Advanced Job-Hunting Techniques

Interesting article today in the Wall Street Journal about using advanced search techniques for your job hunt. I've picked out a few of the more useful tactics;

1. Use the "advanced search" on sites like SimplyHired to combine and exclude terms. Example, "if you're looking for a nursing job, you can retrieve ads showing the words "nurse" or "RN." At the same time, you can eliminate words such as "nonprofit" or "night shift" to avoid ads with those terms."

2. Deciphering a "blind" ad. When the company name on a job posting is not listed, "copy and paste the firm's description from the ad into a search engine, such as Google...The company's Web site will likely be among the top results, because many recruiters copy a firm's description from there when writing job ads".

3. Use LinkedIn to find a contact at a company. "Florian Brody, 53, says he's found two jobs in the past year this way, using LinkedIn. Most recently, in August, he joined an online start-up company in Mountain View, Calif., as senior director of marketing communications. He contacted the company's president through the networking site's messaging system about his interest in a job, without knowing if a suitable one existed. "He said to come in and I did," Mr. Brody says, and a job offer soon followed."