkedIn – The most essential tool for identifying contacts, gathering information about companies, generating leads, and identifying jobs that are not on the jobs boards. Your LinkedIn profile is more important than your resume.  If you’re not searching it daily, you’re missing out on important connections, jobs and trends.

TweetMyJobs  – An efficient app that sends job recommendations directly to you through custom alerts and also lets you distribute your resume across the social web. You receive job descriptions, suggestion and messages directly on your phone.

Glass Door – A good source for company information to prep for interviews, it also has company reviews from employees as well as some salary information.

HireADroid  – The only app that searches for jobs across multiple search engines. It saves time so you don’t waste energy pursuing numerous sites, and can pursue more effective strategies for finding a job.

Resume Builder Elite – This an app that doesn’t necessarily force you into a template. It has some customizing features.

Job Interview Q&A – This app offers sample answers to interview questions, but more importantly, it features an interactive video app that helps you practice answers to tough interview questions.

Dropbox  – An easy organizer that helps you keep correspondence, job notes, articles, and more in one place, accessible on all of your devices. When you receive a call, you can quickly access the chain of correspondence and messages to help inform your call.

Business Card Reader Pro – Reads business cards and saves them to your phone contacts. Useful when attending networking events, making it easier to follow up.

Source:  Joan Axelrod-Contrada

 

A list of other online resources…

careerbuilder.com –  Owned jointly by three major newspaper chains, this meat-and-potatoes site posts not only paid listings but also classifieds from 200 papers across the country. Consequently, there are more clerical and blue-collar positions than at other sites.

careerjournal.com – Even those without “executive vice president” on their business cards will find  useful  content at this offering from the “Wall Street Journal,”  including articles from the paper itself and more than 125,000 listings, most for senior executives.

craigslist.org  – The place where people go to swap their used power tools, not draws a fair share of local employers and has become a good source for freelance types. There are no ads on this n-frills site, just a simple search tool and a flagging system that tends to weed out scammers.

Facebook – Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.

Several different applications have been added that enable users to post their resumes on their Facebook page. The resume is then available to everyone in the users network.

glassdoor.com  –  This “best-of-breed site lets you browse anonymous company reviews and employee ratings as well as real-time compensation data parsed by position and company, right down to bonus and commission numbers.

hotjobs.yahoo.com – Less spam (though plenty of ads), a pleasant interface, and seemingly fewer bogus listings distinguish this Internet portal’s megaboard, where you can cave searches, see the number of times your resume is viewed, and sign-up for e-mail alerts.

idealist.org – A nicely designed directory of volunteer, nonprofit, and internship opportunities put together by international nont-for-profit Action Without Borders.

indeed.com – The home page couldn’t be simpler: What/Where/Find Jobs. You can drill down deep at this banner-free search engine, zeroing in on relevant jobs among the one million plus in the index by salary, location within give miles and more.

job-hunt.org – Don’t let the tiny type turn you off. This free employment portal is vacuum-packed with solid advice (including a great list of tips for self-promotion without self-puffery) and links to 11,000 employers and job search resources.

jobfox.com –  It’s called the eHarmony of  job search sites because it uses a five-point method to match up employers and job hunters in over 300 professions and at over 3,000 companies. Genius idea, but what you gain in relevance, you lose in immediate gratification, which can be frustrating.  So can the very long registration process.

jobster.com –  Half job board, half search engine, this site makes you register to crate a resume, but not to search listings by keyword and location or to sign up for alerts. It’s uncluttered and not clunky, but you won’t find tons of resources or information there.

Linked In – a social networking site mainly used for professional networking. The site allows registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

This list can be used in a number of ways:

A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections and also the connections of second degree connections. This can be used to gain an introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual, trusted contact.

It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s contact network.

Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.

Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.

The searchable LinkedIn Groups feature allows users to establish new business relationships by joining alumni, industry, or professional and other relevant groups.

