Feral Jundi

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Job Tips: Using RSS Readers For Job Hunting

Filed under: Blogs,Job Tips — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 10:37 AM

When it comes to looking for security contracting jobs, you need all the help you can get for staying up to date with what jobs are out there. You also need to be able to react quickly to job announcements. So any tools and procedures that can help you do that, should definitely be used for your job search strategy.

Now of course there are the basic methods that most guys use, like perusing the forums/FB groups, signing up for job list subscriptions, asking around within their networks (personal and online), and checking out the various job boards/career pages and sites. But when it comes to doing a search efficiently and with speed, it can be kind of time consuming.

The other factor is that some job announcements operate on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis. I can recount at least two of my contracts that I got, purely  because I answered the job ad so fast. Recruiters, if presented a large pool of candidates that are generally the same, will often just go down the list as they get those submissions. And if those recruiters are on a tight schedule where they have to deploy guys ‘yesterday’, then they have no time to waste. They just go right down the list and start calling and emailing folks. So it pays to be quick on the draw when it comes finding jobs and responding to them.

So how do I make this process faster and more efficient? Well one tool I use is called an RSS reader.(Specifically one made by Feedly) RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is a tool that bloggers/journalists/researchers use to receive and process lots of information with. And the really cool thing about an RSS reader is that you can set them up to give you updates as they are sent out by the various blogs and sites. Meaning as soon as someone posts something, it is sent out immediately to the RSS feed, which if you have that RSS feed link in your RSS reader, then you will get that post.

How does this apply to job searches? Well, next time you are at a jobs website or a career page, look for a little graphic in the corner or somewhere on the page that says RSS. They will look like these icons.(see top graphic)

Put your cursor over it and copy it. Then paste that link into your RSS reader search engine, and when it comes up, put it in a category that is applicable. When I find a cool jobs RSS related feed or interesting website, I will put it into my Feedly RSS reader. I set my reader to update immediately.

What happens next is that every time that site posts a new job, that post is sent out to all of the RSS feeds. Meaning you will get that job posting as soon as it is posted, and you will see it in your RSS reader just waiting to be read. What is even cooler is that you can set up an RSS reader on your smart phone or tablet, and check your reader on the go.

I find myself checking my Feedly online and on my smart phone all the time. But if I do not check it and mark it as ‘read’, then it just stays in the hopper until I do read it. So if I am away for awhile or do not have access to the internet, I will still have a nice collection of materials to read at my leisure. You can keep all those posts in your reader as well and just mark them as read. I don’t delete that stuff because sometimes I will go back and re-read stuff.

You can also share those posts on social media, or do emails, thanks to the tabs included with most readers. I do this every day for blogging and social media sharing, and it is how I keep up to date with the news of the industry. It is also how I keep up to date with jobs.

Once you build an RSS reader, you will find yourself constantly looking for RSS feeds (post feeds, comments feeds, etc.) and URLs to put into the thing. Look everywhere for them, and also know that sometimes you can just put the URL for the site into the reader and it might recognize that site and it’s feeds. Play around with it and you will see what I mean. It is a fantastic tool and it will dramatically expand your ability to efficiently process the information that is out there. Here is a list of all the job boards/sites I have in my reader, complete with links to the feeds/URLs. Definitely put these guys in your reader.

Close Protection PSD Jobs

Conflict Area Management

International Security Jobs

Paladin Jobs

Secure Aspects

Security Officer Jobs-South Africa

USA Security Jobs

I personally use Feedly and it is a great reader. I also used Google’s RSS reader, but that closed down and after some research I ended up at Feedly. There are other RSS readers out there and they all do the same thing with various bells and whistles. Below I will leave a great tutorial on how to set up a Feedly account.

Enjoy and happy hunting! –Matt

 

Monday, August 15, 2011

Blogs: DynCorp Starts A Blog And A Youtube Channel!

Filed under: Blogs,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 12:37 PM

Very cool and it is about time. Although I do have a few misgivings about the blog itself, and this is stuff that can easily be fixed. First, there needs to be an RSS feed for the thing. I continue to see companies make this mistake, and it is just a simple little deal that makes a blog more useful. Guys like myself hunt for RSS feeds to put into our readers, and if you don’t have one then we just kind of forget about your site.

Some other ideas is to have a moderated comments section. If you check out my comments section on this blog, you will see that folks have the choice of entering a name and email, or signing in using Twitter or Facebook. This is the way to go, just because the easier it is for readers to sign in, the easier it will be for them to interact on the site. I use Intense Debate, but there are others out there.

Which is the other thing that kind of strikes me here. Who is the author?  Is it Ashley Burke, the media relations person or who? So definitely sign off on who wrote the posts, and most of all, get that individual to interact with the readership. Especially if the CEO writes a post. Blogs are great tools for interacting with your readership. And the best thing with moderated comments, is that you can filter out those who have no interest in having a reasonable conversation or who are spammers.

Some technical issues would be to have a more complete site map at the footer, and have clear links going to the DynCorp corporate page, and clear links going to the blog.  So really make it easy for the reader to know where they are at, and give them a map and clear signage as to where to go throughout your websites. An archives is important to, and put a search box on there so folks can search through your posts. Also, I did not see any tags, and that isn’t cool. All of this stuff is important to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and if DI wants to own the story about the ‘their’ company, then they need to do the things necessary that pleases Google Search.

Which along those lines, DI should also set up an official Twitter and Facebook Page. Even a Linkedin Page would be cool, although they might already have that. Either way, get hooked up on all the top social networking sites, and then link all of them together so that every time you make a post on the blog, the post automatically goes to those sites. Google Search really likes that kind of stuff, and it will help in SEO. You would really be top notch if you linked your jobs to all of those sites, and put a RSS feed on your career section.  That way, as soon as new jobs come up, folks can find out about them and jump on it. (US Training Center has an excellent jobs section, that has all of the important information and tools that job seekers like) Oh, and don’t forget about a newsletter or some kind of subscription service.  Those are very easy to set up using stuff like Feedburner or whatever.

Just some ideas, and it’s a step in the right direction guys. It is also a challenge to the other PSC’s and PMC’s in this industry. If DI has a blog, where is your blog? –Matt

 

About Inside DI
June 10, 2011
Learn more about the people of DynCorp International, our most recent company news, key contract wins, the causes we support and other fun facts.
Link to blog here.

Powered by WordPress