What am I doing to find my “dream” job.

My LinkedIn Profile Picture. Yay or Nay?

I check into LinkedIn daily. There isn’t a lot going on, but I make a point to read and “Like” at least one post every morning. It is an easy task. There is no shortage of interesting and useful bloggers on Linkedin. As I said in my last post, Liz Ryan is my favorite InFluencer. She publishes a new post about twice a week. Another easy “Like” is to follow companies in your industry that you respect. Following a company like The Integer Group means I am informed about marketing trends and research. Consumer research is invaluable no matter your industry, so check them out and give them a thumbs up for me.

I currently follow over 60 companies including NCSL and Karsh Hagan Advertising Agency who actively use LinkedIn to promote opportunities within the company. If I apply for a company that I am not currently following, I immediately add them to my list. I find this is a good way to connect with my future co-workers and investigate the company culture and persona.

Instead of searching for jobs on Monster.com, I check out the career pages of the companies I am interested in. I am much more interested in where I work and who I work for than finding a particular job title. This method has led me to about 5 new job listings a week, but up until this week I had no way to verify my progress.

This week I created a Microsoft Excel document (inspired by this one I found on Career Geek) to track my application status. This document tracks information like: where I found the job, the company and position I applied for, the resume file I applied with (because I have 3 different resumes according to job type), the salary offered (if listed), a link to the job listing, the date I applied, and who to contact. I also track (or will hopefully track soon) the response to my resume, the interview stage, interview information, and job offers which will be flooding in soon.

I will report my progress in my last post before graduation.

Thanks,

Tamara