It’s been several weeks since the job fair I went to and I decided it was time to rethink my posting (Job Fairs: Are They Worth the Investment of Time).  Every job fair is going to be different. Yes, there are a lot of people there.  However, you do get to have face time with potential employers and it is a great way to network with other job seekers.

What happened to change my mind? I got an interview with a company for a job that I think is right up my alley.  I would not have seen this possibility on my own, nor would I have had the interview.  It may only be one interview, but one interview is one more than I had before and one more opportunity to connect.

I have another job fair next week that I am now looking forward to. For those of you out there that are struggling, like me, to find a job, let me encourage you to get out there.

Part of my job search plan involves following job search blogs.  Following these blogs gives me insight, ideas, and continued motivation as I work toward finding my next job.  What follows are three job search sites I discovered through reading Joshua Waldman’s book Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies (For Dummies (Career/Education))

• Brazen Careerist I am currently participating in a job bootcamp through them and finding it very helpful.
• Careerealism
• Career Enlightenment

When job hunting, it is important to track where you send applications.  It gives you a reference point when you are contacted and keeps you from applying to the same job multiple times. There are a number of ways to do this.  Some, write down information.  Some use a spreadsheet.  These days there are websites that help you do this. The following are two that I came across an am testing in my own job search.

• Jobkatch.com: The amount of information you can track through this site is good.  They also have a bookmarklet you can add to your browser to make it easier to input information as you are on job boards.
• Startwire.com: I just started using this one recently.  The information you can track isn’t quite as detailed.  However, if you get an email response from an application, you can foward it and it will automatically be entered without having to do much of anything.  Other plusses? They will ask you if you would like your resume forwarded to various job sites and you have control of the status of your lead (marking an interview, etc) where jobkatch does not have a way to do this yet

There are other sites out there that I haven’t tried yet.  What do you recommend?