When Doug Peifer, of Ephrata, lost his controller's job last year after the closure of United Sleep Products, it had been 23 years since he'd had to look for work.
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A lot had changed in how people search for jobs in that time.
A year and more than two dozen interviews later, Peifer is still searching, but along the way he's learned to use several new tools to help him find employment.
He has a page on
LinkedIn, the Internet site for professional networking, and resumés on the job search sites
Monster.com,
CareerBuilder.com,
Indeed.com and
LancJobs.com.
LancJobs.com is the employment section of Lancaster Newspapers' Internet site,
LancasterOnline.com.
Peifer has also become practiced at the art of e-mail applications and has joined BENG, the Business Executive Networking Group for central Pennsylvania.
"It has been a very long process, especially for someone like me," Peifer said. "I was used to staying busy all day."
By contrast, Catherine Swisher, also of Ephrata, has been unemployed less than two months and is still gearing up to use all the current job-seeking tools.
Swisher had worked for Sovereign Bank for 8½ years before accepting a voluntary separation package after the bank's takeover by Banco Santander of Spain.
She said her computer skills are pretty much limited to what the bank taught her for her job in collections, but she's bought a book on computer basics and enlisted the help of family members to set up a personal e-mail account.
More to doThere are still more tools that both Peifer and Swisher could be using in their job searches, local employment experts say.
"Anyone looking [for a job] should have at least a LinkedIn and Facebook account," said Scott Fiore, vice president of TriStarr Staffing, 2201 Oregon Pike.
Fiore's firm held a seminar a few months ago focusing on just that topic — using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn for job searches.
He said the free seminar drew a good cross section of people, but he was surprised given all the recent layoffs that attendance wasn't even larger.
He said he thinks job seekers aren't aware of how many companies have begun looking up applicants on social networking sites as part of their screening process.
"I can't give you a number" on how many employers are doing this, Fiore said, "but I can tell you it's way more than people think."
Companies want to see that the people they plan to hire "have friends, that they have family and are somewhat normal," he said.
And not having a social networking profile can flag a job candidate as being out of touch with the times.
Fiore advises people to learn how to set up groups and use privacy settings to control how much of their postings can be viewed by the uninvited.
"I can't tell you how many times we've seen some really ridiculous things" job applicants have posted on the Internet, Fiore said.
People should also be using social networking sites to scout out potential employers, he said.
Look for local people in your profession and contact them to see what they say about their employers, Fiore said. Often, you can get a sense of who's hiring and who's not, and which firms are good places to work at and which are not.
Sometimes, people will also be willing to tell you the best way of landing a job where they work.
Trudi Doubleday, of Lancaster, said she's been using her Facebook account in her search for a job in public administration.
Doubleday resigned from her job with Lancaster County in January to accept a conditional offer from the federal government. When the new job fell through, it put her back in the job market, she said.
Facebook "helps me keep in touch with a lot of my colleagues," she said.
Companies post tooMany companies are beginning to set up their own accounts on social networking sites as another avenue for communicating with customers and other businesses.
Bryan Coe, of Lancaster, started Blackbird e-Solutions four years ago to help those companies.
Although most of his clients are businesses, he said, he can also assist individuals.
Later this month, Coe plans to do a series of Webinars to teach people about using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for business.
People can register, for a $29 fee, for the online training sessions at his Web site
http://blackbirdesolutions.com.
"There isn't one network out there that you should be on exclusively," Coe said.
Although MySpace was once the most popular social-networking site, he said, it's been overtaken by Facebook, which is better for professional networking because the profiles are always set up the same.
Twitter, where people can post short messages, is still evolving, particularly as an aid to business, Coe said, but companies have begun posting jobs there and people can interact with prospective employers using the site.
LinkedIn started out as a place for people to post resumés, Coe said, but it has been adding features along the way, including groups and applications.
"I would recommend that people get involved with LinkedIn answers," he said.
It's a part of the site where people can post and answer business questions, and it's organized by categories and subcategories so a person can burrow down to his professional niche.
Providing solutions for posted questions is a way job seekers can show off their level of expertise to prospective employers, Coe said.
Government support"Even in the stodgy old state system," new tools have been developed to aid job searches, said Scott Sheely, executive director of the county's Workforce Investment Board.
For instance, when job seekers register at CareerLink of Lancaster County, the computer form they fill out generates resumés for them and sends the information to employers looking for people with their skills, he said.
Career Link also subscribes to a data-mining service called EmployOn, which searches the Internet for job postings, many of them on companies' internal Web sites for jobs that haven't been advertised publicly.
Each month, the service provides a listing of nearby jobs for the previous month, all organized by category.
Last month, for instance, there were 323 companies trying to fill 2,475 jobs within 30 miles of Lancaster.
CareerLink can also use the service to look for postings that match the skill set of a particular job seeker in its Job Club.
Tried and trueDespite the surge in new job-seeking tools, employment counselors advise people not to overlook other ways of finding work.
"What I've tried to counsel people is to take advantage of all the tools you can," TriStarr's Fiore said. "They can't forget the more traditional methods. ...
"Don't neglect newspaper classified ads," he said. Keep making phone calls, and remind your friends and family to keep checking their employers' job boards for you.
"Don't be ashamed you lost your job," Fiore said. "Let everyone you know, know you're looking for a job."
Then, there are the "don'ts."
Sheely said he's heard a lot of human resource people talk about the number of inappropriate resumés they receive.
He said he saw that firsthand when the Workforce Investment Board used some of the economic stimulus money it received to expand CareerLink's Job Club and hire four new counselors.
"We received 100 to 150 applications, and many of them were inappropriate," he said.
Fiore agrees.
"Please, please, please tell people why you're sending them a resumé," he said.
Then there are the typos and misspellings. Don't just trust the computer's spell-check to catch all your mistakes, Fiore said. Proofread what you're sending out and have someone else double-check it for you.
Also, avoid fluff. Statistically, Fiore said, about half the resumés companies receive contain exaggerations.
"When they get an honest one, and a good one, it tends to stand out," he said.
And "be careful with your follow-up," Fiore said. "Don't be a stalker. That turns people off pretty quickly."
And finally, do try to find a group of people in the same boat you're in to give you advice and assistance.
"In technology, we always talk about how high-tech and high-touch go together," Sheely said. Joining a group can provide the high-touch to go along with today's high-tech job-search tools.
In this economy, it's become very difficult finding a job, Sheely said, and that's going to take an emotional toll. Being around other people going through the same process can help you maintain a positive attitude.
Dennis Larison is editor of the business section and can be reached by telephone at 291-8753 or by e-mail at dlarison@lnpnews.com.
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