How To Build The Ultimate Job Finding Dashboard with iGoogle
Posted October 7, 2009 in How-To, Marketing 84 Comments »
Picture this: You wake up in the morning, grab your cup of coffee, and meander over to your computer. After checking your morning email and twitter accounts, you get started looking for some new work. You check a number of different job boards, look for keywords on a bunch of job-finding sites, and complete several twitter searches. After about hour or so of looking, you’ve got 5 or so potential leads. Not a bad start!
While 5 leads is pretty decent for an hour of searching — what if you could accomplish the same thing in 15 minutes? What about 5 minutes?
In this article we’re going to show you how to take that entire job search process and replace it with a single customized job finding page on iGoogle. We’ll aggregate all of the various job boards, grab feeds for different twitter searches, and create a single dashboard where you can look for jobs at a glance.
Step 1: Create a Google Account
If you already have a Google account, or know how to use iGoogle, skip this step. If you don’t have a Google account, now’s the time to create one. We’re going to spend a lot of time customizing an iGoogle dashboard, so you want to make sure it is saved securely in your account.
To create an account, just jump over to Google and click ‘Sign in’ at the top right. On the next page click ‘Create an account now’ and follow the instructions.
Step 2: Clean Things Up With a New Tab
iGoogle starts you off with a rather packed and busy page, which isn’t going to be helpful in the search for new projects.
Instead of deleting everything, the easiest way to create your new job finding page is to add a new tab — and this works for those of you who already have customized iGoogle pages too.
You’ll also want to uncheck the “I’m feeling lucky” box too, as that would just fill up your new tab with stuff again, which is what we’re trying to avoid.
Step 3: Add Your Favorite Job Boards to iGoogle
Now we’re ready to start getting into the fun stuff — adding job boards to your page. Since this is a freelance site we’ll be using a freelance web designer as our example, but you can follow along with any industry, topic, or job type that you want.
So, create a list of the job boards that you frequent regularly and would like to include in your personalized dashboard. We’re going to use these job boards for our example:
- 37 Signals Job Board
- FreelanceSwitch Job Board
- Authentic Jobs
- Krop Creative & Tech Jobs
Once you have your list of job boards, open them all up in your browser, along with your iGoogle page.
Look for links to RSS feeds. Go to one of your chosen job boards, we’ll start with FreelanceSwitch, and look for small links to rss feeds. They’ll look something like you see on the right.
Find the RSS feed that is most relevant to you.With a little digging you can usually come up with a selection of multiple different job feeds for each major job board.
For example, FreelanceSwitch has feeds for each of their different categories — but since we’re building a page for the freelance web designer, we only want the feed with design jobs.
Right click and copy the RSS feed.
You’ll need the RSS feed to add this job board to your iGoogle dashboard, so right click on the best link and click “Copy link location”. That RSS link is now on your computer’s clipboard.
Open iGoogle and Add the RSS feed. Go to your iGoogle dashboard, and in the upper right hand side click on the “Add Stuff” link. This will bring you to a page where you can add a lot of gadgets.
Once the page loads, click on “Add feed or gadget” in the lower part of the left column. That will open a box where you can paste in the RSS url that you just found in the previous step.
Repeat for each of job board. Open each job board and look for the most specific RSS feed you can find, and then copy/paste it somewhere you can refer to it later. Once you have the link for all of your job boards, it’s time to add them to iGoogle.
Here’s what it looks like so far:
Step 4: Add Custom Twitter Searches
As we’ve mentioned a number of times on FreelanceFolder, twitter can be a great place to find new jobs of all different types and industries. We don’t want to overlook this potentially valuable resource when creating your job-finding dashboard, so in this section we’ll show you how to include twitter searches in your page.
The first step is to go to search.twitter.com and test a few search phrases to see which results work well. For our example we’re going to use these search terms:
- Need Web Designer
- Hire Web Designer
- Know Web Designer
There are an infinite number of combinations to try, so test until you find something you like. Once you have a few search phrases that work well, move on to the next step.
Copy the RSS link for your search. In the upper right corner of twitter search results page you’ll see a link that says “Feed for this query.”
Right click on that link and copy it to your clipboard, like we did with each of the job boards.
Add the twitter feeds to iGoogle.
Go to your iGoogle dashboard, like we did for the job boards, and add a new RSS feed for each of the twitter searches you want.
