Ten years ago iPlayer, iTunes and YouTube didn’t exist. Hard to believe isn’t it?  And the same digital revolution that hit the entertainment industry is having a big impact on job hunting and recruitment.

Online job boards, recruiters on Twitter and professional social networking sites are just some of the changes that have taken place. Overwhelming? Confusing? Well it doesn’t have to be - get to grips with digital and it can open up the job market.

Ways to use digital to help with your job hunt

Research

Gone are the days of trawling the library or waiting forinformation by post now, if you want to find out anything, it’s usually easilydone online.  Word of caution though - always double-check your sources…Wikipedia isn’talways right.

• Companies - look for information on companies you’d like to work at (size, location, the type of people they hire and who’s there now): a LinkedIn company search even shows the most recent hires.
• People - find possible new contacts (no spamming or online stalking please), look up people who are doing a job you’d like to do and find out how they got there. Also get the inside track on your interviewer before you go to an interview: do a standard Google search on their name (use the filters at the top of the page to help you narrow down your search), LinkedIn people search (search by name, company and skills)
• Industry moves and changes - it’s vital to keep informed with what’s going on in your area. That new product, start-up or company expansion might mean recruitment and you could be first in the queue.

- Try newspaper and trade magazinewebsites

- Search the blogosphere for blogs that are relevant to your interests

- Keeptrack of all the things you want to read regularly by subscribing to RSS feeds. An RSS reader likeMyYahoo! , Google reader or NetNewsWire (for Macs) will automatically gatherthe information feeds you want to follow.

• Skills - In this job market, it’s the candidates with the most relevant (current) skills that get hired so keep looking for ways to develop and improve your skills.  If you’re out of work it’s a great opportunity to spend some time on development - whatever your field of interest, with research, you’ll find plenty of websites with good quality, free information and training resources.

Useful sites:

- Freeonline learning portals: Open Learn (Open University), BBC Learning, Alison and Microsoft Office

- Freeeducation and learning - Directgov has a whole load ofinformation on adult learning (on and offline)

-‘How-to’ guides for the web - Mashable

Freeeducational textbooks online - Wikibooks

• Salaries - want to get an idea of what you should / could be earning? Try: MySalary.co.uk, thebenchmark tool on Monster.com or glassdoor.com (US-based info but still useful)

So now you’ve done your research, the next step is the actualaction of job-hunting.  Stay tuned for next weeks’ article on Job Huntingin the digital age.

Guest post by Lopez - digital content professional