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How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

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Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#31

Post by wtvanhest »

mooreds wrote: post #17

Uh, so the answer to 'how to find the unadvertised job' is 'look at company websites' or 'do google searches'? I haven't been in the job market for years, so I don't have a great answer, but these seem pretty weak ways to find jobs that aren't advertised, because, if they are on company websites or available via Taleo, they are advertised. How about: * research a company, find out their biggest problem (competitive r…

"* offer to work for free (if you can afford it)"

I know there are stories where working for free is a good strategy, but they are vastly outnumbered by stories where not working for free was the best option.

I'd argue against it unless you have a really, really, really good reason to work for a specific organization for free.

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#32

Post by mdturnerphys »

lukeschlather wrote: post #25
bhassel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

quick fix to make it readable on firefox, I right-clicked on the paragraph -> Inspect Element, selected the div.single-content and removed the "float:left" CSS rule.

View -> page style -> no style. One of my favorite features.

That's awesome. Thanks!

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#33

Post by mooreds »

wtvanhest wrote: post #31
mooreds wrote: post #17

Uh, so the answer to 'how to find the unadvertised job' is 'look at company websites' or 'do google searches'? I haven't been in the job market for years, so I don't have a great answer, but these seem pretty weak ways to find jobs that aren't advertised, because, if they are on company websites or available via Taleo, they are advertised. How about: * research a company, find out their biggest problem (competitive r…

"* offer to work for free (if you can afford it)" I know there are stories where working for free is a good strategy, but they are vastly outnumbered by stories where not working for free was the best option. I'd argue against it unless you have a really, really, really good reason to work for a specific organization for free.

I think you are correct. One reason I worked for free for an organization was that it was in an entirely different space than my previous experience, and I wanted to know more about it. Other good reasons to work for free: * gain skills * meet people

But you definitely want to be careful and limit it, otherwise you'll get taken advantage of. It's very similar to offering a free software service--often you don't know if what you have is valuable until people start paying for it.

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#34

Post by burnerphone44 »

motters wrote: post #14

At least within the area of the UK which I lived in until recently the idea that there are lots of unadvertised jobs is a myth. When I was unemployed I did the experiment of applying both via "the usual channels" and also speculatively based upon fairly elaborate analysis to try to identify suitable organisations. The number of "conversions" - which means inquiries turning into job interviews - was vastly higher for…

Obviously, companies advertising a job are more likely to have a job; this does not nearly imply the converse (that a majority of jobs are advertised).

Your experience might also reflect the type of job you were looking for. For a job with a large pool of potentially compatible employees that advertising gave me easy access to, it would be prudent to advertise.

Finally, I could offer anecdotal data in the opposite direction.

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#35

Post by moron4hire »

auctiontheory wrote: post #13
Theodores wrote: post #5

Isn't it better to let a recruitment company do the hard work for you? In a technical job market there are recruitment consultants that know all of the companies, what might work for you and where there might be a need. In my experience they do provide a very good service. However, we tend to dislike them when they are not needed so we might overlook them as our first point of call.

Isn't it better to let a recruitment company do the hard work for you? If you want to entrust your professional future to someone who doesn't understand the work you do and whose interests aren't necessarily aligned with yours, sure. Recruiters aren't all bad - they can be one prong of your job-search strategy. (I just found a great startup job through a recruiter.) But don't put them in charge. And read Ask The Head…

"Recruiters aren't all bad"

I keep hearing it, but I haven't really ever seen it.

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#36

Post by jeza »

praptak wrote: post #18

" When you see a job posted on (insert leading job board name here) somebody paid to have it advertised there. You know where it’s free for a company to post all of their jobs? Come on, guess… If you suspected a company’s own careers website, you would be correct!" If somebody paid for it recently, it is a strong signal they really have an opening. Jobs on companies' own sites might only be there to: a) show to custo…

Unless it's an ad from a recruitment agency. While I'm certain that recruitment agency ads do often advertise real jobs, there are instances where I'm pretty sure there are other recruitment agencies that advertise fake positions. They are then used to collect CVs of the applicants so they have a database of candidates which they can use if an employer asks for someone for another position.

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#37

Post by auctiontheory »

moron4hire wrote: post #35
auctiontheory wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it better to let a recruitment company do the hard work for you? If you want to entrust your professional future to someone who doesn't understand the work you do and whose interests aren't necessarily aligned with yours, sure. Recruiters aren't all bad - they can be one prong of your job-search strategy. (I just found a great startup job through a recruiter.) But don't put them in charge. And read Ask The Head…

"Recruiters aren't all bad" I keep hearing it, but I haven't really ever seen it.

Recruiting is a huge industry. They are obviously not all bad or useless.

Most small companies simply cannot afford to employ a full-time in-house recruiter. If you were running a startup, with a thousand things to do daily, you too would outsource the basic search and screening function.

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#38

Post by auctiontheory »

motters wrote: post #14

At least within the area of the UK which I lived in until recently the idea that there are lots of unadvertised jobs is a myth. When I was unemployed I did the experiment of applying both via "the usual channels" and also speculatively based upon fairly elaborate analysis to try to identify suitable organisations. The number of "conversions" - which means inquiries turning into job interviews - was vastly higher for…

You misunderstand how "unadvertised jobs" work. They are "sold" through word of mouth. Unless you're within the employer's personal network - and your message does not indicate it - you'd never find out. Your speculative inquiry would not get a response because they don't know you, and they prefer to give the job to someone who comes with a referral.

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#39

Post by Istof »

hartror wrote: post #23
funky_lambda wrote: post #2

Well this is unfortunate: http://i.imgur.com/41Yn4ye.png

Same here Firefox 26.0 Ubuntu 12.04. This is why I have Evernote Clearly installed: http://evernote.com/clearly/

You can also use a bookmarklet like these https://www.readability.com/bookmarklets

Re: How To Find Unadvertised Jobs

#40

Post by rahimnathwani »

motters wrote: post #27
ig1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think your methodology was a good one for finding the unadvertised jobs ? Plenty of unadvertised jobs will go through networks, word-of-mouth and personal recommendation - obviously cold-calling wouldn't give you good results in such cases. Generally it's estimated that roughly 40% [for 2009-2010] of jobs are unadvertised, and that's calculated using US BLS data ( http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.…

I think my methods were good. They were based on data mining company information for all companies registered with Companies House, such as changes in numbers of employees, net worth, main products and the like. I tried to apply scientific method to the task of finding employment. If the unadvertised jobs cannot be detected by any empirical evidence then I would suggest that they be treated like other mythological ph…

Where did you obtain data about 'changes in numbers of employees' for 'all companies registered with Companies House'?

I'm genuinely curious about where to access that data, because AFAIK employee data doesn't exist in either of the regular statutory filings collected by Companies House (the Annual Return (AR01) and the annual accounts).

HMRC _does_ have that data (as it's included in the P35 Employer Annual Return) but I'm not aware of any way to access it.

Similarly, the best data I've seen on 'main products' for _all_ UK companies is the SIC code, which isn't particularly specific.

I'd appreciate any pointers to accessing the data you described (changes in # of employee; main products) for all UK-registered companies.

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