A Bigger (Better) Job Search

Career Toolbox Series: Career Shift
Written by Thien Van Tran
Part of the Career Toolbox Series

So let's say you missed out on the Career Expo, several networking events, info sessions at Toppel, and other related conferences. What do you do now? Panic. Go crazy. Straight up Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. You simply look elsewhere. Most people, myself included, will tell you that scouring the internet for potential jobs is one of the most ineffective ways to actually land an interview. There are so many job search engines that millions of people have access to, so you have to compete with all of them. However, there are a number of specific websites that are worthy of your time. The one I will discuss today is CareerShift. This is a job search / job management tool that not many people have access to, since there is a pretty significant monthly fee you must pay in order to be a member. But, for a limited time only, if you call in the next ten minutes, if you are a student at the University of Miami, it is offered at no charge!! The school sponsors your membership, so I highly recommend that you take advantage of this resource. And let me tell you, it is the for-real deal. A few of the most useful components are highlighted below.

My Jobs

Seeing as this is a "private" website, you may be wondering, "how many jobs are on there exactly?" Well it's most likely somewhere between 50 and all of them. But I'm just guesstimating here.

Spongebob: Wow, look at all these mattresses. How many do you think there are?

Patrick: Ten.

CareerShift's job search tool returns results that pull from almost every career site and job board available, including company websites. The good thing is, you can perform your search based on keywords, company, area, job type (full-time, part-time, etc.), salary estimate, source, relevance, and date, in order to provide a concise set of links. However, if you want a broad scope of available jobs, you can also just type in a keyword and leave everything else blank. So is it better to perform a very narrow search rather than a broad search? I think we all know the answer to that: MAYBE!

Now let's suppose that you don't have time to apply to all of these jobs that come up in your search. Maybe you're too overwhelmed with the website's sheer awesomeness. Maybe you're too busy feeding your parrot. Whatever it may be, do not worry. You can save these jobs to your account so that you can come back later!

My Contacts

 If you've ever been interested in working at a certain company but believed that it was out of reach, welcome to the club! You don't know where to start, since this company doesn't recruit on campus, or is in a different region of the country. Well the CareerShift contacts search allows you to search for contacts using criteria such as: contact name, company name, area, industry, and position. Ain't that fabulous? Now, I must warn you that this is a professional tool for finding professional contacts. I'm not saying you'll take advantage of it and harass some hiring manager or try to find out what your ex has been up to which, fyi, does not work. But I'm sure you know there are those among us who are citizens of Crazytown. Me? I'm the Mayor.

My Documents

Everyone knows that in order to make sure your resume is always relevant and up to date, you have to constantly revise it, or tailor it specifically for various job applications. Keeping track of all these different versions of your resumes, cover letters, transcripts, etc. can be a bit confusing. Luckily, you can upload these documents, as well as compose some new ones with the online tools, right on the CareerShift website! You can then access your documents from any computer that has access to the internet. It's pretty great. But hey, don't take my word for it just because I have some serious street cred, try it out yourself.