Reading Between the Lines of the Monster.com Job Listings
by Peter Vogt
Many college students who use Monster.com's job listings don't start doing so until their senior year or beyond -- not realizing that the listings offer valuable information they can use as early as freshman year.
Why start reading Monster.com's listings before you start looking for an actual job or internship? Well, if you read between and among the lines of the listings, you can gather a lot of helpful information beyond the actual job leads. Here's what else you can uncover with very little effort:
Career Possibilities
Whether you're just looking in general terms or trying to link your college major(s) with a career, the Monster.com job listings (there are more than 400,000 as I write this) can be of enormous help in giving you ideas on the types of careers you can pursue. If you're a biology major, for example, type in "biology" as a search keyword and look at the job listings that come up. Or, if you're interested in working in a museum, type in the search keyword "museum" and see what emerges.
Salary Information for Different Parts of the Country or World
If you want to get a sense of the salary you can seek (or expect) for a certain occupation, Monster.com's job listings offer many clues. Recently, for instance, I wrote a Monster.com article on the career of nuclear medicine technology. As part of my research I typed in the search phrase "nuclear medicine technologist," looked at the list of jobs that was generated, and got some helpful initial figures on salaries for that particular career in different parts of the US. You can do the same sort of thing for any career or occupation that interests you. Also be sure to check out our new Salary Center, where you can get salary ranges for different job titles.
Skills and Experience Sought for Various Occupations and Careers
As a college student or new grad, it's often very difficult to get a good grasp of the skills and experience employers expect you to have for a particular job. Monster.com's job listings can help you fill in some of those blanks because the listings almost always include the skills, experiences and educational requirements of hiring employers. If you're interested in an entry-level computer programming position, for example, you can quickly pull up some of the computer-oriented job listings to see what specific programming languages and associated skills you ought to have to be eligible for most jobs.
Companies and Organizations that Are Hiring in Specific Geographic Areas
If you are like many college students, you'd like to live and work in a specific geographic area after you graduate. If that's the case for you, search Monster.com's job listings by geographic area to find out who's hiring in your geographic area of interest -- and, perhaps as important, to predict who will likely be hiring in the near future. Select the cities you're interested in and type in keywords relating to your desired career field.
Contact Names for Informational Interviews
Is there a particular company, organization, or industry you'd enjoy learning more about? One great way to do so is through informational interviewing. Problem is, it can often be hard to track down good people to talk to about your questions and concerns. Monster.com's job listings can help because each of them usually lists the name of a specific hiring contact at the sponsoring company. Thus, you can get in touch with some of these people to arrange meetings with them (or their colleagues) and research whatever it is you'd like to know about a particular organization, industry or career.
Monster.com's job listings can't tell you everything you want and need to know, obviously. But their sheer number and content combine to offer you a potential wealth of information you can use, whether you're just starting your career exploration or you're about to pursue your first entry-level job. So tap into the information available to you, and let it lead you to both answers and opportunities.
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