Read The Paper, But Not The Want Ads

Here are 3 ways to locate job openings using free resources at your disposal.

 

I interviewed Bob Picha, founder of San-Diego-based Ideas At Work, a company dedicated to the release of human potential in individuals and organizations.

 

Based on 30 years of career-consulting experience, Bob’s insights are sure to surprise – and more importantly – help you find a job faster.

 

Research is your first step in ferreting out job openings. And since almost everyone gets a daily newspaper, why not start there? But don’t spend a lot of time on the want ads, advises Picha.

 

“I take an indirect approach in looking for companies that might be hiring. For example, I skimmed today’s Wall Street Journal and found these tidbits: 

“Toyota now wants 15% of global market share, which means they’ll be expanding worldwide and perhaps hiring locally; 
“China is buying $1.2 billion in telecom equipment from Lucent and Motorola, which points to both firms needing new personnel; 
“Earnings for Cendant rose 19%, so they may be hiring …

 

“The list goes on,” says Picha.

 

Two more ways to use the newspaper to uncover expanding businesses are: 

Monitor the business section for firms signing new commercial leases, a sure sign of a need for increased capacity, and
Look for companies receiving venture capital -- since it’s so difficult to get these days, such firms are likely to have a viable business model … and a need for new employees.

 

 

Action Step: With a little digging, you can uncover the employment clues that point you toward companies in need of new employees. And you’ll have almost NO competition, since 99% of job hunters look only to the help-wanted ads when they read the newspaper.

Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for job hunters blog and download the free audio CD.