Tada! Now you’ve got both customized job board feeds and specific twitter search results showing in one place.
Step 5: Add More and Customize
The final step in creating the ultimate job finding dashboard is to customize it even further to really make it your own. You can do that in several ways, but here are a few ideas:
Add a gadget or two. There are a lot of other gadgets out there made specifically for iGoogle, and you can find all of them with the “Add Stuff” link. Some of them can help with your job search, like the indeed.com job search gadget, and others are just fun to have. I personally added the FreelanceFolder feed to my iGoogle page :-)
Customize the look. The other way you can customize your job dashboard is by changing the theme. You’ll notice in my finished product that I’ve changed it to a darker theme than the usual. The other way that I’ve customized it is to make each feed display 5 items instead of the default 3, as I think this adds to the utility of the page.
Here’s the end result:
Get Our Dashboard For Yourself
Are you a web designer who would benefit from the dashboard we’ve created? Do you want to see a full-sized example? Either way, you can instantly add all of our feeds and customizations to your own iGoogle page by clicking this link:
Add Your Tips
There are a lot of other clever uses for iGoogle that we didn’t cover in this post, but you can add them to the comments! Share your thoughts, suggestions, and ideas in the comments and other freelancers will be eternally grateful.
About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp
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84 Comments
Ritu
October 7th, 2009 at 2:25 pmAwesome post Mason. This same tactic can be utilized in so many ways using iGoogle it’s almost too exciting to even think about it. Thanks for compiling such a detailed tutorial. Kudos!
Onno Knuvers
October 7th, 2009 at 2:45 pmGreat idea, I’ve just setup my iGoogle page. I’ve been using a similar idea with Google Reader but this way is a lot clearer. Also I have the Jackie Chan theme for my page ;)
Bradley
October 7th, 2009 at 3:04 pmI was just thinking about setting up iGoogle before this post came through to me. I used the link you provided at the end and my iGoogle was customized is seconds! Thanks Mason!
Laura Spencer
October 7th, 2009 at 4:07 pmThis is great stuff!
I love the freebie you provide at the end too.
What a terrific help for freelancers everywhere.
Belinda
October 7th, 2009 at 6:34 pmThis is great – thank you!
Mark Montoya
October 7th, 2009 at 7:13 pmOh, wow. Great post. The application of iGoogle goes beyond just job search, but it is a very practical approach for job search consolidation. Nice work!
Steve Oliveira
October 7th, 2009 at 7:19 pmHow do I move the tabs from the top to the left?
Apparently Google changed the layout recently to have the tabs on the left side and I heard it’s the bee’s knees. However, my layout is still the old one.. how do I update it?
Jeff Gibbard
October 7th, 2009 at 7:28 pmGreat Post. I wrote a similar one ussing Google reader a few months back for all of my friends who were out of work. I love posts like this that are clearly written to deliver value. Great work.
Blog post I referenced: http://www.jeffgibbard.com/2009/05/07/by-request-you-asked-for-it-you-got-it/
ohisee
October 7th, 2009 at 11:42 pmThank you so much for your article. I’m a Vietnamese (a South Eastern Asia Country) web freelancer. Can you give some advices for freelancers like me?
Andrew Christen
October 8th, 2009 at 4:27 amThis is a great article. I have not dealt much with iGoogle and the dashboard personally. This is something I will definately play with.
Thanks
Andrew Christen
http://www.XpertFreelance.com
Jessi Edwards
October 8th, 2009 at 7:20 amWow! I have to admit, I was quite lazy in aggregating all of these suggestions into iGoogle, yet this post kicked my butt into gear! I now have a great page set up and not only will it make me more efficient, but also hopefully more money :)
Thanks guys – I owe you one!
Jeddy
October 8th, 2009 at 7:44 amGreat tips! Just shared this to students. They’re going to find it very useful for their job search.
Bronson Quick
October 8th, 2009 at 7:47 amThat’s such a fantastic idea. I’ve set up my iGoogle for so many other things but never thought about using it for getting new freelance projects. I check many of the sites every couple of days. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this!
Great post! :)
Martin Doersch
October 8th, 2009 at 8:09 amGreat tip. Love it and going to test it.
Also your iGoogle site is a great start — thanks a lot!
