These tools will help you — for free.

Over the last decade, job-search methods have changed significantly. Gone are the days of flipping through newspapers to look for job advertisements; instead it's the internet's time to shine. The majority of job searches are now done online via various platforms, such as job boards, recruitment websites, and networking platforms like LinkedIn. 

However, with the rise of digitalization comes some downsides as well. Many people feel overwhelmed with the abundance of information and prospects online. From getting lost in the job-application abyss to not knowing how to successfully utilize online networking, sometimes technology can just make it worse. Luckily, this article shares three unique tech tools that will make your online job search a little easier.

Recruit'em

Recruit'em (formerly known as RecruitIn) is a free tool that helps you find other professionals on social networks, such as LinkedIn, more effectively. One of the most important things that you need to know when searching for a job is how to find and connect with recruiters and hiring managers on LinkedIn.

Sure, you can search for specific companies and scroll for profiles that match your criteria, but what most people don't realize is that you can actually get blocked on LinkedIn if you do too many searches on people's profiles. This is because you might be flagged as a recruiter, and LinkedIn has different packages for recruiters. Once you reach your commercial limit to view profiles, you will be prompted to get a LinkedIn Premium account for more views, which is a paid feature.

This is where Recruit'em comes in handy. All you need to do is insert your keywords such as the job title or company name, and then Recruit'em creates a basic boolean string that searches for publicly available web pages via Google. It finds LinkedIn profiles of people that match your criteria, puts them into a list, and all you need to do is click on them; the amount of clicks on Recruit'em don't count in your LinkedIn search limit, giving you the perfect list to research so you can customize your connection requests. 

The best part about Recruit'em? It's entirely free and anonymous, and not in any way associated with LinkedIn. There is also no registration needed, and the service is flexible on multiple social networking sites.

Crystal Knows

Crystal Knows, originally developed in the Harvard Innovation Lab, is a proprietary personality detection tool that embeds into your browser to assist you in finding the best way to approach potential employers or clients. It works by mining data that is publicly available (i.e. information that the candidate has previously posted or information posted by others about them online), and analyzing this data obtained from LinkedIn accounts, Google, Facebook pages, blog posts and more. It then uses personality AI to create a DiSC profile of the candidate. 

From there, a unique feature of Crystal Knows includes guiding you on how to best communicate with someone, including what words to use and even the right tone of voice. It's almost like a psychic for online communication, walking the line between innovating and creepy for some. That being said, it is not much different than the data mining conducted by online platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, and Facebook to display customized ads for their users. 

One of the things that makes Crystal Knows really stand out from other similar AI tools is that the Gmail extension for Chrome actually highlights unsuitable wordings for your intended recipient. Instead, it suggests appropriate phrasings for you to use in your email communication, making it an extremely helpful virtual assistant.

Hunter

Hunter is an email finder and verifier tool that allows you to perform domain searches for email addresses. It works by searching and indexing email addresses that it finds on websites across the internet. Hunter also logs the common email patterns, applying the same logic to the websites that you're searching. You can enter website names to get a list of email addresses that Hunter has logged for that domain, or type a person's name to find specific email addresses. 

One unique aspect of Hunter is its bulk-search feature, which allows you to download a list of email addresses based on a list of domain names, verify this list  to know which addresses are deliverable, and find other email addresses from a list of names and companies. This enables you to send out cold emails to employers at any company to ask about open positions, conduct informational interviews, or even start networking over a cup of coffee. 

Hunter is available as a Chrome extension and also as a Google Sheets add on. The domain search has more than 100 million email addresses indexed with effective search filters and scoring, making it a powerful email-finding tool. To date, the free version of Hunter allows for a maximum of 50 requests per month. Should you need to conduct more searches, you can subscribe to Hunter's premium packages, which go from $49 per month for 1,000 requests.

We hope that these unique tech tools will make your job search a little easier. After all, there's nothing to lose by trying them out.

Another way to increase your job-search success? A professionally written resume from one of our expert writers. 

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