I wanted to share a little tip I decided to try today, and I’m quite pleased with the outcome. Searching for work as a video editor can be tiresome. After updating websites, demo reels, Facebook pages, blogs, Twitter status, etc., then sometime you have to pound the payment and find video editing gigs in classified ads.

Enter Craigslist. Many jobs are posted in the Jobs / TV Film Video and Gigs / Creative. It can be tedious surfing through these, especially since I have no aspirations in becoming a Low Budget Adult Film Star or Dancer for TV Show Pilot. Additionally, I live in a city that is within a couple of hours of a few major markets in the southeast, so I have to search my city, then the next city, then the next . . .

Enter Google Reader. My tool of choice for reading RSS feeds from different websites. I noticed that each search query on Craigslist generates a unique RSS feed that one can subscribe to. Search Jobs for the term Video, and you get this little nugget:

http://YOURTOWN.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=video&format=rss

So my wheels started turning. I added a folder in my Google Reader called “Craigslist Jobs”, clicked “Add a Subscription”, and then posted my link in there. Voila, an RSS feed of the video jobs in my city. Then I added it to the aforementioned folder for organizational purposes.

Look at this link:

http://YOURTOWN.craigslist.org/search/ggg?query=video&format=rss

What’s the difference?

Now we’re searching “Gigs” for the term video.

It gets better.

With a little bit of effort, I now copy and paste the links but change the cities to search my surrounding major markets . . . in my case Charlotte, Atlanta, Knoxville, etc.

That’s a lot of links! Now just close the folder view in Google Reader and all day long this folder will update with potential video editing work in my surrounding area! Skim through quickly and easily via RSS.

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Filed under: Tutorial