Using RSS XML Feeds & Readers

In a nutshell RSS allows you to receive information from sites such as News or Job Boards without having to visit those sites each time you want an update. Not all websites currently provide XML/RSS, but it is growing rapidly in popularity and many Job Sites and Career Boards such as SimplyHired, Monster and Indeed do provide it.

RSS is really just a standardized form of data based on XML. The data itself is processed by an RSS reader/aggregator into a human readable format like:

The real power of RSS aggregation is you can have all the feeds you wish sent to one location. You can save a huge amount of time job hunting by sending all your favorite Job board feeds to one place.

In general, the first thing you need is something called a RSS Reader/Aggregator. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. All allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want. There are plenty on the market, some free, some commercial.

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time. Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to take this into account when you make your choice Below are lists of some of the most popular RSS Feed Readers for both Mac and PC. A search of “RSS readers” on your favorite search engine can lead you to many more. If you have a MyYahoo Account or a MyMSN Account you can add Feeds to your account. Once the feeds have been added, the yahoo or msn search bot will periodically check for updates and add the new content to your page.

Newz Crawler: http://www.newzcrawler.com/
FeedDemon: http://www.feeddemon.com/
Omea Reader: http://www.jetbrains.com/omea/reader/
SharpReader: http://www.sharpreader.net/
NewsGator: http://www.newsgator.com/

Shrook: http://www.fondantfancies.com/apps/shrook/
NewsFire: http://www.newsfirerss.com/
PixelNews: http://www.pixelatedsoftware.com/products/inews/

Bloglines - http://www.bloglines.com/

Each product or service will have a similar way of adding feeds. It's pretty simple, you find a site that can provide an RSS feed, you copy their link which will normally be on an image which looks like this: or . You paste the link into your RSS Reader/Aggregator. and that's it done. You can normally set how often your reader will check your feeds. It depends on the type of information but when it comes to job sites it makes sense to have it check as frequently as possible, that way you stand a better chance at applying for a job early.

Staffinglinks has started to compile a list of Career/Employment sites offering RSS/XML Feeds. Our List of RSS/XML Career Sites is by no means complete but it is one of the few such lists available on the Internet and it does contain many sites of interest to the Job Seeker. Job Search Feeds or Management, Career & Leadership Feeds