using rss to let jobs come to you

Give a man a fishand you feed him

for a day…Teach a man to fish,

and you feed himfor life.

And that’s just the same for job hunting…

In fact don’t hunt…let the jobs come to you!

wayne robinson, inovolve…knowledge that works for you

Does this sound familiar?You have bookmarked all your favourite job websites and religiously visitthem each week in the hope that THE job has been posted…only to get thereto find that there are no new postings.Just how much time exactly do you waste on this exercise each week?Surely there must be a better way??

Or you might have signed up and requested an email update from all of yourfavourite job websites. Makes life easier, right…er wrong! Not when you have362 unread emails in your inbox, how is one email, with THE job somewherecontained in a list of 20 other jobs in that email ever going to jump out andgrab you? And, oh did I mention the tsunami of spam that this might now begenerating ;-(

There is an easier way…it’s the RSS way…a clue is in the top right corner.


RSS?What is RSS?

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs/blogs and otheronline publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Why RSS? Benefits and Reasons for using RSS

RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content fromthe sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to

join each site's email newsletter. The number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly and includes big names like Yahoo News.

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed? RSS Feed Readers and News Aggregators

Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.

A variety of RSS Readers are available for different platforms. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac),FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readersavailable. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.

Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds yourFeed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSSVisit here for more information on RSS


So what’s RSS to do with job hunting?

By finding the sites that offer RSS feeds you can run a search for THE joband every time do you a search, a specific RSS feed is generated. Just grabthat feed and add it to your feed reader, and then every time there is anupdate that matches your search, the update appears in your feed reader i.e.

- the jobs come to you, automatically- updates happen in real time, not once a week- each job is visible and not embedded and lost in an email- no spam…ever- you receive details before they come out in email format

Sounding more like an easier way to search for jobs? Then let me show youjust how easy this is to set up…

For this example I am going to beusing the Google Reader as everyoneon the planet knows what Google isand where to find it. And it’s free ;-)

This process will work whether you arerunning Windows or Apple Mac.


Go to www.google.co.uk and click on the “more” link

Click on the “Reader” link


Or use your existing email to create an account

Use your Gmail email to sign in


And you are then taken through to the home page of theGoogle Reader…we now need to feed it


Step 1. Go to one of your job websites, here we have gone tototaljobs.com and run a search, we have set up a search for apermanent sales director role covering all salaries.

Tip: the more specific you are inTip: the more specific you are inyour search means less junkyour search means less junki.e. un-wanted roles, comingi.e. un-wanted roles, comingthrough in the RSS feed!through in the RSS feed!


Step 2. Don’t’ start clicking on the jobs that the search has returnedjust yet, there will be time for that in a moment…click on the RSSsymbol at the top of the search.

Click HERE


Step 3. And this box opens up in a separate window. Copy the textand then close the box.

Highlight all the text in this box and copy, make sure you copy to the end of all the text!


Step 4. Click on “Add Subscription” and paste the text into the box that opens up

Step 5. Click on “Add “ and let the Reader do it’s magic…


Step 6. A list of all the jobs that the search result returned nowappears in your Reader. Scan the headlines to find what you want.


One click opens up to reveal moreinformation, clicking on the headlinetakes you to the recruiters website


You can now apply for the job, check to see if it’s new a websiteand if they have an RSS feed!


Being a good networker you can even send emails to your friendsof jobs that you have found that they might be interested in.


You now need to be vigilant for the RSS feed every-time you visit awebsite…here is another example at monster.co.uk…spotted theRSS link yet?


Here we see the feed from the monster.co.uk website appearing inour Reader


Of course RSS feeds are not just for jobs…have somefun too and stay up to date with news items forexample. Here we have the bbc.co.uk sports pagecaptured as an RSS feed in our Reader.

I hope you have found this useful,feel free to connect with me if you

need any help or information,you can find me at

www.linkedin.com/in/inovolve

using rss to let jobs come to you

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variety of rss readers