Note:  Good LinkedIn Groups:

Big Shoes Network Group

Network of PR Professionals

Employee Communications and Engagement

Public Relations & Communications

HR (#1 Human Relations Group)

mediabistro.com  – Dedicated to anyone who creates or works with content, or who is a non-creative professional working in a content/creative industry. That includes editors, writers, producers, graphic designers, book publishers, and others in industries including magazines, television, film, radio, newspapers, book publishing, online media, advertising, PR, and design. Their mission is to provide opportunities to meet, share resources, become informed of job opportunities and interesting projects and news, improve career skills, and showcase your work.

monster.com – Slick, powerful, hefty and often annoying. The best known of the supersites, with at least 200 million posting has a tedious registration process and more pop-ups than a toaster. But the sheer volume of listings (which you can search quickly or by using more specific criteria), plus an easy resume-upload feature, makes it worth a look.

MyWorkster – allows users to separate your personal and professional life — keeping MySpace and Facebook pictures away from your work life. On MyWorkster, one does not have to worry about potential employers discovering embarrassing and unprofessional photographs or wall posts. Similar to Facebook, it allows the user to create a network of people that he/she knows or would like to get to know on a business level.

This is a great way to connect with the business world to post your resume and work samples. It is an easy way to get “seen” without having to actively pursue any particular job and to put yourself out there and get noticed.

ning. com – Facebook and MyWorkster are broad social websites. If you have a niche — go directly to that niche and weed out all of the other junk. Didn’t find your niche? Well create it! Ning is a website that lets you create a social network for ANYTHING! It is a great way to build a community around something that really interests you. And, it allows you to create your own social network. All you have to do is to simply choose the name and web address.

oodle.com – Much smaller but craftier than a craigslist, this combination classifieds board and aggregator indexes mostly non-corporate, non-technical jobs and organizes them by area.

payscale.com –  For a quick snapshot of where you stand, complete the free survey at the site –which includes questions about job title, location, years of experience, and degree –and you’ll get number based on the more than eight million surveys on file.

plaxo.com  –  This site began as a way to sync your contacts and keep them up-to-date but has since added Pulse, a networking feature that’s aimed mostly at social users, who can easily share feeds from sites like YouTube and Flickr. While it’s not a must, it’s another tool in the arsenal for a job seeker.

quintcareers.com – A staggering 3,500  pages of content can be viewed at this award-winning site, including” best of” job site compilations and links, tutorials, and advice aimed at everyone from students to career switchers.

salary.com  – helps you calculate salary ranges for positions at different levels, in different geographies, etc.

simplyhired.com – It’s easy to use the intuitive interface to search everything that’s out there (the good, the bad and the Ponzi), at this site – which indexes more than three million jobs – and then tailors the results, filtering by job type, education, work experience, company name, revenue, size, or other characteristics. The site is linked to the networking site LinkedIn.

6figurejobs.com – Membership at this all-business, award-winning site for CEOs, GMs, SVPs, and other big wigs acronyms is free. Network, browse advice pages, and search several industries, specialties, and locations for screened listings, or “sweep” to find more unscreened ones.

theladders.com  – Billed as the leading  online platform for the $100K-plus job market, this well-regarded site posts about 50,000 screened listings on its main board; its specialized channels include finance, HR, law, marketing and sales. Free access is limited. For a peek, you’ll pay $30 a month, $180 for 12 months.

twitter –  A website for micro blogging. It enables users to share bite size updates about their life. Users are able to follow updates of friends via the web. Twitter looks like a blog — with short 140 characters — enabling users to paint pictures of friends, family and coworkers. Plus, friends are able to follow your updates.

vault.com – One-stop shopping for MBAs and their ilk, whether they’re right out of college or well seasoned. This site has become a comprehensive hybrid model with networking, salary data, and more, both free and through paid subscription.

VirtualJobCoach – a great way to personally manage your job search online. This career management site requires a paid subscription of $9.95. It allows the user to track interviews, schedule appointments and store resumes and cover letters. It also automatically updates its users with job opening that match their criteria.

VisualCV – started by a group of investors, primarily search firms, as a way for top level executives to stand out among the standard resume. Anyone can use VisualCV. Now, it’s more than merely a recap of your work experience. Employers can actually get a sense of who you are.