By J. Mason
Online Career Tips Staff
Stay relevant in your field by knowing what is current, and what is happening right now. How can you do that without wasting hours scouring through countless RSS feeds and news sites? I have two words for you, Google Alerts. As long as you have an email address, alerts based on your queries will be sent directly to your inbox.
Here’s how it works…when Google finds new results through scouring web pages, newspaper articles, or blogs, it will send you the results related to your search criteria. If you work in finance and you have to monitor news on banking, personal checking accounts, and home loans make sure each of those subjects is included as an alert.
Google alerts is a powerful tool if used correctly, remember also that it is going to send you everything based on your keywords. So if you want to exclude something make sure to put a minus sign (-) in front of those words. If you’re loyal to a specific publication, set up an alert for that specific site as well. Quotations are good if you’re looking for a grouping of words, instead of a string of words not related to anything you’re researching for work. You can also control the frequency in which you receive results, but if you’re looking for something timely you may want to change the timing to “as it happens.”
Visiting your favorite news site or blog everyday is still a great habit to keep up. This new method, using Alerts is a supplement. It’s like having a mole feeding you great information, and all you have to do is give it keywords and your email address.
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