Simply Hired Blog

New Partnership: Simply Hired and Taleo

This morning, Simply Hired and Taleo announced a partnership to help launch the Talent Exchange®, which is an online marketplace for candidates and companies and part of Taleo’s Talent Grid® cloud community. Job seekers on the Talent Exchange now have access to their database of more than three million US jobs and provide Taleo customers with the ability to post their own job openings.

In addition, companies can source opt-in candidates directly into their Taleo Recruiting solution. Likewise, candidates can create a universal profile – a robust, differentiating experience summary – that they can share across prospective Taleo employers on the Talent Exchange.

Finally, Taleo has implemented a source tracking capability which automatically tracks candidates from SimplyHired.com’s network through Taleo Recruiting. This will enable customers to accurately determine recruiting effectiveness and ROI. Also, as part of the partnership, Taleo and Simply Hired are working together to improve the job search process for candidates through the use of the universal profile on the SimplyHired.com website as well as the Talent Exchange.

The Talent Exchange, announced earlier this month, is available today for both candidates and customers and can be found at http://www.talentexchange.com.

Read on for the full press release.

Video: LinkedIn API: Simply Hired

We found this great video made by the folks at LinkedIn which shows how to use the LinkedIn integration on SimplyHired.com. Learn how to work your connections to find the job of your dreams!

Ask not what an employer can do for you…

…but what you can do for an employer.

This simple switch can really help you stand out to potential employers during your search. Every job seeker is looking for an employer they would like to work for, otherwise they wouldn’t apply. However, it is the job seekers that show those employers how they meet the needs of their company that stand out from the crowd.

At what point can you start branding yourself to potential employers as the answer to all their problems? It begins with your presence on social networks. Within your various social profiles, carve out a niche for yourself. Develop an expertise in something and participate with others with similar interests to become a master of a certain industry, skill, etc. Also, turn your profiles into a kind of resume, inserting a quick self-pitch in your bio, and get recommendations from past coworkers on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn so potential employers can easily see that your past work backs up what you say you can do. (Read more about building your social media presence in this blog post: Finding Jobs Using Social Media.)

The self branding continues with your cover letter and resume. In your cover letter, highlight your uniqueness – they ways in which your background, experience, and education blend together to make you the perfect fit for a given position. In addition, make sure your resume reflects what the employer is looking for. How do you know? The job description, of course! If the job description says they need a person who has experience manning a register, and you have that experience, don’t forget to include that specifically in your resume.

If you get called in for an interview, the self branding carries on! Make sure you do your research about the company before you go in for your interview. Assess where you can fit as a solution to a problem they’ve been having. Are they looking for an HR representative? Do you have a track record of hiring great people in previous positions? Let them know! Instead of just telling your interviewer that you can make a difference, make sure to support your statements with specific examples of how you can accomplish that.

Hot Locations this Past Summer

And we don't mean the weather! Simply Hired just released new data containing job trends during the month of July. According to the report, the most competitive of the top 50 metro areas is Atlanta, followed by Detroit and Raleigh-Durham. The least competitive metro areas in July were Albuquerque-Santa Fe, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City (so if you’re in one of these areas, you’re in luck!).

Where the jobs are at
States with the fastest increase of unique jobs* –
1.    Pennsylvania – up 29%
2.    West Virginia – up 27%
3.    Louisiana – up 24%

States with the slowest increase in unique jobs –
1.    Oregon, Alabama, Iowa – down 4%
2.    North Dakota – down 1%

Metro areas with the highest increase in unique jobs –
1.    Pittsburgh, PA  – up 40%
2.    New Orleans, LA – up 20%
3.    Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY – up 20%

Metro areas with the highest decrease in unique jobs –
1.    Des Moines-Ames – down 9%
2.    Milwaukee, WI – down 5%
3.    Birmingham, AL (Anniston and Tuscaloosa) – down 5%

* Unique jobs are the number of actual open jobs, not duplicated job postings.

Got Skills?

A successful job search does not always result from searching by job titles, because those searches limit yourself to jobs that you can think of. But it’s near impossible to think of every possible job we may qualify for, especially if we have worked within a specific industry or type of job for a long time. However many more opportunities await if you search by skill instead.

Searching by skill allows you to view thousands of jobs that require someone with your background, many of which you would have never though of. For example, say you’ve been working as a calculus teacher for the past 10 years and are looking for something new. Well, did you know calculus is also a desired skill for business analysts, quantitative analysts, research analysts, economists, and even software engineers?

Skill searching helps you find jobs that you are more likely to be qualified for, since only results with the skills you have appear in your results. It can also open you up to opportunities you might not have thought were even options for you. The possibilities can be endless!