With an estimated 100,000 job boards out there, focusing your job search can be a time consuming activity. There are, however, handy tools out there that can rapidly streamline your job search so it becomes customized to your preferences. Below are five tools I have used to help speed along my daily searches for green jobs to list here on Green Gigs.
The common thread with all the tools is choosing keywords wisely. Take for example the word "green". If I type in "green telecommuting" when searching for a job, in addition to getting green job hits, I also get listings for jobs that require "green cards". Some tools offer the ability to exclude terms and using this feature can help screen out jobs you just aren't interested in. Also, try entering various derivations of keywords. For example, "telecommuting" will turn up different results than "telecommute", "virtual", "home office", or "remote". So be prepared to do a little trial and error with each of these tools before you settle in on the parameters ideal for your job hunt.
1. Search Tempest
Search Tempest is my personal favorite Craigslist search tool. Although it can be a little clunky configuring it to exactly what you need, it has the ability to search multiple cities for the same keywords, eliminating the annoying practice of clicking on each city for job listings. In addition, keywords can be excluded and you can simply check the "Telecommuting" box to search only for work-at-home jobs.
2. CraigZoom
Similar in concept to Search Tempest, but a little easier to navigate. However, I have found it is a little less flexible in search customization, so if you have a very specific job niche, you may be better off using Search Tempest. But once again, a nice tool to avoid searching cities individually.
3. Yahoo! Pipes
This tool was brought to my attention by a reader (thank you!) and is probably the most powerful job search tool I have come across. Although it is a Yahoo! tool, it is not limited to Yahoo! job listings (or jobs for that matter!). Describing Pipes is difficult so I'm using their words: "Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web". Very cool. Very time consuming to perfect, but very, very useful. Create a customized "pipe" that aggregates multiple job boards and keywords that you select. If you're not up to the challenge of creating your own "pipe", search the ones made public created by other users and you may find one that fits your needs. Check it out.
4. Google Reader
This is the reader I use, but there are certainly other ones out there, so use whatever one you find user-friendly. For the uninitiated, a reader is simply a place where you can follow all the latest posts from your favorite websites and blogs on one page, making it easy to just scan new articles without having to visit every site. This is especially useful for job hunters since it allows you to rapidly view what is new on the job sites relevant to you. To "subscribe" to your favorite sites, look for the funny looking icon with the curved lines in it - usually located near the top of most websites.
5. Tweet Later
By now you know I'm a fan of Twitter and from time to time link to job postings "tweeted" there. There are way too many Twitter tools to discuss, but I have found Tweet Later useful since I can customize the keywords I am searching for and set it to automatically email a summary of the relevant tweets daily.
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