How to Use Jibber Jobber

I am wrapping up my active job search for the time being - I have decided to accept a job that I was offered, but I wanted to share some details on a cool tool I learned about during my job search process.

I've been using Jibber Jobber for a few weeks now to help manage my job search, and thought I'd outline the overall process for using Jibber Jobber, as well as some tips I've learned along the way! The best of Jibber Jobber is through its premium account features, which you have access to during the first 14 days of the time. My "free premium" time recently ran out, and I'm still exploring whether JJ is worth using on the free version, or exactly how I should use Jibber Jobber without access to its coolest features.

1. Set up your contacts. You can easily import your contacts from LinkedIn, Gmail, Outlook or whatever other email or contact database you might have. They even have a video on how to do this (doublecheck!). You can also rate your contacts, which is an interesting feature that I'll talk about more in a bit.





2. Set up your companies. These are target companies, recruiters you work with, or even job boards that you use. You can also rank these companies!





3. Search for jobs within the Jibber Jobber context. Search for jobs on Indeed.com, Yahoo, Careerbuilder, from within Jibber Jobber. If you find a job that interests you, you can easily add it to your JJ job list.





4. Add jobs to your Jibber Jobber job list. In addition to adding them from the job searchs, you can also manually add a job.





5. Log thoughts and create action items. This is like a journal of what you're doing. You can log to a contact, a company, or a specific job. When you log an action taken, you can also create an Action Item. These can make up your to-do list for the job search or even just in general networking. These will be translated more generally throughout the application --> e.g. see a list of action items for this week, related to networking.
   For example, log that I sent in my resume and cover letter to XYZ Consulting. I can make an action item to call my contact at XYZ Consulting after 5 days to check that they've received my resume and ask about follow-up. Jibber Jobber sends me an email reminder before this action item is due. I can also view all my action items at a glance for this week.

These are the basics on how to use Jibber Jobber, which took me a little while to figure out. Now I appreciate how the process (sometimes seemingly tedious) can help to streamline the job search, a proactive networking strategy, and also save all of your information in one place for you to come back to next time you need to look for a new job or freshen up with new ideas from my network.