Is your goal to organize your job search this year?
As the New Year rolls in, many of us resolve to quit smoking, control our finances, or lose weight. I know I could shed more than a few pounds.
In order to write something that would be useful to you for your New Year’s resolution, but keep it career-related, I thought I’d do a little research first. According to the website Statistic Brain, the most popular resolution was to lose weight. (I think they are trying to tell me something.) The second most popular was “Getting Organized.” Third was “Spend Less, Save More.”
Organize Your Job Search With These Tools
While I can’t help you with the weight loss, (actually, I did major in Dietetics, so I should be able to, but I’ll stick to careers) I can help you with staying organized and spending less on your career management or job search.
Here are some great job search tools to help you keep your thoughts straight for little or no cost when it comes to your career.
1. Evernote
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!
With this website, you can create “notes” within a “notebook” and further organize these into a “stack.” As a job seeker, you could have stacks like “Career Documents,” “Employers,” “Social Media,” and so on.
Within the “Career Documents,” you have a notebook with versions of
your resume, another with cover letters, reference dossiers, and any other categories of correspondence. Start an “Atta Girl” or “Atta Boy” note with testimonials from performance reviews or
your boss or stats from projects you worked on for inclusion on your resume.
Within
Employers, start a notebook for each company on your target list. Notes might be: “Website Notes,” “Networking Contacts,” and “Financials,” for example. The possibilities are endless!
It’s pretty slick, and you can tag each note with keywords, so it’s easier to search for them than to find that old Post-It you scribbled on six months ago.
2. Jibber Jobber
This website has a funny name, but a seriously bad-ass capability to manage relationships, companies, and processes for your job search. Plus, the free version will keep all of your contacts and information indefinitely, so it’s available to you for your next search.
Jibber Jobber allows you to import social media contacts, keep detailed notes about the relationship, develop action items, and link them to your target companies. With video tutorials, webinars, and a great FAQ, it’s easy to learn and implement right away.
3. Doodle
Not the drawings you do in a meeting when you’re bored, but a tech-savvy way to set up networking meetings and keep yourself sane while doing it. Pick some times that are good for you to meet for coffee with your contact, set up a poll on Doodle, invite the participants, and confirm the final date and time.
Compared to emailing back and forth multiple times to set up meetings, it’s amazingly simple. Especially when multiple people are involved.
4. Dropbox
I don’t know what I’d do without this service. It gives me access to all of my files, audios, and images on my desktop, laptop, iPad, and phone. I can share stuff with people without having to e-mail it. Google Drive is great, too, but I prefer the layout of Dropbox and the ability to restore previous versions of documents.
5. Behance
Wow. Just wow. This website blew me away when I learned about it last week on a webinar about LinkedIn. Here’s what you do: create a project on this site (I’ll write another blog about it soon; stay tuned!) Then, paste the URL for the project into the boxes below your summary section on LinkedIn. Check mine out
here.
This is a great way to showcase your work, engage your audience, and build your brand on LinkedIn.
6. Toodledo
I might not know how to pronounce this one, but I do know that it is a powerful way to ensure that you get things done. It is probably the most powerful to-do list out there. As much as I love Evernote, it doesn’t integrate with Google or iCal, and Toodledo does.
Know you need to get some accomplishments organized for your resume writer? Procrastinate no more! Plug the task, the time you estimate it will take, and your deadline in to Toodledo and you will be reminded to make the time.
Use alerts to monitor your online presence, news or job postings from your target employer, or other mentions of positions you are looking to apply for online. Using quotations (“) around the words will help you to receive information that is more relevant.
Getting this information automatically sent to your inbox is much more time-efficient than conducting manual searches. It’s like having a virtual assistant do it for you!
Each and every one of these services is FREE. Evernote and Dropbox do have “Premium” versions with more capability and storage for only $10/month.
Get your career organized on a budget by trying one of them today!
Have one you like that I forgot to mention? Tell me about it in the comments.Photo Credit: Shutterstock
