Chapter Conducting a Savvy, Balanced Job Search

Finding new job opportunities used to be a simple one–step process. All you had to do was open your local paper to its classifieds section. But things change and today 80 to 93 percent of all job vacancies never appear in your local newspaper.

During the 1980s employers finally realized that their ads in the local newspaper were generating far too many job applications from unqualified applicants. Since somebody on the payroll had to spend time looking at all these applications, employers sought venues to advertise their vacancies that would attract applications from a more qualified pool of aspirants.

The result has been a booming world of sources for job vacancies including job hotlines, specialty and trade magazines, Internet job and resume databases, job–listing periodicals, and job–matching services. Networking and “cold–calling” have also become valuable job search techniques. If you want to find a great job quickly, you’ll conduct what we call a “savvy, balanced job search” that utilizes at least three or four different job hunting techniques at the same time.

While the media has been falling all over itself to tout the hot, sexy Internet, job hotlines continue to be one of the most overlooked, albeit reliable and easiest ways to find job openings at specific companies, schools, universities, non–profits, and local, state, and federal government agencies. While the media focuses on the Internet, job hotlines have become the Rodney Dangerfield of job sources: they don’t get no respect.

You will find every type of job on an employer’s job hotline, from the secretaries who really make a corporation succeed on a daily basis to the CEOs who delude themselves into thinking they are solely responsible for their companies’ achievements.

Job hotlines are a key element in conducting a savvy, balanced job quest thanks in large part to their reliability and low cost to the job seeker. When you call a job hotline, you hear a recording that gives you details on specific job openings and how to apply for them. Some job hotlines are very sophisticated, and nearly all require that you call from a touch tone phone. Others are quite rudimentary and can be reached using a rotary phone. The National Job Hotline Directory delivers to you over 6,500 of these job hotlines for companies, governments, non–profits, and educational institutions in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada.

 The phone numbers listed in this book are the homes of each company’s job hotline. They open the opportunity to apply for thousands of jobs. In most cases they operate 24–hours a day, seven days a week so you can call from the comfort of your easy chair. They are particularly valuable if you are relocating and you want to get a head start on your search in your new area and secure a new position before you move.

This chapter explains why job hotlines came about, how to use them most effectively, and other techniques you should use in addition to job hotlines to achieve a successful savvy, balanced job search. If you pay attention to the suggestions offered in this chapter, the National Job Hotline Directory will lead you to a treasure trove of excellent employment opportunities that are available each and every day.

Why Job Hotlines?

Massive downsizing continues unabated even though tough economic times have been replaced by the strongest economy in decades. The Human Resources, or Personnel Department, is one of the most vulnerable departments during downsizing and belt–tightening. Responsible for employee selection, record keeping, health and welfare, workman’s compensation, compliance with government rules and regulations, and advertising and filling vacant positions, this department is a catchall for all the things no one else wants to do and is often the first to lose personnel in a downsizing. Decision makers view Human Resources as not producing the company’s product, and they target it for personnel and budget cuts when trying to cut operating costs.

To respond to these manpower and budget cuts, Human Resource Directors had to identify ways to cut expenses. They realized that their employees spent hours on the telephone talking to potential job applicants. Frequent calls from completely unqualified people took valuable time from other duties in the Human Resource Department.

There had to be a better way to tell callers about job openings than to tie up the time of human resource employees. The job hotline fit the bill!

An employer does not have to spend a lot of money to establish and maintain a job hotline system. The answering equipment can often be purchased for less than $500. Usually only one dedicated telephone line is needed. It can take as little as one hour a week to add new job openings and remove filled positions. In addition, the employer cuts down on interruptions of other duties by hundreds of inquiry calls each week and is able to disseminate detailed information about job vacancies without the higher cost of advertising them. For the potential employee the benefits are also quite substantial.

Job hotlines give you the convenience of job hunting from the comfort of home at any hour of the day or night. You can  access  job descriptions at an employer that interests you. A job hotline that is well–operated will actually answer many of the questions you have about a specific job and how to apply for it. You save time and money by targeting those employers for which you wish to work.

We do not pretend that job hotlines are the only tool available for finding a job. Job hotlines are just one of several different job–finding tools that you should use as part of a savvy, balanced job quest. Their advantages have been recounted for you earlier in this chapter. Just be sure to use several job–search techniques in conjunction with job hotlines to substantially increase your chances of landing the job you want where you wish to live.

This chapter continues with the following sections:

Click here to continue with “Elements of a Savvy, Balanced Job Search.”

Click here to skip to “Preparing to Use This Directory.”

Click here to skip to “Using This Directory Effectively.”

Click here to skip to “Pre–Call Check List.”

Click here to return to the National Job Hotline Directory starting page.