According to an ExecuNet survey, 86% of executive recruiters say they have conducted background research on candidates using the web. I know that when someone searches me, they’ll find my blog, my company’s site, Flickr, Twitter, an audiobook I produced and some other Rob Blatt-centric sites. The bottom line is, it’s me.

A while ago, I wrote a post dissecting an email from spark1energy. Many other people searched a portion of the email or spark1energy.net and left comments on my post, saying they received the same email that I did. There were even some people who posted private information about other commenters in retaliation for agreeing with me. It reminded me what Ashley Morgan went through with his Immediate Edge [original post removed] postings. The funny thing is that Ashley also wrote something similar to this post after getting onto the front page for searches for Immediate Edge [original post removed].

What Ashley Morgan and my experience should be telling you is that you need to have control over searches for your name. If you don’t take control, someone else will, and you might not like what they have to say.

Referenced: Growing Number Of Job Searches Disrupted By Digital Dirt

I’ve been hanging out with Chandlee Bryan quite a bit lately. Chandlee Bryan is a career coach and certified resume writer. She runs a great Meetup group for NYC job seekers where she gathers those seeking some or better employment to discuss how to achieve their goals. I had the opportunity to join the group for a Meetup last week.

I spoke to Chandlee about how I manage to search Craigslist every day for certain keywords with minimal effort. It’s something I’ve done for three years running now. Craigslist doesn’t have email notifications, it also doesn’t have fancy ways to save your searches. What Craigslist has is RSS feeds for everything. At the end of this post, you’ll have set yourself up daily notifications of new jobs in your area on Craigslist based on the keywords of your choice.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a file format on the web that allows you to check for new content (blog posts, podcast episodes, news articles, etc.) without going to the actual website. Most web browsers can read these files in one form or another, and there are many applications and web sites that can read these files easily. I suggest using Google Reader. For more on Google Reader, here’s a link to a video that explains it in English: Google Reader in Plain English.

If you’re a hairdresser in Anchorage, AK, you might check craigslist every day for new listing of people hiring hairdressers. If you look at the site every day, it’ll look something like this:

You could bookmark that page and visit it every day in order to be quick responding to a posting, but that takes time and effort on your part. I want this to be easier for you. Right-click the “RSS” button in the bottom right of the page when you’re looking at a Craigslist search and select “Copy Link” or something similar that your web browser will say in the menu that pops up.

So now we have the RSS file location for your search for hairdresser posting in Anchorage, AK copied. The next step is to head over to Feed My Inbox.

Feed My Inbox is a service that checks RSS feeds and emails them you daily when there is something new in the feed. This way, you don’t have to worry about RSS feeds or checking websites daily. Instead, you’ll receive email notifications you can check first thing in the morning. I recommend putting searches together for the “all jobs” and “all gigs” sections of Craigslist. This trick also works if you’re really looking for that specific IKEA Blergstaad end table.

The best part about using a combination of RSS feeds and Feed My Inbox is that the only cost to you is time. Craigslist provides the RSS feeds free of charge and Feed My Inbox is a free service from the great people at Brightwurks. This method is how I got my job at the now defunct New York Sun newspaper and how I’ve found a few pieces of audio gear I had been lusting after.

Are there other ways that you have simplified your job search? Let me know in the comments.

For those of you with jobs, here’s how the recruiting process goes.

1. Find job online you like. You either:
   1. Email a resume
   2. Have a website (Monster, HotJobs, etc.) submit your resume for you
2. Get a form response back from a recruiter to fill out an application of their website
3. Go into the recruiter’s office, fill out 15 minutes of paperwork and write your SSN a dozen times
4. Find out that you aren’t the right person for the job
5. Go home feeling frustrated, never getting a call back

It’s a process that would make Henry Ford proud, but at the same time it’s a broken system when you’re dealing with humans. How do I know it’s broken? I went for two interviews with different recruiters for the same job and signed contracts saying that I wouldn’t pursue the job with any other companies or with the company directly. I found out that I was going for the job after spending the time to fill out the paperwork involved and went through a quick interview. I was able to tell the person interviewing me that they were “looking for someone with more book publishing experience” before they could get to the end of the interview. I doubt that I have anything to worry about in regards to the contracts that I signed, but what about the time that I wasted that was both mine and the recruiters?

There’s an easy fix.

Do the human side of the process first. By sitting down and talking to you before filling out 15-20 pages of paperwork, you’ll find me in a better mood. You’ll get the most out of me as a job candidate and if I’m still interested in the job, I’ll be very happy to fill out whatever forms you want me to fill out. If I’m not what you’re looking for, you’ll find that out fast too.

What I find interesting is that career coaches have changed their tune to embrace the people they serve. As an example, my friend Chandlee Bryan gives away helpful information on her site Best Fit Forward and does her best to empower people that she isn’t working with yet with eBooks and organizes a meetup called NYC Job Seekers & Career Strategy Meetup for a low fee. Where are the recruiters that are making the same kind of impact?

IMG_1142 by rachaelhubbard via Flickr

Greetings,

I’ll keep this short and sweet.

I am writing to you with regards to your posting in the resume section on Craigslist.

This may no be exactly what you posted for originally, but it is an opportunity to join one of the fastest growing companies in Texas, Illinois, New York, as well as America.

“This is spam.”

Our company enjoyed an unheard of 500% growth rate last year right in the middle of our current economic situation. In the years to follow, our company will become a household name. You can start part-time and eventually work this full time.

Here’s the fantastic claim. 500% growth? Where did they start? If I made $1 last week and made $5 this week, I made a 500% jump in sales.

I am an established businessman, and an officer in the US Army Reserve, located in NY. If you are friendly, open minded, enthusiastic, coachable, and trainable, I may have an opportunity for you. If you are not, kindly ignore this one time email.

Interested in learning more? Simply send me a reply to this email, and I will send you a few links to browse.

No pressure or drama, just information for you to decide if our opportunity might be a good fit for you.

If you are not interested, no worries, I sincerely thank you for the time you took to read this, and wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

This is a bit of a masked man fallacy. Because we’re lead to believe that US Army officers are trustworthy, we should place our trust in this guy. He plays the nice guy card and tells me that I can ignore this email if I want to.

-Regards,

Ash

Regards,

Spammer.

I have such a problem with this kind of spam because it’s praying on people who are putting themselves out there to be found. Instead of the intended audience, they have to deal with sorting through this garbage. Hopefully someone who gets this email and searches parts of it will find this post and realize that they are being swindled.

If you’ve been sent some spam that is over the top and should be exploited, I encourage you to post it online to help others out.

Spam photo: Spam with Cheese by kris247