1. Using to assist with your Job Search 2012
When looking for career opportunities online, most job seekers use different techniques than typically
used while looking for information on the internet. They focus their search on job boards such as
Monster, HotJobs, and Career Builder, or aggregating job search engines such as Indeed and
SimplyHired.
Surprisingly the best job search tool on the internet is “Google”. If used correctly, Google can help you
find jobs you didn’t know existed. Using the following tips over the next few pages will help you find
more specific job search results versus just using traditional job boards.
Test: I setup a test script using the Search Term “Administrative Assistant” using Google Alerts, Indeed,
SimplyHired and CareerBuilder. Over a period of 3 weeks Google provided me with more than 50%
greater number of unique search results than Indeed and SimplyHired, and provided more than 70%
over CareerBuilder. All four of these career searching tools provided both unique and duplicate
openings; however Google provided search results not found on Indeed, SimplyHired or CareerBuilder.
Secret Stuff: I’ve used Google Scripts most recently to assist an individual with very unique skills. We
were able to pull employment posting one to three days prior to the postings appearing on some of the
major job boards. This resulted with distinct advantage in the job search process. Google also picks up
openings from Craigslist and many smaller boards, most of which do not show up on the major job
boards.
Understanding Search Terms: Note that while Google is best search tool on the internet it can also be
as dumb as a bag of rocks. Google aggregates information based on “Search Terms”. Use the wrong
term (word) or be too specific in your search requirements and Google delivers you a good amount of
useless information. You also need to consider the employers “Search Terms” (position names) when
creating “Search Terms”. One employer may call an Administrative Assistant a Secretary or maybe an
Admin Support Staff. As part of this process you will need to develop a set of search terms that are
most commonly used by employers and one or two that are unique to your skills.
1. Disclaimer:
o As noted from AvidCareerist.com … “There isn’t a silver bullet for finding all of the on-
line openings for a particular job title. It’s good to set up both alerts and job board
feeds to find as many openings as possible.”
o Search Terms are my way of saying Job Titles or for those of you who are Geeks, search
queries. I’ve provided you with the simplest of search queries for this process. If you
desire to test your coding skills visit:
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators.html

2. Google Scripting: Google scripting is a simplified process of use search strings to find relevant results
from the traditional way of searching Google. The search terms you enter and the order in which you
enter them affect both the order and pages that appear in your search results. It’s better to use a more
precise, less ambiguous term than a common one.
If your query is too vague, it’s unlikely to return relevant results. Consider, for example, the
query [ java ]. What do you suppose Google includes in the first page of results? An island in
Indonesia? A beverage consisting of an infusion of ground coffee beans? A computer network-
oriented platform-independent programming language developed by Sun Microsystems?
USE [ Java Indonesia ], [ java coffee ], or [ java programming language ]
NOT [ java ]
Getting Started: Go to www.google.com, (full website for Google’s web address)
This is where you will enter the search strings (scripts) for each of your searches.
Everyone’s search results will be slightly different depending on how they use Google.
Power users will have results based on how you use Google as Google has learned your
search habits. Bing, Yahoo or other search engine users will obtain different results
based on Google’s lack of knowledge of your search habits.

3. Google Search Strings:
Start with your location:
o intitle: St Louis (change to your specific location)
Job title: (Remember be specific and try various terms based on the employers use of
the title)
o intitle: HR Specialist (change to your specific job title)
Search terms for jobs
o (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers)
Search terms for job requisitions / opportunities
o (apply OR submit OR eoe) (eoe – equal opportunity employer)
The complete search string:
intitle:St Louis intitle:HR Specialist (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR
submit or eoe)
You can copy and paste this search string into your Google search bar and just change
“location” and or “job title”.
The differences in the results using Google as a job search tool and using the scripting
techniques allow you to specifically target your search results.
Above are the results for typing in HR Specialist into Google’s search page
Using Google Scripts the following results are targeted to jobs:

4. Job Search Results:
The 1st
page resulted in 3 unique postings that are not displayed by Monster, Career Builder or
Indeed.com.
Descriptive Terms:
Google also allows the use of “Descriptive Terms” to be used as part of the search string. These
terms add unique phrases to the search process to further refine the results.
Examples of descriptive terms or phrases:

5. Your script will look like this:
“ability to travel” intitle:St Louis intilte:HR Specialist (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR
intitle:careers) (apply OR submit or eoe)
Using Descriptive Terms or Phrases will reduce the number of unique results. Don’t be
discourage if you get no or limited results. The examples of terms above are just a few of
thousands of terms/phrases you can use.
Note: Again, there is no one unique silver bullet in the overall job search process. Using Google Scripts
should be one of your basic tools in your “Job Search Toolkit” including, Networking, Social Media and
finally use of various job boards.
For additional information on unique job search processes connect with me on LinkedIn
(linkedin.com/in/frankalaniz), www.stlworks.com or for additional jobs and job search resources visit
www.jobs.mo.gov.