Ideas of Finding an Accounting Job? (Portland, Salem: insurance, find a job, neighborhoods)

[wanderbygrace]

My family and I need to move to the Portland area to tend to family matters (health issues). My wife is from northern Oregon, originally, thus we're fairly familiar w/the region (e.g. schools, neighborhoods & communities, activities, etc.).

I am an accountant here in Ohio, and am trying to find similar employment in the Portland area - anywhere from Vancouver to Salem. I need to get some ideas of where to look for a job in/around Portland - can my friendly city-data peers help here?

Here is what I've used so far (in random order & perhaps not exhaustive):
*Craigslist
*Oregon Live
*Monster
*Career Builder
*Jobs.com

In addition, I've looked at hundreds of different companies' websites for open positions (such as members of the latest Oregon 100, among others), as well as have contacted a few local agencies, but none of them seem overly eager to help me out. About a month into the search, nothing has panned out yet.

Any ideas? I'm able to make the move with just a 2-week notice. We'd like to find something ASAP, due to those family needs, but financially, we can't afford for me to leave my employment here w/o having something reasonable lined up in Portland.

[wanderbygrace]

BTW - if an mod would change the thread title to read "on" instead of "of", that would be appreciated. The brain was thinking faster than the fingers could keep up.

[Nell Plotts]

It appears to me that employers are using recruiters. You might consider contacting Robert Half Finance and Accounting and the Management Resources divisions. Nothing pops in a search of their site but that doesn't mean much.

I checked CraigsList and there appear to be a number of positions. I assume you are applying for those that are suitable....

[rhodan653]

Not to be a downer but it will be an uphill slog to find an accounting job from Ohio. The last staff accountant position my company posted received over 250 responses in 2 days and non-local people are just not likely to be considered. It is unlikely a company will take a chance with an out-of-towner when there are so many local accountants looking for work. It is far easier to make progress on a job search if you are already in the area, but then of course you do not have a job and have to survive on savings for a potentially long time. I wish you luck but it will be a challenge to find a job being out of state.

[Minervah]

I recently retired from a large insurance company. Recruiters were used for all professional jobs. This seems to be the trend these days. Even the lower level jobs were filled through temp-to-hire agencies. Companies become innundated with resumes when advertising just one position on Craig's List or the Classifieds. It is more worth their while to have a professional recruiter or employment agency do the screening for them.

There is no secret to finding a job. You have to work at it and unfortunately, it will more than likely take longer than just a couple of weeks.

[hamellr]

Here is a list of job related RSS Feeds for Portland: Hamell.net » Blog Archive » Job Searching in Portland most of these eventually get to some sort of recruiter.

If you need an RSS Reader, you can do so via Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader/view/

Also, here is a list of all the Temp Agencies in Portland: Hamell.net » Blog Archive » Portland Temp Agencies

I created these lists when I was looking myself and referred to them at least weekly if not daily.