🙅♂️ Most of the roles are never posted
In the world of job hunting, there are often misconceptions that can leave us feeling discouraged. One prevailing myth suggests that the majority of roles are never posted publicly, instead mysteriously making their way to candidates who have the right connections or enter through the backdoor. Additionally, it’s easy to fall into the belief that the current state of the job market means no one is hiring at all. While these assumptions may hold some truth in certain cases and networking does play a valuable role, they don’t tell the whole story.
💡In actuality, talent acquisition professionals are constantly sifting through a sea of applications, searching for the best candidates. They are eager to bring visibility to their open roles and attract top-notch talent.
A Quest for Open Roles
Now let’s explore how to discover all the roles that are currently open.
When it comes to finding open roles, one of your most valuable resources is right at your fingertips:
- Google Jobs
This platform indexes job postings from various companies, offering a plethora of additional features to enhance your search experience. With Google Jobs, you can filter roles based on location, save the ones that catch your eye, and even set up alerts to stay ahead of the competition.
- X-raying ATS/CRM systems
Sometimes, uncovering open roles requires a different approach – a little bit of reverse engineering. Instead of relying solely on platforms like LinkedIn or Indeed, you can go straight to the source: the career pages of companies. Why? Well, most companies utilize an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or some sort of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to post their roles and manage applicant flow. This means that not all positions will be readily visible on external job boards, but they should exist somewhere on the company’s own career pages. The key lies in utilizing a technique called site X-ray, which allows you to search for specific website content using a search query composed of search terms and the site: operator. The original idea was shared by Sjamilla van der Tooren.
So, let’s check some popular ATS: WorkDay, Icims, Greenhouse, Smartrecruiters and Workable. To demo the process, let’s search for recruiter roles in Ontario.
Our key search terms will be “ON” OR “Ontario” (as the location) and “recruiter” (exact word match). By combining these terms with the site: operator, we can narrow down our search to specific company career pages. Here’s how it looks in practice:
site:wd3.myworkdayjobs.com ontario|ON inurl:recruiter
This string targets the Workday platform specifically for open roles in Ontario and includes the term “recruiter” in the URL
site:careers.icims.com/jobs ontario|ON “recruiter”
This string narrows down the search to the iCIMS platform, specifically in Ontario, and looks for roles containing the term “recruiter”
Similarly:
site:boards.greenhouse.io recruiter ON|Ontario
site:jobs.smartrecruiters.com inurl:recruiter ON|Ontario
site:jobs.workable.com inurl:recruiter ON|Ontario
Change location and keywords for your own needs and paste the strings into the Google search:
To make your job search even more efficient, I’ve set up a custom search engine specifically designed to execute the search on the ATS systems I mentioned. It allows you to search across all mentioned ATS simultaneously, saving you time and effort. Grab it here.
This is how it should look on your end:
Let’s recap:
- Google job search provides personalized filtering and a range of benefits to streamline your search.
- ATS/CRM systems are essential tools used by companies, and leveraging Boolean search within these systems gives you access to many (if not all) posted jobs.
- Feel free to use a custom search engine
Keep pushing forward, stay motivated, and remember that the right opportunity is just around the corner. Good luck!
