Kicking someone when they're down

According to this article in the Chicago Tribune, the unemployed are currently being targeted by identity thieves, either through online job postings, or using low/no tech methods at job fairs.

But job-search identity theft can also be low tech. Some companies hold job fairs where they have job seekers provide their Social Security numbers and other basic information to recruiters. Even when the company is legitimate, that can pose a security risk for job applicants...

If you are giving job seeking training, you may also want to include a heads up on the scam artist. And no, they are not limited to Craigslist ads. According to the story, scam artists are using Monster. Monster, in response, has a tips for avoiding scams.

Job scams are old and the FTC has a Caution Job Scams portal. The Better Business Bureau in both the US and Canada can be used to keep you up to date on scams of all types.

Slaying Monsters?

Response to Will Monster.com go the way of newspapers?

I think it is too soon to suggest that Monster will go the way of the newspaper classifieds, for a few reasons:

• Vertical search engines currently aren't charging employers to post with them; most of them make their money with Google adwords
• Why not charge employers? Because they would need to have a whole host of staff to market their service, as well as an accounting department to deal with invoicing and hunt down the people who don't pay for their ads
  
• Most vertical search redirect the job posting not to the employer site but to the original posting on a job board. Monster never redirected a job seeker to a local newspaper because the classified service just dealt directly with employers and got paid for it.

Yes, it is possible that free (and not all are free to for-profit companies) will replace paid, but not for a while yet. Monster, and other job search services, also have other tools--such as resume handling, automatic response, and testing--that streamline other HR processes which no newspaper service ever did.

Whoa, knelly.

SimplyHired's Job Listing Report

SimplyHired, one of many vertical search engines for job postings, has released a Q1 report on job searching and frequently used keywords in job search, based on information from their engine.

Now they have indicated that job searches are up, and, yes that can be due to unemployment, but it can also be due to the fact that people are

• dissatisfied with their current employment and are looking for new jobs
• can see the writing on the wall with their current employer, or
• are just trying to stay ahead of the pack
  
• one of the popular keywords is part-time, so this could indicate that people are looking for extra work or returning to the workforce

Now, why might you can about this, except to use SimplyHired to find a job? Because the report mentions the appearance of prevalent keywords, which could help you creating search strings, and it also tells you the locations where job postings are up. Handy.

Recommendations for who to follow on Twitter for a job

This post comes from a roundabout curve, from a post on College Recuiter, to the post from Amanda Hoffstrom, about tweeting for a job with recommendations on who to follow on Twitter who tweets about job searching. If you want to use Twitter to look for work, this may be a place to start.