You’ve probably heard that between 40% and 80% of people find their jobs through networking. Whoever quoted the statistic to you likely didn’t cite a source, but it made sense so you accepted it at face value. The research on this topic is actually extensive and brings mixed conclusions, yet even the author of one of the papers most skeptical of the benefits of networking states in his conclusion:
I also think it would be naive to argue that contacts do not matter. I believe the weight of anecotal evidence and intuition suggests that being “well connected” is an advantage in the labor market.
You want an “advantage in the labor market,” right? Then networking needs to be part of your job search strategy.
Today (Friday, November 6th) is the last day to sign up for Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich Bootcamp. Keep reading for more details, and take note that if you sign up today from the links on this page and forward your receipt to willy@onedayonejob.com, we’ll enroll you in our job search training course Found Your Career for free (a $152 value).
Before I started One Day, One Job, I was a recent grad without a job and without an idea of what I wanted to do. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I wasted most of it doing a halfway job search and grasping for ideas of what to do with my life. In early 2007 there was one really smart thing that I did—I decided to get my personal finances in order. I didn’t have an income or any debt, and my expenses were minimal because I was living with my parents, but I still thought it was important to be in control of my financial well-being. So, I took some time, and started to figure things out. For the first time in months I felt like I had accomplished something; in fact, I even considered starting a personal finance website to share what I had learned (luckily I did this instead).
Last year I participated in Job Action Day by publishing a post called Making Job Search Social. I took a look at how being more outgoing in your job search can push you forward. This year I want to go along with some of the Job Action Day 2009 themes and talk about one key concept:
Being entrepreneurial in your job search
What does that mean? It simply means being opportunistic and taking advantage of favorable situations. Whether you aspire to run your own business or not, you need to start shadowing great entrepreneurs right now.
I know that we just gave away 2 HP laptops and a Timbuk2 bag, but I couldn’t pass up another job search related giveaway for you loyal One Day, One Job readers.
I love using magazines to find cool companies to feature here on One Day, One Job. Lately I’ve been digging through the Inc. 5000, which is loaded with rapidly growing companies that are looking for top entry level talent. Even though you’d be hard pressed to find any companies in the magazine industry on a list of the fastest growing companies (jobs at magazines are pretty scarce these days), that doesn’t mean that magazines shouldn’t be part of your job search.
That’s why I jumped at the chance when Maghound offered to sponsor a contest on One Day, One Job.
On the weekends, One Day One Job features jobs at non-profits, a sector with unique challenges that you need to be aware of when applying for jobs. This “third sector” has a different culture, different networks, and different tricks to getting and keeping a job from the for-profit sector. When applying for non-profit jobs, you need to strike a balance between displaying your skills and experience and passion for the work. I have experience with both types of organizations, and here are 5 tips for getting a job in this sector that will help you figure out what to put on your résumé.
You have until 11:59 PM EDT on Friday, September 4th to enter. We have extended the contest by 12 hours.
Just over 3 weeks ago I told you that we’d be giving away an unbelievably sweet prize package from HP (check out HP’s entry level jobs), Windows, and Timbuk2. That contest starts now!
It’s called Back to School, Back to Work, and it’s part of the much bigger Back to school: Better Together promotion—25 blogs giving away 50 laptops. Although giving away laptops is a lot of fun, our first priority here at One Day, One Job is getting you back to work. For those of you who have already graduated, the idea of “back to school” season without anywhere to go can be really depressing. And for those of you who are still in school, realizing that you’re going “back to school” for what could be the last time may induce a lot of stress.
If you’ve been with us since last December, then you’ll probably remember our participation in the HP Magic Giveaway. It was a huge success not only because we got to give away some awesome prizes, but also because hundreds of you paid it forward by helping friends and family with the job search. That’s why I’m so excited to announce that HP, Microsoft, and Timbuk2 have invited us to participate in the Back to school: Better Together promotion.
The answer is somewhere between no one and almost no one.
I don’t often blog about other people’s blog posts here, but this idea is too good not to talk about.
There are certainly some things that I’d like to add to Seth’s list, but in reality the specific actions don’t matter as much as the fact that you’ll be constantly doing. Why do new grads think that law school and perfect résumés are good ways to take risk out of the job search, when there is a set of actions that you can take that will make you a candidate that no one wouldn’t want hire?
OK, college grads, here it is: the real deal about finding work in this economy.
Let’s start with the obvious: more than anyone else in three generations, you got macro-screwed with the economy. But you are not only screwed, you are also human… and that means you are resilient as all hell.
The human spirit does not die, and does not wilt, in the face of long term adversity.
