Lots of jobs out there...are you finding yours?

Well, I was doing my periodic purging of email from my SaneLater box (thanks, Sanebox!) and I came across some pretty interesting things today, in terms of my job searches.

Yes, even though I am self-employed, I am a job searcher.

Because:

1.-  you never know if your-I-will-give-up-this-freelance-thing-in-a-heartbeat-if-my-perfect-job-comes-along will be listed (this is like the I-know-we-are-married-but-if-I-have-the-chance-to-be-with-Matthew-McConaughey-we-agree-it-will-be-allowed-one-time-only thing)
2.-  job searching doesn't necessarily mean it's just all full-time jobs.  Proper job hunts include freelance, contract, part-time situations, too.  You can even filter for those!  So you can find your next client that allows you to get that W-2 situation, on an hourly basis, and defer some of your paycheck to offset the taxes you owe from your non-W-2 clients.  This is smart, actually, and I do it.

Anyway, I digress.

So, I'm a regular subscriber to mandy.com  (which many video pros are), and I was shocked to see there were a whopping 142 job listings!  Ok, none of them were here in DC, but this is a huge number.  There's generally about 30-45.  I don't know if Mandy's done some crazy PR thing, or there's just a lot of openings out there, but this is encouraging, in my mind!

Then, while I was looking at my Dollar Stretcher newsletter, I found there's a whole section for 20 somethings there that included this great article about using social media to find jobs.  It's been my impression lately that young people don't know much more than social media, when it comes to their idea of networking.  I could be wrong.  But I was intrigued to see what those 20 somethings are doing that I need to compete with.  One very interesting job search tool mentioned was Glassdoor.  This can allow you to put in a company that you want to work with, and it will scour your Facebook friends to connect who you know that already is working there (or worked there in the past).  For larger companies, you can see salary info for specific jobs (all submitted anonymously by other Glassdoor users).  Seems pretty awesome.  It seems to have a lot of potential, and seems to be a good non-traditional way to research companies, and who you might know that works/has worked there.