Job hunting or job seeking is the act of looking for employment, due to unemployment or discontent with a current position. The immediate goal of job seeking is usually to obtain a job interview with an employer which may lead to getting hired. The job hunter or seeker typically first looks for job vacancies or employment opportunities. Common methods of job hunting are:

• using a job search engine
• looking through the classifieds in newspapers
• using a private or public employment agency or recruiter
• finding a job through a friend or an extended business network or personal network

Overview

howto: date=June 2008

Knowing the employers

It is expected the job seekers will have done a reasonable amount of research into the employers. Some basic information about an employer should be collected first before applying the organization's positions, including full name, locations, web site, business description, year established, revenues, number of employees, stock price if public, name of chief executive officer, major products or services, major competitors, strength as well as challenges.

With all of the resources available on the Internet, expand the research into the employer to discover if the employer's operation is healthy and likely to continue to prosper. If an employer's financial situation is shaky, new employees are often the first one out the door when a cut back occurs. Employers that are companies with publicly traded equities are good subjects for pre-employment research and enable the job hunter to avoid being the last one hired before the reductions and layoffs begin.

Networking

Contacting as many people as possible is the best way to find a job. It is estimated that 60% or higher of all jobs are found through networking.

Applying

One can also go and hand out résumés or Curriculum Vitae to prospective employers. Another recommended method of job hunting is to use cold calling or emailing to companies that one desires to work for and inquire to whether there are any job vacancies.

After finding a desirable job, they would then apply for the job by responding to the advertisement. This may mean emailing or mailing in a hard copy of your résumé to a prospective employer. There is no one correct way to write a résumé but it is generally recommended that it be brief, organized, concise, and targeted to the position being sought. With certain occupations, such as graphic design or writing, portfolios of a job seeker's previous work are essential and are evaluated as much, if not more than the person's résumé. With most other occupations, the résumé should focus on past accomplishments, expressed in terms as concretely as possible (e.g. number of people managed, amount of increased sales or improved customer satisfaction).