Like lupine flowers after a forest fire, the human spirit blooms when challenged. You are going to bloom. In direct defiance of your struggles, you are going to keep driving forward until you bloom bright as all hell, even if it kills you. Why? Because you are human, you are resilient, and you have… no… other… option.
So get ready, this is going to sting. It’s also what you need to get yourself ready for a work life you never expected.
Are your parents bugging you about your job search? Are they more stressed out than you are? Are they trying to help but missing on all marks?
We can help. Jason Seiden and I (ok, he did most of the work) have put together a 10 part video series to help your parents constructively aid you in the job search. This is probably worth watching yourself, but please share it with your parents.
One of the best things about One Day, One Job (for you at least) is that it’s free. Every day you get to learn about a new company and their entry level jobs. With that said, it’s a simple service that doesn’t even start to touch on a lot of the questions that you have in the job hunt. That’s why we built Found Your Career, a 21-day online job search prep course. So far the course has been a hit with the students who have enrolled and the career services professionals who’ve seen it. Still, we’ve found that many of you are hesitant to invest in something without knowing exactly what it is. That’s fair.
We’ve been really busy here at One Day, One Job, which has unfortunately meant that we haven’t been able to publish as many in-depth articles as we’d like to. We have had time to put together a list of 50 Twitter People for Job Seekers to Follow and a report on the Entry Level Hiring Outlook for 2009, but other that we’ve been busy on some other exciting projects. Here are some updates from the past few months.
Although Alison Doyle has done a nice job of starting to build a list of Career Experts and Job Sites on Twitter, I haven’t seen any “must follow” lists for job seekers. That’s why I decided to make one. The first half of the list consists of 25 people that I think that every job seeker on Twitter should be following, while the second half offers more general recommendations on what types of people you should be following to help your job search. The list is in no particular order, and it’s nowhere near exhaustive. If you have suggestions, I’d love to see them in the comments.
No, we’re not launching a new site. One Day, One Scholarship might be an awesome idea, but we’re going to stay focused on the area of employment for the foreseeable future. The reason that I’m talking about scholarships today is because Ramit Sethi, personal-finance blogger at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Founder and VP of Community Marketing at PBwiki, and author of Recruit or Die, e-mailed me to let me know about a scholarship that he (yes, him personally) is offering and to ask me to share the information with you.
As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve spent the last two weeks revisiting companies and non-profits to see what kind of entry level jobs are currently available. I thought that this would be a nice way to finish out the year, as it would provide a good idea of how the current economic conditions have affected entry level hiring. This was by no means a scientific study, but there were some key takeaways that I discovered after looking at the Jobs pages of 347 companies and non-profit organizations.
As Jason Seiden and I have been working on developing a training course that is going to help you solve your problem of not having a job, Jason has also been working on solving a much more… ummm… urgent problem.
See, Jason recently added a bulldog puppy named Lenny to his family. She’s adorable, but she has this bad habit of peeing/pooping/throwing up in the house. She also has trouble sleeping alone. These two problems together have made Jason’s life extra stressful (the dog has him totally whipped), so he decided to solve the problems (RSS and e-mail folks, click through if you can’t see the video).
The Random Number Generator spoke, and Tony Eversole of Richmond, KY is the winner of our HP Magic Giveaway Contest. I spoke with Tony on the phone today, and he sounded beyond excited. He’s keeping his plans for what he’s going to do with the prize package quiet until after Christmas (he likes surprising people), but he is all about paying it forward. He promised me that we’ll get the whole story in a few weeks. I can’t wait!
Oh, and before you click away with your head hanging in shame, we want to give you all a special offer for participating in the contest. Since the entries were so good, and so many of you are working hard to help friends find jobs, we want to help you both out. If you or your friend is struggling with the job search, you can sign up to get a special discount on our soon to be released job search training course. It may not be a $6,000+ package from HP, but it will be worth a lot more than that in the long run.
The contest is now over and comments have been closed. The winner has been announced here. To see how we’re putting this comments into helping more people find jobs, please check out our job search training course.
We are giving away $6,000+ in HP, Microsoft, and Corel products. Continue reading to find out how one of you will win the entire package.
Last week, my business partner, Jason Seiden, and I were talking about the job search training course that we’re working on. I had told him that I recently received “thank you tweets” from two One Day, One Job readers who had landed jobs at companies that I wrote about. We both agreed that there’s nothing more rewarding than helping someone find and land a job. This sparked an idea. Since the HP Magic Giveaway is all about “paying it forward,” we should build a contest where the winner is rewarded for paying it forward (even if it’s with the end goal of winning a prize).
