If you’re hoping to take advantage of the great resignation, an undergraduate or graduate student/alum beginning their job search, or just in the market for a new job, it’s important to have a clear strategy and vision for what you want to achieve, and the types of roles you are looking for. However, just as your strategy may have evolved in 2021, so too have the tools to find and land a job. While having a goal and vision is critical to job search success, there are plenty of resources out there to help you land that next role.
Here are some of the best resources to get your job search on the fast track.
#1) Diversity Recruitment Platforms
Companies are starting to make diverse candidate hiring a priority and hiring platforms are starting to take notice. As a result, a number of diversity-focused and digital first job platforms are emerging, allowing employers to promote themselves to a diverse audience of candidates and candidates to engage through content, events and ultimately, job postings. One example is Canvas. Canvas aims to be a diversity recruitment platform for early career professionals. The main features it touts tend to be focused on providing recruiters and talent acquisition professionals with deep analytical data to make diverse hiring decisions, but on the job seeker side has a series of features including function and role based communities as well as events and content.
How you can benefit: Check out platforms like Canvas, WayUp, and sign up and register for their platform. Many of these platforms not only have job postings, but events where you can engage directly with employers.
#2: Career Communities of Practice (CCOPs)
Job searches can be incredibly lonely for job seekers. You are going on this solo quest most of the time without feeling like you can tell your manager or teammates. One of the benefits of college and graduate programs (ex: Business or Law School) is that you have a cohort of peers who are more or less going through the same things with you. Basketball requires 5 players on the court (and 7 on the bench + a coaching staff) to win a game. Golf requires one. Job searching is meant to be like basketball, not golf.
Enter job search communities. These communities, generally organized around a common function, industry or thread, leverage many existing principles of community organizations such as professional associations on industries. What’s different about these is that many of these organizations are digital-first, and in many cases, the people within them never meet in-person.
Tech Pod – Started by Joseph Choi, a University of Michigan Alum, is a community for internships and job seekers looking to break into business roles at tech companies (non-technical roles) In addition to hosting virtual events (how to network, get hired, ace the interview) posting content on social media and sharing a weekly newsletter, they also have monetized to fund their community through sponsored job posts from employers.
Product Buds – Started by Grace Yeung, at the time an aspiring product manager curious about breaking into product management, Product Buds is a digital-first community of aspiring product managers and designers. With offerings including a book club, hackathon and interview prep courses, thousands of students and early in career professionals come together to explore the field of product management.
How you can benefit: Look for digital online communities on LinkedIn as well as other digital channels (ex: Slack, Discord, Twitter) to find a community that aligns with your interests, or a group of people who you want to collaborate with.
#3: Job and Career Influencers and SMEs
Just like there are influencers for products and brands, there are also job and career search influencers. Many of these individuals went through challenging job searches or come from an HR or talent background and have built up an audience on specific platforms (LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram to name a few) to engage directly with their audience. In addition to free content, many have monetized offerings similar to a career coach or career coaching model.
How you can benefit: Follow some job and career influencers and engage with them on your channel of choice. While many are on Linkedin, there are others on YouTube, TikTok, Clubhouse, Twitter, and many others. Here are a few examples to get started:
- Jonathan Javier and Jerry Lee – Founders of Wonsulting who have a following across LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok
- Jennifer Fink – a former Career Management Leader at Duke, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and the UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business, Jenni also runs Fink Development, a Career Coaching and Professional Development Company.
- Elizabeth Morgan – A former Google recruiter that provides job and career search tips
- Lizzie Ann Jones – an MBA student at Rice University, Founder of Hey Lizzie Ann, and former recruiter at Amazon/Expedia
- Austin Belcak – Founder of Cultivated Culture and Host of the Dream Job System Podcast, Austin does LinkedIn Live sessions and regularly shares career advice on LinkedIn.
#4: Niche Job and Hiring Markets
Hiring aggregation sites and large job platforms give you ample options, and new age digital platforms streamline the user experience and provide better ways for employers to engage. But for some hiring managers, they need something more specific to find the right candidate for the right job.
Professional associations and industry trade organizations have always been resources for helping qualified professionals seek the information and guidance to land jobs. However, a new crop of professional organizations that were born “digital first” are cropping up. For these organizations, many of them offer job search support, hiring help and interview prep as features of a broader set of offerings. (training and credentialing, thought leadership and best practices, benchmarking ,etc)
One example of this is the Product Marketing Alliance – Started by Richard King and Josie King, PMA aims to be the industry source for Product Marketing Professionals Globally. In addition to providing its members with training, certifications, virtual and live events, they also have a 20,000 person slack channel with a dedicated channel just for hiring and posting jobs.
How you can benefit: Look for industry associations that are relevant to the specific role, or function you are interested in. For example, Product Manager HQ and Product School are great examples for job seekers interested in Product Management.
#5: New Ways to Network
We all still use LinkedIn for keeping in touch with our colleagues and connections and for searching and reaching out to potential contacts, but newer forms of networking through channels and technologies have emerged with the sole focus of helping professionals navigate job searches and professional development. A special focus of many of these is on helping provide equitable access to resources and opportunities for underserved populations. For example, Chief aims to help promote more women into leadership roles and The Equity Network aims to help underrepresented populations access mentors and experts to help them navigate their careers.
How you can benefit: Look for companies and programs like Chief, The Equity Network, and The Six Degrees Society to build relationships and get career advice in your job search.