Let’s take a walk down memory lane and talk about the Power Rangers. 

(Yes, I know…not your typical introductory hook…stay with me here.) 

You know, those stretchy-suited, colorful superheroes that basically went 10000-0 in all their battles?

As deadly as these Rangers were with their hand-to-hand fighting, they needed something more destructive when things really got heated. 

Their solution? Some devastating, ghastly looking weapons.

The modern networker also needs his/her weapons (aka. online tools) to be effective and efficient. I mean, why would you not take advantage of what’s out there?

Here are 4 tools that you can start using right away to get more referrals, expand your network, and put yourself in a stronger position to secure that ideal job. 

And yes, they are all free. 🙂

 

4 Free Tools To Supercharge Your Hunt

1. Looking For Email Addresses? 

Rapportive + http://www.guesser.email/

Rapportive, is an Gmail extension that magically brings up the social profiles of people you email, right within your Inbox!

By hovering over the email address that’s in your Compose bar, Rapportive brings up the Linkedin profile and any other social profiles associated with that email address. 

So how do we know which email addresses are right? 

We guess. 

Surprisingly enough, a lot email addresses people use is simpler than what you might think.

By using http://www.Guesser.email, this website whips up a few combinations which you can then easily copy & paste into your Compose bar. 

Try it out! 

2. For Crafting A More Compelling Email

We surf the web every day.

We read a lot of articles every day.

We also forget a lot of these things. 

For the majority of us, we need a tool that can store articles, blog posts, tweets, infographics, TED talks, gifs, and memes in an easily organized and retrievable way- especially when we’re ready to send off an email to our new lead (whose email we’ve hopefully found by now!).

Enter, Pocket. http://getpocket.com/

Pocket is an awesome extension which gives you the power to simply save what you need from the web with the click of a single button…AND allows you to tag it appropriately. 

3.  Never Forget Again

So you’ve found the right email address, found a related tidbit to warm up the reader, and sent the email away. 

All done right? 

WRONG. 

This is the MOST important part of any networking process. 

Emails get lost and forgotten like unfinished chapsticks. 

People are busy, they are naturally forgetful, and they have other important emails to get to first. 

By using a tool like followup.cc, you can add a reminder in the bcc to shoot the email right back to you. 

Examples:

2d@followup.cc 

35m@followup.cc

1w@followup.cc

Don’t forget to be kind, concise, and specific in your follow up! 

4. For Easy Scheduling

BOOM! 

You’ve got a response! All that hard work in researching, crafting an awesome email, and following up culminates at this last point-

Scheduling a time to chat. 

Youcanbook.me is a simple and efficient tool that let’s your responders book a time directly on your calendar. 

It’s customizable so you can disallow (or allow if you’re a night owl?) midnight-3am calls. You can also change the layout, the email form, and other styling features. 

Say bye bye to inefficient back and forth emails! 

Wrapping up:

Information and knowledge is good to have, but it’s the application that makes it great. 

Take a minute to use these tools, try them out, figure out how to calibrate them the way that works best for you.

And most importantly, channel that inner Power Ranger I know that’s in you and go get some conversations! 

-Albert

SO TELL ME…

Is there anything I’m missing from this post? What’s one actionable thing you’re going to do now to get you 1 step closer to finding that ideal, fitting job?

Write it in the comment section below, looking forwarding to reading it!