Two weeks ago I told about the upcoming release of a job search training course that I’ve been developing. I also told you that I brought in a partner to make sure that this course is a comprehensive learning tool that will give you a completely revamped approach finding a job. I was going to introduce you to him last week, but I didn’t want you to be distracted by a trip home for Thanksgiving, so I waited an extra week. This guy is like that bad ass personal trainer who pushes you so hard that you almost throw up in the middle of your workout but for job search. So let me tell you a little bit about him and how you can get a free PDF version of his book, How to Self Destruct.
It’s only been a week and a half since One Day, One Job started it’s second year, and we’re already on to our second major announcement. Last week we announced that we’ve begun working on a job search training course, and today we’re announcing that we’ve been selected to take part in The HP Magic Giveaway! We’ve done giveaways before (a Wii and an iPod Touch), but this is on a whole new level. We think that technology is essential to a smart job search, but we know that you’re probably still using that computer that you got before your Freshman year of college. We want to help you make an upgrade, and HP has enabled us to make that happen for one of you.
Last Wednesday was our birthday, and we want to celebrate with you. Since we sold the corporate jet as part of our “Green Initiative,” we’re going to skip flying you all out for the party and go straight to the party favors. Our first thought was to give you all jobs, but with the economy the way it is, we, much like many other companies, are currently under a “hiring freeze” (said with tongue in cheek, of course). Instead we’re going to help you become that “red hot” candidate (not in that way) who instantly thaws the hiring freeze as soon as your resume hits the company’s inbox, so read on to find out what you’re getting…
Maybe it’s because of this post or maybe it’s the economy, but I’m getting a lot more e-mails asking specific questions about job search. This is great, because I love hearing what job searchers are having the most difficulty with. The two questions that I get asked most often are: “How do you find all of the jobs that you post about?” and “How do I stand out when my resume is one of hundreds or even thousands?”
If you’ve been looking at our archive of entry level jobs, you may have noticed that today is our birthday. One Day, One Job officially launched one year ago today with a post about jobs at InsideTrack and an article about How to Use Google to Find a Job. That means that we’ve now profiled 367 companies/organizations and their entry level jobs (leap year plus today’s post). That’s something that we’re proud of, especially because we’ve reached almost a quarter of a million people with our employer profiles and articles in just a year. That’s why we have a major celebration planned, but it’s not quite ready.
Come Monday, you’ll get the first glimpse into what we’ve been working on and where we plan to take ODOJ in its second year. Don’t worry, we’re going to keep up with what we’re doing, but we want to try some new things that will help you elevate your job search to the next level. Feel free to wish us a Happy Birthday by leaving a comment below, but be sure to come back on Monday to see how we’re celebrating.
This post is part of Job Action Day, “a day of empowerment for workers and job-seekers,” that is aimed to help you “put your career and job in the forefront, making plans, taking action steps.”
I was an anti-social job searcher. I never stepped foot in my college’s Career Services office. I didn’t want to talk to my parents about jobs. I never attended any Career Fairs. I was too embarrassed to tell my friends how much I was struggling with finding jobs that interested me. I was relying almost entirely on the Internet for my job search needs, and it wasn’t helping. Eventually, I quit. I decided that I was going to make online job search better by building a resource that I would have wanted to use during my job search. I empowered myself to face a problem and solve it, and in a few short months I went from knowing nothing about job search even though I needed a job, to knowing a ton about job search despite the fact that I was no longer looking.
Ok, I’m not one for fabricated holidays – especially when they’re crammed between two real holidays like Halloween an Election Day, but this one is important (and it doesn’t require sending anyone any gifts). It’s called Job Action Day, and it’s this Monday. It was initiated by Randall S. Hansen, the founder and publisher of Quintessential Careers, and he has invited me to participate in Job Action Day 2008, which is set for this Monday, November 3rd. I’m excited to be a part of this, because it’s a day for job-seekers and workers to confront the current economic crisis head-on and take action steps to improve their careers. (You can read the full press release here.)
Congratulations to Alex Payne, a recent graduate of Duke University. He won the iPod Touch in our Tell a Friend, Win an iPod Touch Contest. You may remember Alex from our article on Using Facebook Ads for Job Search, as he was one of the initial participants in the experiment. His number was picked randomly by Microsoft Excel’s Random Number Generator, but we have to say that we’re happy to see him win.
I'm Willy Franzen. I graduated from Cornell University in 2006 and quickly realized how frustrating the job search can be for new grads. That's why I started One Day, One Job - the insider’s guide to unique and exciting entry level job and career opportunities for recent college graduates. Every day we profile a new employer and highlight their entry level jobs.
is the funniest, most in-your-face career guide on the market.