Jennifer B. Davis
There are a number of folks I know who are actively looking for a new job. I have heard about a number of new tools and sites that might be worth checking out. If you also think of HR staffing as a marketing job (ie, finding prospects, convincing them to apply, educating them, etc), these might also be inspirations for other types of recruitment efforts.

Finding a Position

There are always Monster.com and the local newspaper (yawn!). There are jobs available from your network on LinkedIn. There are some categories of jobs posted on TheLadders, SixFigureJobs, and NotchUp, where you get paid to interview and have to be invited (send me your email). Better yet, just tell your friends, former colleagues, or even your boss that you are looking for a new challenge and, as they say, let the universe raise up the resources you need.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...what about a video?

My Mom tells me that when she graduated from college, she got professional pictures taken to attach to every resume she sent out. These were the days before paralyzing political correctness and apparently employers wanted to see your pearly whites before they gave you a call. Now, technology is enabling the same sort of thing, but even more so. Beyond the pictures on Plaxo or your Facebook page, prospective employees, can post there video resumes several places (including VideoJobShop or CareerTours) or post taped responses to interview questions at HireVue. Now, before you rush out to do a video resume, read this helpful article from Dice.

Conversely, employers can now post videos to VideoJobShop or CareerTours describing the work and benefits they offer (something that many people have done on their own career/jobs pages for a while). They can create more rich-media job listings at StandoutJobs. I would highly recommend HR professionals and recruiters read this article from Penelope Trunk before taping their videos. You might include some things like a commercial for the hiring manager, an action movie style trailer of career path options at your company, and find ways to get your videos out on the web in more places.

Profiles and Resumes

So, let's say you are old school and don't want to record an amateurish video resume. There are lots of places that you can go to create profiles, post resume highlights or details, and actively network with potential employers. These include some of my favorites like LinkedIn (my profile is at www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferbdavis), FaceBook, MySpace, and other social networks (TechCrunch has a list that I think is over 40 different companies that allow you to build your own social network if you haven't found one you like).

You can create/update your automatically generated profile at ZoomInfo. People search sites are becoming more and more popular with folks link Wink, Spock, and BigSight.org, who claims to be the world's largest people directory (they tap into FaceBook data). There are other ideas on how to get your name "out there" on this previous post.

You could always write an ebook on a topic that you consider yourself an expert (or at least better than average) and start your own viral marketing campaign.

Doin' Your Homework

So, now you can find compensation profiles for positions you might be considering at PayScale, SalaryScout, or Salary.com. PayScale has a new service called GigZig which tracks the career paths of folks applying for or getting the jobs that you might be interested in. Very interesting, especially if you want to tune your resume to the sweet spot of the position or highlight something that may set you apart from the masses. What is telling is that in most of the searches I did for CEO positions, the most popular title held 5 years ago was also a CEO. The more specific the title (ie, Vice President of Marketing and Communications versus the more generic VP of Marketing) made it harder to create a path to senior level positions. This might be a data tabulation problem or a larger issue on career diversification and specialization.

Even more research should be done before you head out on your entrepreneurial own.

Your Dream Job

If you are considering a change, you might want to read this article by Brian Kurth, author of Test Drive Your Dream Job and founder of Vocation Vacations. Has some great ideas to expand the range of things you might be thinking about. I have long thought that most people wait for permission to get the "dream job" they want, when indeed more things are within a person's own control than they might realize.
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