Career and Job Search Help Blog

Word of mouth marketing and networking are powerful tools to tap the hidden job market. Develop a list of contacts in your business or industry through friends, family, colleagues from previous jobs.  Try social networking websites to make more contacts.

LinkedIn , a professional networking site, helps you to reconnect with former colleagues and to explore companies. Some job hunters find that Facebook is effective too – but be sure to clean up your online presence first! Some employers check.

For more ideas and tips, see these networking articles from Monster.ca.

More:
The Art of Career and Job-Search Networking from Quint Careers

Locating Unadvertised Jobs from Service Canada.

A foot in the door : networking your way into the hidden job market (book)

Once you have a list of employers, it is time to start contacting them by phone, email, Canada Post or in person.

There are websites with sample scripts and suggestions on how to make cold contacts effectively.

Go where the employers are! Check out these lists of job fairs where you can meet employers. It is a great way to explore your options, to widen your network as well as to practice your interview skills.

Poss.ca lists job fairs, career fairs and workshops and training.

Check out the next big fair in Toronto, March 31 and April 1, 2009.

Want to know about career fairs and job fairs? Employment and Social Services, City of Toronto offers strategies and advice:

Don't forget to prepare a great introduction to potential employers. QuintCareers tells you how to write the “Elevator Speech”. This is a clear description of you and your skills that you could deliver in just a few minutes, whether you are at a job fair or riding up in an elevator! They call it the “Swiss Army knife of job search tools”.

Widen your search for job openings by using job posting websites that harvest jobs and careers from company career sites. Many companies list job opportunities on their own websites rather than pay to advertise them. There are job search aggregators that search company career pages and harvest the jobs for you. Try these:

Eluta

Indeed

WowJobs