Looking for meaningful work

As I start seriously thinking about how to find that one sales job that I can be happy with for many years to come, I’ve come up with several different ways of searching.

The most obvious and unfortunately the most popular (I say unfortunately because it’s the least effective) way to look for a job is through job ads. Job ads easy to find, and easy to interact with – but especially on mega sites like Monster or CareerBuilder, you are up against hundreds of other resumes, no to mention the keyword search elimination robots. So the chances of landing an interview are really low (zero in my case).

Some job ad boards are better than others though, and I’ve had good luck with CU Career Services (because only CU students and alumni are allowed to see the jobs) and craigslist.

Of course, the best and most effective way to get a job is through a referral – through a network of friends and family. And I’m trying to network the best that I can, but it hasn’t been as helpful as I would have wished because I am looking for work in an industry (start-up/technology companies) here I don’t have a lot of contacts.

So, with the risk of running out of leads, I’ve decided to try what I call a “Top Down” approach to finding work. Rather than look for a job that needs to be filled, I will look for companies that I, at least on the first glance, would want to work in. The benefit of this approach is that it’s proactive, I don’t have to wait for jobs to be advertised, it gives me something that at least feels productive to do, and it’s an opportunity to learn about all the different companies in the industry.

I don’t know how much I should expect from the “Top Down” strategy – but it seems worth the effort.