Job Search in the The ‘Hidden’ Job Market

Here are six smart strategies to help you find out about “hidden jobs” by improving your networking skills, leveraging technology and expanding your reach.

1. Change the way you network

If you want to crack the hidden job market, you’ve got to be smarter about the way you connect with people with inside knowledge about unposted openings.

2. Join a professional networking group

Your fellow job seekers can sometimes be the best resources for learning about employers who are likely to hire. Most are eager to share their knowledge, knowing that others in the same boat will share in return. (The exception: when two people are looking for the same position, at the same level, in the same geographic area.)

3. Contact employers directly

I’m continually amazed by how rarely people reach out to people at places they’d like to work unless they see positions advertised there.

4. Sign up for Google News Alerts

One of the best ways to learn about hidden jobs is to stay up-to-date with prospective employers. This way, you’ll be among the first to know when one, say, leases additional office space, signs a big partnership deal or receives a new round of funding — all signs that the firm or nonprofit might soon be hiring.

Google News Alerts make it easy to do this.

5. Attend a conference

Trade shows and conventions are ideal places to mine the hidden job market.

6. Finally, if you like your current employer but not your particular job, snoop around at work 

There could be a terrific opportunity in another department.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via 6 Ways To Crack The ‘Hidden’ Job Market – Forbes.