Eenie Meanie Minie Moe

Where does one look for a job? Through thorough and diligent research I have discovered the secret...There is NO one place to search for jobs! They are everywhere. Some are in plain sight and some are hiding. This is why people push you to network and be persistent. For every job that is listed online, there are jobs that are hiding. If the job is hiding, there's a good chance it is quite coveted. What I mean by "hiding" is that the job opening is not publicly posted or is not easily found in job searches online. Just because you can't find your dream job in a Google search, doesn't mean it's not out there.

You can skim the job market by conducting searches on job sites such as Monster, Indeed, MediaBistro, Yahoo HotJobs, etc. My warning: Beware of scams! I can not caution you enough. There are a couple ways to tell if the opening you are looking at is a scam.

1. The more credible the website is that you are searching for jobs on, the less likely you will run into scams. But they will pop anywhere. If you begin to notice throughout your search that a company is advertising job openings constantly, it is probably a scam. You have to ask yourself, why are they always seeking employees? Maybe they are a quickly growing business, but most likely they have a quick employee turnover rate. Not a good sign.

2. If it looks like the ad is screaming at you via Times New Roman? No good. The company you want to work for will not search for employees through Oxy Clean-salesman tactics. If the ad is trying too hard to win you over, it's probably not worth your time.

3. After you apply for a job, if the company is interested in you they will contact you. A phone is a great sign. Emails aren't bad either. But if they email you and are pushy for a response? Don't waste your time going in for an interview.

3 1/2. I went in for an interview in a town just south of Boston. Sometimes a long commute is worth it, but if it's over an hour the pros better out-weigh the cons. When I arrived, I was greeted with a warm welcome and taken to a small room with multiple chairs with papers placed on top of them. Red flag 1. I was early so I spoke with the man interviewing me one-on-one. He began discussing the job and saying that he is looking for hardworking "rockstars". Red flag 2. If they start to sound like your fifth grade baseball couch, get out of there. I then got around to asking him how much the job pays. He replied with "What do you mean?" DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! How many answers are there to a question like that? That's unacceptable. The icing on the cake was his speech on how he didn't believe in a base pay. SEE YA!

4. Always do research on the company you are applying to. If they don't have a website, you should be wary. It's 2009 and this is America. Unless you're living in a cave in the Himalayas, you should be able to find a business with a website. If you do find their website, see if they have a page that explains what they do and who their clients are. A lot of sites will write so much by saying so little. It's fluff. But what do they do? If it's not obvious what the company does, don't follow through with job application. And if they can't list who their clients are? Diddo.

5. Always search reviews on the company you are interested in. If the weird "scam" pops up, go no further. I had just accepted a too-good-to-be-true internship at a "record label" (I say record label tentatively because they can hardly be considered that) and a mentor emailed me to a link to a blog announcing them as a scam. I read it, took it into consideration, and went into my internship with my eyes and ears open. I quit two weeks later after I realized they had maybe five employees and over 20 unpaid interns. The environment was extremely unprofessional, profanity was heard more often than not, there was no dress code, and my job was to spam musicians on MySpace. It was a good experience. Honestly. Now I know that not every business is legitimate.

Where else can you search for jobs? How do you find hidden jobs? Well, I'm going to go eat some stuffed green peppers and get back to those questions soon enough.