> Take part in job fairs, job club meetings, job search seminars, and job-related workshops that will help you improve your job search skills and/or improve and expand your work skills. They may also inform you of job openings you would not otherwise hear about.
These events need not be sponsored by your state unemployment office. They may be sponsored by private employers and organizations, or may be simply a group of unemployed people who get together regularly to share job search information. Networking with other people will often pay off better than cold calling or even answering adds in your local newspaper or applying for jobs listed online, especially if you can say you were referred by an employee that is already a valued part of their workforce. Each time you attend one of these events it counts as one job search. Keep good records of any events or programs you attend.
> Register for work with temporary agencies or private unemployment agencies. The act of registering counts as one job search. Every day you contact one of these agencies to learn if they have any suitable leads it counts as one job search. If you contact one (1) such agency asking if they have found any job matches for you one time every single work day Monday through Friday, you have made 5 work searches. If you contact 2 different temp or private employment agencies every single day Monday through Friday to learn if they have any leads for you, you have made 10 job searches.
Be sure to keep good records. Include what unemployment agency or temp agency you contacted, the date and time of your call, the name of the person you spoke to, what the main part of the conversation included, and specific information on any job leads you may have received.
> When you mail or Fax a job application, or resumé, as instructed in a public job notice to an employer who placed the help wanted or job opening listing, that counts as one job search for each resumé or application sent.
> Contacting employers who may be reasonably expected to have openings in work you are qualified to do, even though that employer may not have listed any specific job openings, counts as one job search. Large employers often have several job openings at any given time. Be sure to keep a good record as described previously in this article as well as whether you contacted the employer by phone, mail, or email. Did you send the employer a resumé and cover letter? Keep a note of that along with all other pertinent details.
> There are so many applicants for most job listings nowadays that the human resources departments of many businesses choose to narrow down the most favorable applicants through several interviews, often starting with a phone interview. Every time you have an interview, whether it is a phone interview, group interview, or private interview, it counts as one job search. Even if you interview with a particular company 5 or more times, each interview counts as one job search.
Keep good records. Take a notebook to your interviews and also keep a notebook near the phone where you can jot down important information, like the names of the people who are interviewing you and their titles. Always record the date, time, and place of interviews, and whether they were over the phone or in person. Sometimes a company representative will do a short interview and then schedule you for an in-person interview soon afterwards. That call counts as one job search even though it was a combination interview and scheduling for a future in-person interview.
> Register with online job search sites like Monster.Com and Simply Hired.com, and there are many more such sites. Registering on one or more of these sites counts as one job search for each site you register on.
Every day that you go to an online job search site it counts as one job search. If you have registered to receive notices in your email when new job listings that you are qualified for become available, then every time you open that notice and check out those notices it counts as one job search.
For example, if you are registered to receive new job listing alerts with 5 different online job sites similar to Monster.Com or Career Builder.com, and all 5 job search sites send you a notice every day of the week (Monday through Sunday) and you open every alert notice and check out the jobs listed on the alerts from every one of the online job search sites, that counts as 5 job searches every day, or 35 job searches a week!
If you apply over the Internet for any jobs, whether they are on the website of the prospective employer, or through the job search site (Monster, Career Builder, Simply Hired, etc.), it counts as one job search for each application sent. If you apply for 3 different jobs, one after the other through the online job search site, each application counts as one job search.
> If you walk into a place of business that might reasonably have a job opening that meets your job qualifications and needs, and you talk with the receptionist, or an agent in the human resources department, or anyone who works at that place of business about whether there are job openings, and if so what they are for, etc., that counts as one job search. If you fill out an application such as you might do at a fast food chain or other similar business, that counts as one job search.
> Every day that you check your local newspaper’s help wanted section, either the hard copy or online, looking for suitable job listings, it counts as one job search. If you check the help wanted sections of newspapers from nearby towns to where you could reasonably commute, that is another job search. In addition, every time you follow up on one of the newspaper listings that fits your job skills it counts as a job search. So you have one job search for checking the newspaper listings and another job search for every job you find and follow up on in that newspaper that meets your requirements and job qualifications.