Best regards from Austria
Martin
Luke Jones
October 8th, 2009 at 8:09 amAwesome post. I’m not really one for job boards, but I’m going to add the Twitter feed.
Ivan | Jobs Blog
October 8th, 2009 at 10:14 amThat is a really nice way to have your cup of coffee in the morning! :)
Let me give it a shot and see if I get a job!
Getting a job – meaning stop reading blogs like this one! :)
Nick Parsons
October 8th, 2009 at 10:33 amI can’t believe I never thought of this! I have a whole bunch of feeds on my iGoogle page, but I never even considered putting job feeds on there. Thanks so much for this idea!
One thought I had that might complement this really nicely is to also put up some time-tracking sort of widget that could help you stay on track with your day :) Web Worker Daily published a really neat article on iGoogle productivity gadgets, if anyone’s interested.
Thanks again!
Vicky
October 8th, 2009 at 10:45 amThis is absolutely Brilliant!
I wonder how else you can use iGoogle? I just use it to keep updated with other blogs. I’m curious to see how others use it.
Amber Weinberg
October 8th, 2009 at 11:17 amGreat post. I’ve been using Tweetdeck for this, but I think this will really clean up my app use.
Michael Krapf
October 8th, 2009 at 12:37 pmGreat idea! Thanks for the info.
I just wish Google would allow access to the IGoogle Page from Google Apps for Business.
http://thegraphicdesignshop.com/content/google-apps-and-how-i-use-it
Greg Rollett
October 8th, 2009 at 3:02 pmVery cool idea. We generally teach people to use Google Reader, but this way is much cleaner and gets rid of the clutter by creating the page and using widgets and themes.
Thanks for the tutorial.
Francis Scully
October 8th, 2009 at 6:58 pmI’m glad to see this knowledge spread. I set up a similar page about 6/7 months ago on Netvibes. They even let you create an accessible page that anyone can visit and/or share. I currently live in NJ, so I set up one for the NJ/NY area for computer-technician positions. http://www.netvibes.com/ejca-aplus
eimat
October 8th, 2009 at 8:42 pmThis could be handy: if you’re using firefox & greasemokey install this to make igoogle one column width only: http://userstyles.org/style/show/1509 .
Then you can display it in your sidebar.
I found this at: http://mashable.com/2007/05/11/igoogle/
moon h
October 9th, 2009 at 11:19 amGreat article, Mason. Usually I read the articles and think ‘oh, useful info!’ but this one made me act! An hour later, I have Monster, Dice, Elance, Guru, and oDesk feeds. Probably more to come, like Twitter.
Thanks!
Ted Rex
October 9th, 2009 at 11:27 amGreat advice! I posted a link to this in my daily design blog: http://designthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/2009/10/jobs-gears-and-geeks.html
Ray Wenderlich
October 9th, 2009 at 12:10 pmWow for some reason I never thought about subscribing to RSS feeds for job opps… thanks! I’ve signed up for several, will be nice to have an “automatic eye” out there!
Phaoloo
October 10th, 2009 at 1:14 amNice guidelines, I still consider iGoogle is useless until reading this post. It’s simple and effective.
Jay
October 10th, 2009 at 10:05 amI too have been doing this for some time with and rss reader.
I highly recommend funneling all feeds through yahoo pipes for good filtering. Separate out the junk to be even more efficient!
Shawn
October 11th, 2009 at 2:02 amGreat article and tips. One issue, I can’t seem to get it to work right. Half of them don’t load right or are all jumbled up, and they’re not holding my job search functions. That, and I’m having great difficulty finding the RSS feeds on the job boards; monster, hotjobs, guru, etc.
Any tips?
Tim Mize
October 12th, 2009 at 9:52 amI too was looking at how to do this via Google Apps because it was such an awesome idea, and I figured it out after much research and it was right under my nose all the time. Thus the reason I am posting this to also help others out with what I found. If you go to your Google Apps custom home partner page and then click on the add items on the right hand side, you will be taken to the add page for adding gadgets. None of which really work like the iGoogle. But up at the search box on the top is a small amount of text that says “Add by url”. Click on this and it will allow you to paste the RSS feed in and add it to your page just like the iGoogle and give you settings for each and the freedom as this article does on iGoogle. Hope this helps somebody else out.
