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If you're looking for a job, being the first to know about the open position can work in your favor. Not only does knowing about the open position put you at the top of the list for interviewees, it also lets you set the standard for what everyone else will be compared to rather than you being compared to someone else. But how do you always ensure you are the first to know about a job?

Let's rewind a little bit. Remember in grade school where they taught you about primary sources and secondary sources? Primary sources were people who directly had a hand in some event that occured, whereas secondary sources merely combined or reported on data taken from primary sources. With job ads there are primary sources and secondary sources.

Primary sources would be where employers are directly posting their job advertisements to. This usually is either a classified ad (either online or offline) or a job posting on Monster.com or Dice.com as far as the IT industry goes. Secondary sources generally are websites that collate data from various primary sources to present it to you in a friendly format on a daily basis. This generally includes AfterCollege.com and CareerBuilder.

The problem with secondary sources is that they must first pull data from and process primary resources. Why not just get the data from the primary resources yourself? Here's how. First, visit all the websites of your local newspapers and visit their classifieds section (or jobs section as the case may be). Almost all of them give you the option of being notified of when new jobs are available. Set up accounts with your newspapers online and enjoy the flow of e-mail. Make sure you get an e-mail with a list of jobs within 48 hours otherwise you probably did something wrong during the sign-up process.

If you're specifically looking at federal government jobs, there's not much you can do other than constantly troll USAjobs.com. That website has all the information regarding open federal government jobs regardless of department. For your individual state and city civil service jobs, check out their respective websites.

While more work is involved in setting up e-mails from primary job resources and posting resumes to those various websites and ultimately you may find yourself sifting out more "crap" jobs, you are more likely to also find a meaningful job that you will like by these means.

During the height of my job search, I set a rule that if I was going to respond to an ad I had to do so within 72 (preferably 24) hours of the publishing of that job posting. This frequently put me first on the interview list and allowed me to set the stage for the rest of the candidates to be forced to match up to. The problem with secondary job sources is they often take that long just to acquire and process the data before sending it to you. Hence I recommend not placing emphasis on secondary job sources.

Not saying you should absolutely avoid secondary sources. Often they are a great source for discovering job fairs and job opportunities that aren't posted through traditional venues. However, relying on secondary sources to get a job is a fatal mistake.

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