Graduating from high school or college is a scary thing. You have relatives and friends constantly asking about your future plans, job offers, job leads, and anything else you don’t want to talk about in small conversation. I’ve mentioned before on this site that formal education doesn’t teach us how or where to find a job. We’re expected to figure it out on our own. During an age where everyone resorts to the internet for their main source of information and social networking, you would think that finding a job has gone virtual. But, the opposite is actually true. The old-fashioned methods of finding a job still hold strong, yet many young people aren’t grasping this concept.

Here is a list of job finding sources that tend to be the least effective:

• Newspaper Ad: If you’re looking for a part-time job or extra work, this might be a good place to find a job, but it won’t result in finding your new career.
• Private employment agencies and headhunter firms: Using these services rarely results in getting a job, especially one that you are interested in. Generally, head hunters are looking for executives, not entry positions and middle management.
• Answering ads in trade journals and publications: Again, the chance of this resulting in getting a job is very low. There is too much time delay.
• Responding to Internet Ads: This is one of the worst sources for finding a job. Most people who are looking for jobs online are wasting their time and trying to avoid real human contact to get a job they want.

Here are the best ways to find and obtain a job:

• Identify Your Skills, Research potential companies you’d like to work for, find the manager with the power to hire you, and request an interview. This is the most effective way to find a career. If you identify the companies that will suit you best, chances are that you’ll be a good fit in that company and the hiring manager will recognize it.
• A referral from a friend or relative.Referrals from friends very often result in landing a job. This is why so many companies offer referral bonuses for recommending a friend to fill an open position. Friends usually won’t refer you to the job unless they already know that you’d be a good fit for the position and you’re qualified for it.
• Using the career resource center at your university. This is how I landed my first job out of college. I saw the ad at the placement office, they contacted the HR manager directly and sent my resume to them through the mail (not through email!)

The internet has revolutionized many aspects of our life, but it hasn’t changed the way we find jobs. It does give us a reference point to know that a company is hiring, but many positions are not even posted on the internet. Stick to the old-fashioned methods when it comes to finding a job, and you’ll have much more quality results.