MCEctoCooler
October 13th, 2009 at 9:58 amGreat idea! A LOT easier than manually going through all your favorite job websites. This method streamlines the process!
izmir winsa
October 13th, 2009 at 6:27 pmThis is really great idea!!!
Thank you!!!
Laura Tamayo
October 14th, 2009 at 12:42 amPerfect time saver. I just added it. Great post!
WiseClicker
October 19th, 2009 at 1:59 amReally a very helpful post. Thank you Mason.
Barbara38
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:12 amYou need to look into some of the research conducted during the Third Reich. ,
clippingimages
October 31st, 2009 at 4:16 amWoW :) Awesome post. Nice tutorial with well explanation. Very informative and i have learn lot from this post. Thanks for sharing this nice post.
Serene
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:18 pmThis is awesome! Gonna add and try this :) thanks
Laura
November 11th, 2009 at 11:21 amDone and done. This is a great tool and along with Google Reader, it shortens my daily online searching/reading significantly.
Toby
November 24th, 2009 at 12:59 pmThis is an outstanding tutorial on a critically important step that every job seeker should be taking in their job search efforts. The tools available for job seekers today are incredibly powerful, but the numbers can be overwhelming and the steps involved can be daunting. It’s also hard to know where time will be well spent with a productive outcome as opposed to being a waste of time. This step-by-step tutorial on iGoogle is well written, easy to follow, and extremely worthwhile for job seekers. It highlights a technology platform (iGoogle, RSS, and Twitter) that any job seeker at any level, in any location, and in any industry can leverage to improve their efforts.
One of the RSS feeds that a job seeker should add to their dashboard is a customized search from LinkUp.com. LinkUp is a job search engine that indexes job listings exclusively from company websites. The index is updated every night and lists jobs from over 22,000 corporate career portals on company websites. As a result, jobs on LinkUp are always current. Unlike other aggregators such as Indeed and Simplyhired that list jobs from other job boards, the LinkUp search engine lists only jobs directly from company sites, so we have no fake jobs, work-at-home scams, and phishing jobs. As well, since 70% of available jobs are not advertised anywhere but can only be found on a company’s website, the vast majority of LinkUp’s jobs cannot be found anywhere else on the web.
To add a customized job feed from LinkUp, a job seeker should visit LinkUp.com, enter a search query into the search engine, and then hit the RSS icon in the upper right corner of their browser to get the RSS feed for that search. If a job seeker adds that RSS feed to their iGoogle dashboard, it will always list whatever current jobs are in the search engine that match that search criteria. I’d also recommend that a job seeker add multiple RSS feeds into their iGoogle dashboard, not just from different sites, but also different search strings from the same site.
In any event, this is a great post and one that I will be highlighting for job seekers as frequently as possible.
Thanks.
Toby Dayton
LinkUp.com
manager job
November 25th, 2009 at 4:52 amThese applications are really great and can turn out to be really helpful in your job search making you individual and standing out of the crowd!
Lyons Solutions Web Design
November 29th, 2009 at 9:10 amLearning new things everyday. Definitely will give this a go.
Ankit
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:55 amWonderful.
here I get one more reason to use IGooglr.
Thanks
Jonathan Roseland
January 7th, 2010 at 1:14 pmHey so this is pretty cool but I noticed a major issue with it…
There is NO way (that I could find) to message the strangers on Twitter who I was finding… I was stuck having to google their names & trying to find their emails, facebooks or myspaces out on the internet… Not very efficient…
Can you shed some light on this Mason?
Alconcalcia
January 18th, 2010 at 2:50 pmI have had job alerts set up for ages on job boards, more for keeping an eye on the industry rather than actually looking for a job. But, you never know! Every morning I open my email and there they are – all the relevant jobs from three job sites that I set up alerts on. One national newspaper, one niche site and one generalist job board. Having a dashboard sounds lovely, but calling something the ultimate job finding tool is some claim!
marie broadway
January 18th, 2010 at 10:47 pmlooking for a job
WP Themes
January 19th, 2010 at 2:14 amAmiable fill someone in on and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you seeking your information.
Carlo Rizzante
January 25th, 2010 at 7:36 amThat’s awesome, Mason. Great tips in your article.
Thanks for sharing!
Business in Web
January 26th, 2010 at 11:58 pmGreat thanks for your advice!
You have an excellent blog and very helpful posts!
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