Useful Hacks on Google for Career Development

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There are many hacks on Google that you can employ to narrow down your search so that it yields more accurate results. You can use Google to search for a variety of topics and use various tools to help you in your career development, including when looking through current job listings, reviewing industry-reported salaries, researching hiring companies, seeking out networking events and many more. Learn more about the most common Google hacks and tips for using them to help refine your career search inquiries.

What are Google hacks?

Google hacks are tools that you can employ to provide you with more effective and accurate results when searching the web. These hacks include functions you may not have known about and ways to type in your search items so that you specify your search parameters. They include various operators, which are search commands created by using specific characters or symbols, that can assist you in your online searches.

Tips for using Google hacks for your career

Here are some tips for using Google hacks to help you in a variety of job search and workplace situations:

  • Looking for a job
  • Changing your career
  • Finding professional development opportunities
  • Researching a company
  • Preparing for an interview
  • Writing your resume
  • Conducting research on the job

When you employ Google hacks during your searches, you can ensure you are refining your search to only see the most applicable results. Limiting how many search results come up can help you save time looking for what you need. In addition, some Google hacks can be used to complete complex tasks, like calculations. 

Common Google hacks for job searches and the workplace

Here is a list of a few useful Google hacks to help you define your next search on Google:

Use quotation marks

To minimize the guesswork that Google has to do when you type in a phrase, use quotation marks to be more specific about what it is you are looking for. For instance, if you type Copywriting jobs Florida in the search bar, the search engine will search for the words copywriting, jobs and Florida respectively, and in that order, will show all webpages that contain either one of the words or all three words. However, if you add quotation marks and type ‘Copywriting jobs Florida’, only sites that contain the whole phrase will come up. 

Exclude unnecessary or unwanted searches

To refine your search and exclude unwanted results, place a hyphen directly before the keyword or phrase you don’t want to come up in the search. For example, ‘engineering jobs -civil’ allows you to search for engineering jobs that exclude civil engineering roles. This operator is also particularly helpful when you are searching  for an ambiguous word or phrase that may have more than one connotation or meaning.

Determine ranges

When searching within a specific numerical range, you can add two periods with no spaces in between two numbers. For instance, ‘$75,000..$80,000’. You can also use this operator to determine ranges below or above a specific number. For instance, ‘copywriter jobs $60,000..’ will show you copywriter jobs that pay $60,000 or more per year, whereas ‘color laser printers..$500’ will supply you with results of color laser printers under $500 for your new office.

Search using an image

You can use an image to begin a search for information about the content of an image, its creator if it has one, the original publishing date and location, sites with that or similar images and more.  When searching with an image, you can either upload your own image, use an image’s link or drag an image from a different window on your computer.  This search tool can be used to find more icons similar to the ones you’re using on your professional website or resume or the source of an image you want to include in a report.

Search on a specific website

If you need to search on a specific website exclusively, use the operator ‘site:site name [keywords]’ in your search. For example, if you are looking for sample physician assistant resumes to help create your own, consider typing ‘site:resume.com physician assistant resume’ to discover an easy path right to the sample resumes you need. You may also use this search operator to find a specific section of the site, such as a company’s ‘About Us’ page or its mission statement to help you align your resume and cover letter with its values.

Use the asterisk wildcard

A wildcard is a character used as a placeholder when creating a search term. You use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard to serve as placeholders where the Google search engine can include relevant words. For instance, if you cannot remember all of the words to a quote that you want to incorporate in a presentation,  type in the words you remember and insert asterisks in the places where you have forgotten the words. If you type ‘If life were * it would * to be life, and would be without *,’ Google will fill in the missing words.

 Complete OR searches

If you need to search two separate terms or phrases concurrently, you can use the OR operator. Let’s say you are looking for work as either a marketing manager or a sales manager, you can enter ‘marketing manager jobs OR sales manager jobs’ to view results for both job titles.

Apply the ‘intitle’ operator

You can also narrow down your Google search by using the ‘intitle’ operator, which only shows results where the phrase or term you have typed in the search bar is included in the title of the page. When you are searching for professional development opportunities, you can use this function to find a certain type of certification. For example, you can type ‘intitle:project manager certification’ to discover pages of information about what certifications to earn, how to earn them and where you can find certification programs and exams.

Search for specific file types

If you need to find a link to a document, such as a report or video, you can search for a specific file type to limit irrelevant pages. To do so, you just type ‘filetype:[file type] to your Google search, and only the file type that you have entered shows in the results. You can search for virtually any file type on Google, including ‘swf’ for Adobe Flash files, ‘pdf’ for Portable Document Format, ‘xlsx’ for Microsoft Excel and ‘docx’ for Microsoft Word. For example, if you are looking for a keyword in only Portable Document Format files, you would type ‘filetype:pdf democracy’ to review a list PDF files that contain the keyword ‘democracy.’

Combine operators

For a search that will yield even more detailed and custom results, you can combine Google hacks. You can combine the site search hack with many others, like the OR search function. For example, if you’re looking for information about how to improve your communication and leadership skills, consider typing ‘site:resume.com leadership skills OR communication skills’ to review articles that discuss both of these topics concurrently and separately.