Many available jobs are not advertised online on paid job boards.
According to Glassdoor, only about 15-20 percent of available jobs are advertised on job boards and websites. Many smaller companies don’t have a big enough hiring budget to pay for these listings, so they use other means to get the word out when they need to hire.
It is possible to find out about available jobs even if they aren’t advertised, however, if you know where to look. There are several effective methods for finding unadvertised jobs, and some of them are even fairly fast and easy to use (others take longer).
Ask Around
Using your professional contacts is one of the best ways to find out about job openings that are beneath the radar of most people. Many companies use referrals extensively from their employees and other contacts to hire, and some even offer rewards for bringing in a successful hire (you).
Use Career Services
Your school’s career services office will likely have information about unadvertised jobs as employers try to connect with students who will soon finish their coursework. Even if you completed your studies years ago, career services offices are typically happy to let you use their resources and help you in any way they can.
Search Companies’ Career Websites
This option is probably the most time-consuming because there are a lot of companies out there to search, but this will turn up open positions that aren’t posted elsewhere in many cases. You can also mention that you found the job on the company website when you are interviewed, which will show that you take your time and do your research.
Using professional contacts and networking can be a great way to get referrals for jobs.
Search U.S. Jobs
This site compiles job listings from employers’ job sites into one place so you can search without spending the time to go to each company’s website. The jobs listed are mostly from larger companies including many of the Fortune 500. For smaller companies, you may still have to go to the website for job postings.
Google Search For ATS Postings
Many companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to screen applications and resumes, and although these systems are not always easy to navigate, they can give you a backdoor way to find job postings. All you have to do is identify the name of the system—one of the biggest is Taleo—and do a site-specific search to find all the companies posting certain jobs on that system, many of which are unadvertised.
Here is an example of the search:
site: Taleo.net intitle: careers network administrator
This will give you a list of all the company sites using Taleo that have network administrator jobs listed. You can specify any kind of job you want instead of “network administrator,” and you can add other keywords after network administrator that will narrow down the listing further if you need to.
Other ATS systems include BrassRing, Jobvite, and Homegrown. These four are used by over 60 percent of employers for resume screening, and there are a number of other smaller ATS systems as well. If you know that one system is widely used in your industry or geographical area, that might be a good one to search in addition to these larger ones.
PC AGE offers career services to all students to help them find IT jobs upon completion of their coursework. Some students even have a job lined up before they leave school. Request info about all our programs and courses that lead to many different IT careers.