When someone is looking for change there is usually a lot of confusion and questions around it. You may find yourself in different situations - maybe your job is especially busy & you have no time to look but you’re keen to change, or you’re out of a job but not sure why you aren’t getting relevant calls/job emails, or you have time to look but don’t want your current employer to find out, etc. I am going to share some ideas that can help almost anyone to market themselves better.

• Post your resume on job boards. Many times people shy away from sharing all their career history and making their resume public and prefer to just apply for jobs selectively. I wouldn’t recommend this as you want to open as many doors as possible when you’re looking for a new job.  In case you didn’t know, not all the jobs open in the market get posted on job boards. Most recruiters, companies, & headhunters have only x number of jobs that they can post at a times and hence, you don’t want to miss out on being considered for a great role just because it hasn’t been posted online.
  
  
• Regularly refresh your resume after you post it. In most cases, your dream job is not going to find you just from posting your resume once. If you do not repost your resume, it will fall further back in the pages of results. For an example: If I’m looking for Java J2ee developer, a lot of times I will call/email candidates on the first few pages before even looking at candidates on later pages.  If you had posted your resume a month ago,and not refreshed it since then it will likely end up in that last pile of candidates pages, and I am less likely to reach out to you. Lastly, recruiters often search resumes by “last updated” so, it's important that you always have your resume refreshed once a week when looking for a job change.
  
  
• Make your contact info public. If you are struggling on whether or not you should put your email address with your resume as visible to job market since you have following concerns a) you don’t want many unneeded emails for irrelevant jobs b) you don’t want your HR to get even slightest hint of you looking, then there is a solution: You can use a new email address created just for your job search. That will avoid filling your regular mailbox from many recruiting emails, too. Is it worth it to take these steps? Yes, most likely. You don’t want to miss a great opportunity just because you didn’t had time to create a new email add.
  
  
• Consider making your name/current employer private. If you are anxious & confused again about posting resume online on job boards as you don’t want your employer to get to know, Then there are various solutions around that too. I would not recommend making your resume confidential on job boards as that discourages many aggressive headhunters and corporate recruiters as they usually have many other active, more easily reachable candidates to reach out to instead. You can post your resume with your nickname (if you have one) or just leave your name and current employer name as confidential but please include at least some contact information so recruiters can reach out to you.
  
  
• Keep your LinkedIn fresh and up to date. Update your Linkedin profile well and kindly. Post a professional picture, too if it’s not recently updated. If you’re out of a job, you can update your status/title to “Looking for New job”.
  
  
• Block off time in your schedule. Give yourself 15-20 minutes every other day to apply to relevant jobs.
  
  
• Reconnect with recruiters. Connect back with recruiters or headhunters you’ve worked with in the past as well as any acquaintances or connections you have.
  
  
• Connect directly with a hiring manager. Send a LinkedIn connect message to relevant recruiters or company HR after you apply for  jobs at their company, if you can.
  
  
• Ask for a referral. Employee referrals work miracles in expediting your application for any job and hence, connect with your friends, ex colleagues and family for referrals request.

Hope the above tips help in addressing your concerns & I wish you all the best for the future endeavors for all the blog post readers out there.