The Lazy Jobseeker's Guide to Finding a Job While You Have One

By Adrian Tan

Finding a job while you have one is an amazingly tough act to carry out successfully.

Just like highly trained ninja assassins, you need to be effective while maintaining stealth.

And you don't want to be taking forever so your mission should be time sensitive.

And time can be a huge challenge because while you are job searching, you need to carry out the existing job you are hired and being paid to do.

In the older days when the paper resume was still prevalent, I'd witnessed the situation whereby the original copy of a resume was left in the photocopier.

And just like a movie script, the next person to use the photocopier is the boss.

Don't join the same circle as this guy and be the butt of office jokes for years to come.

Here are some ways you could conduct a job search professionally and effectively while you are still in one:
 

1. Make use of mobile apps

Instead of loading up Facebook or Clash of Clans when you are in the toilet cubicle, you could load up job search apps instead to see what's relevant and available for you in the market. There are quite a few options to consider:

1. JobStreet
2. JobsDB
3. Indeed
4. LinkedIN jobs
5. JobsCentral
6. STJobs

There are many others, but these would serve as a good start. Still, I find the list to be one too many.

Unless you want your boss to start paying attention to your "constipation" time at the toilet, you want something to do a quick scan through.

And possibly allow direct submission or, at least, an alert function to remind yourself to look into it later from home. On that basis, my recommendation would comprise of Indeed Jobs and LinkedIN Jobs.
 

2. Indeed Jobs

Indeed is a job listing aggregator. In other words, they crawl the Internet for all possible job ads and collate them into a single list.

So instead of visiting 5 different job boards, you could go to Indeed and expect to see results from all 5 in a single view.

Although it's a mobile app (they also have a responsive web page that looks exactly like the app), initial setup on a computer is highly encouraged.

Especially so if you are an iOS user like myself where uploading of files (in this case, your resume) could be almost impossible.

Once you have done the setup, you could login via the app and see a Recommended Jobs button.

Based on the intelligent backend algorithm, Indeed curates all relevant job ads for you based on your resume.

Since the algorithm is never 100% accurate, you could create your own searches and have them saved as shortcuts.

My favorite feature is the one where you could trigger off an email as a reminder to apply for a specific job.

Because Indeed aggregates, you can't apply for most of the jobs directly.

Unless the ads are published by Indeed. Otherwise, restrictions would kick in for all other jobs regardless of the ATS they are using.

This feature helps you to focus on the jobs that matter and allow you to batch apply in a single setting for better time management.
 

3. LinkedIN Jobs

LinkedIN Jobs is an app that shows just the jobs listing part of the site.

Although you would only have access to jobs listed on LinkedIN job platform only, I find it to be pretty good as the matching algorithm is extremely accurate.

As with Indeed, you could create your own search criteria (which gets saved automatically at the home screen.

Or if you like to get a recommendation, you could use the Discover function. It would curate a list of jobs that are popular among other profiles which are similar to you.

LinkedIN has started aggregating jobs from other sites as well, but it is obvious the volume isn't as high as Indeed.

What I like most about LinkedIN Jobs is the ability to apply directly with your LinkedIN profile.

With no more than two clicks, you could get your profile across to hiring employers.
 

4. Automate Recruiters Touch Base

Agency recruiters remain a good source of jobs referrals, especially if you get in touch with the right ones.

So if you are in the IT space, it makes sense for you to get connected with recruitment agencies such as Evolution and EPS. Still, it can be seriously challenging to manage these relationships.

Firstly most knee-jerk candidates would only connect with recruiters when they start looking out for jobs. But relationships doesn't blossom overnight.

With an escalating pool of candidates to manage daily, it is not realistic for them to remember you off the cuff.

A better approach would be to identify the recruiters you could develop a relationship with and get in touch with them regularly to keep that relationship alive.

And there are ways to automate this using a newsletter approach. The parts you can't is identifying them.

To create that list, the easiest way is to go into LinkedIN and do a search using a combination of keywords and location.

From my example below, I am searching for technology recruitment and filtered the location to Singapore.

If you are using Email Hunter, getting their email addresses would be a breeze.

 

Once you have collated a good list of email addresses and names, it is time to get in touch with them to establish that relationship.

I won't be covering the part on how to reach out as I want to focus more on automating the continuous relationship with the recruiters.

To do that, one consideration is to use Zapier. Zapier is a web app that provides integration between different other web apps.

So instance you could create a flow that triggers off a tweet when you push out a facebook status update. To begin, open an account at their sign-up page.

Once you have verified your account via email, you could access the dashboard.

From here, you could create a Zap, which is the label they give to a workflow.

You want to create a time-triggered event to send an email to these recruiters say every month.

Under this, you want to select Schedule by Zapier and for that to lead to an outbound email via Gmail (Yes, you would need to Gmail account)

If you have not connected your Gmail account to Zapier, this is where you need to take a one-time action to do so.

Next you could choose the when exactly you want this trigger to happen.

Finally put in the email addresses that were manually collated into the To list. You could create as many as you want.

5. Be highly visible on LinkedIN

LinkedIN is one of the most common platforms recruiters use to source for talents.

And you want to make sure you get found easily.

To make that possible, you need to own the keywords that you wish to be found. Say for instance you wish to look for a data scientist job in Singapore.

A typical recruiter would key into LinkedIN data scientist Singapore into the search engine.

To get connection calls from recruiters, you need to be appear on page 1 of their search results.

If not, you need to start optimizing your profiles to ensure these keywords (data scientist, Singapore) appear frequency and naturally across your profile.

For a more detailed guide on optimizing your LinkedIN, check out my blog post on ranking high on LinkedIN.

Conclusion

It might seem taxing and time-consuming to look for a job while you hold one, but there are ways to do it without feeling like doing two jobs.

The right tools and approach would help make all these much easier while you carry on to maintain your current job and lifestyle.

 

Adrian Tan is the Founder of CareerLadder where he shares his best advice on how to discover and secure your dream job.

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