The days of door to door job applications are dead. To get in front of the right hiring managers, you have to take slightly more strategic approaches. These strategies include all of the same tactics found in traditional marketing efforts, plus a few from the world of internet marketing. When properly applied, these basic strategies will place you squarely in front of hiring managers that may lead to your next position.

Finding your next employer can be challenging, especially if your job hunt is limited to blind posts on job boards or cold calls to network connections. However, basic market analysis will go a long way to improve your odds. Some of the best sources for market information during a job hunt are lists maintained by organizations like Dun and Bradstreet or D&B. These types of lists provide accurate information pertaining to the fiscal performance and market of various companies.

Searching these data sources for companies in your local market or industry will identify a number of potential employers. If you take the information a bit further, you can rank employers by gross product, number of employees, or even office locations. This approach will allow you to prioritize employers by potential and target the most likely companies first. This prioritized list can serve as a plan of attack, guiding your job search efforts.

Some people consider this sufficient planning. In most markets they would be correct. However, in the current economic climate, jobs are scarce and employers are picky. It is wise to establish every possible market advantage before approaching any potential employer. Once a priority list has been created, it is easy to find additional contacts within the company using linkedIn or other social networking tools.

Often times these additional contacts will provide insight into the needs of the company. They could also serve as references later in the process. If you are really lucky, they may even arrange a personal interview with the hiring manager. Identifying one-well connected individual on the inside of a target company can do more for your job search than twenty job applications.

If you are unable to connect inside the company, another powerful source of information is the job boards themselves. Reviewing current or past positions within a company can help you gauge the company’s style and needs. It can also help you mold your resume to fit these needs, increasing your appeal to the hiring manager.

Finding a job is much like anything else, putting in the initial planning and research will be handsomely rewarded in the long run. In this case, understanding the needs of the target company, tweaking your resume to fit those needs, and building on existing connections are three of the most effective types of preparation you can commit to. If done well, you will be ready to present your background to the potential hiring manager and have a high degree of success in moving to the next level.

Asking questions during an interview is an important task that should be well thought out, before the interview even begins. When you first get the news that you will be interviewing with a company you should start by researching the company.

Researching the respective company, will help you obtain information useful for the interviewing process. Researching information on a company that you are interviewing with will help in more ways than one. It will help give you an edge in the interview, by allowing you to stay focused and engaged since you will already have the background on the company. It will also allow you to come up with your own questions that you will want to ask during the interviewing process.

You might wonder why you should ask questions during an interview. Well there are a few reasons why you would want to ask questions…

• “Asking questions during an interview will show hiring managers that you are interested in working for the company.”
• “It will also show the hiring manager that you are looking for long term employment.”
• Who wants to hire a person that shows that they will only sit in on meetings? Companies normally seek out “go getters”. What better way to show a company that you are a “go getter” than to show them during the interviewing process by asking questions?

If you get stuck and can’t think of any good questions, here are a few tried and true questions you can fall back on…

• What size is the division?
• Would you mind discussing the company’s culture?
• Is there a certain management style the company tends to stick by?
• What do you feel the divisions, strengthens and weaknesses are?
• What challenges are present in this current position?

Of course you will want to pay attention during the interviewing process and ask questions that are related to what has been discussed. This will show the hiring manager that you are well focused even during the most stressful of times.

Your last questions should always follow with “what is the next step”. This will show the hiring manager that you would like to proceed further with the interviewing process. This question will also give you insight on what you should expect the next step to be.

Asking questions in the interviewing process serves two purposes; first as stated earlier it will show the hiring manager that you are interested in the job, but second it will allow you to get a feel for the company, and see if it is the right position for you.

Just remember to be polite when asking questions. You do not want to come off as a demanding person. There is a certain etiquette that you should follow during the interviewing process. You don’t want to put the hiring manager on the spot or make them feel intimidated while you’re asking questions.

Hopefully you have kept your receipts if you have been unemployed in the past year. Some individuals are going to skip out on opting for a professional CPA to complete their taxes this year and try their hand at this dirty little task. If you are one who is opting out of paying a professional to do your taxes, you need to refresh yourself on what you can write off from your job search.

Hopefully you kept a very detailed record of your job search expenses, because it is about to pay off! Keep in mind that you should refresh yourself on your local IRS laws before you complete your taxes. In this recession the last thing you need is to get hit with an audit or penalties.
Let’s start with the basics:

How much did you spend on your resume? Yes, that is right. You can write off your resume expenses. This includes professional writers you sought to tweak your resume. It even includes supplies like paper, envelopes, stamps, ink, and of course any other related expenses you have when it comes to your resume. Did you pay for resume cards? If so you can proudly write this expense off as well!

Did you pay out of pocket to go on an interview? If you did, you’re not alone. Many job seekers have had to pay for travel, gas, mileage, parking, or at least suit cleaning costs before interviewing for a job. If you had to pay out of pocket and did not get reimbursed by the company, you can claim this as a related job search expense.

Are you paying to stay on job boards? Most job boards are requiring monthly or bi monthly payments to become an active member of their site. If you are a job seeker who has paid to stay on these job boards you can deduct this expense as well.

Are you working from home or have you started to freelance while unemployed? If so, you will have plenty of write offs related to funding, marketing, and starting your own business! However, if you started a business you may want to seriously consider hiring an accountant.

If you had to purchase a new phone or a land line for your job search you can deduct that expense as well.

Remember that you will need proof and/or documentation of all expenses for these write offs to be ligament. Also remember that if you have been reimbursed by a company for any of these expenses, you may not write that particular expense off.

Hopefully you will be able to receive some of the money back that you have invested in your job search!

Necessary Disclaimer: Please note, I am not a professional account or CPA, only a fellow job seeker looking to save money while struggling through a job hunt. That said, the advice in this article should not be seen as a source of accounting advice, but only potential ideas for identifying possible tax write offs. Consult a CPA or current State and Federal tax laws before attempting to use any of the suggestions in this article.