Gone are the days where job seekers flip through the Sunday Paper’s classifieds. Now almost anyone who is serious about their job hunt takes it online. There are many great, and not-so-great, job search sites to be found on the web … but which will actually help to find positions that you are looking for?
There are two main types of search engines for job openings. One is more general and will offer many listings all over the spectrum. The potential downfalls of the large site is the high amount of recruiting agencies, and unorganized postings. The other focuses on a niche group of listings, often limited to one industry, and sometimes narrowed down as far as position only. To help refine your career goals for the job search, consider 360 Career Action Planning. Let’s take a look at the questions you should ask yourself to determine if you should be looking general and/or niche job listing sites.
- Are you looking for a job in a specific field or industry, or are you looking for a position that is potentially available across the board?
- Would you prefer opportunities only in one specific area, or are you open to moving?
- Do you seek full-time, part-time, or contract work?
- Did you graduate from college or vocational school?
General listing services, such as Craigslist, Monster, and Hotjobs, will provide the most amount of search options. You can also check out general, but localized, websites, such as those of your local newspaper. Even Craigslist operates on location-specific classified sites. This is a great advantage for those with an open minded outlook at their next potential position, as they can choose from a variety of industries and locations on just one site. However, these larger sites can frequently be filled with spam, usually in the form of offering too-good-to-be-true work from home schemes or recruiters over-posting their listings. It may also not be as easy to sort through the sites, as the search options don’t get entirely detailed unless you search by keyword, which could amount for an endless amount of searches.
If you work in a particular field, consider a niche job site. They offer more customized searches, tailored to fit the needs of job seekers for that industry. A downfall of these types of job search engines is the potential for a limited amount openings listed. Try Dice for hi-tech jobs (mostly engineering/programming), MedHunters for the healthcare industry, TeacherJobs for the educational field, and you can find more by doing a simple search on the web. Other options include employment-type specific searches, such as Snag-a-Job, which is used to list mostly hourly/retail positions. Popular blogs, such as Mashable and Techcrunch also have job openings listed, which are not searchable. Consider looking on specific company’s websites (look for the “about us” section, positions looking to be filled are usually there) or even a recruiter’s website.
One thing you should keep in mind is to avoid any job listing site that asks you for a credit card when signing up/to access basic search and contact services. If using a recruiter, please be sure they specialize in your industry and have listings that will fit your qualifications. Good luck with your search.
Another great place to search for jobs is LinkUp.com, a site that was profiled in PC Magazine’s ‘Best of the Web’ in the August, 2008 issue. LinkUp is a job search engine that only indexes jobs listed on company websites. As a result, the jobs on LinkUp are always current, often unadvertised, and never fake. There are also no duplicate listings, no jobs from recruiters, staffing companies, or headhunters, and no work-at-home scams or spam listings. The site currently indexes jobs from over 19,000 companies and lists 425,000 jobs from all over the U.S. The site is free for job seekers, and we do not require registration to look at the jobs. In fact, we do not collect resumes so there are no privacy concerns and no risk of identity theft. When a job seekers clicks on the ‘Apply Now’ button at the bottom of a job listing, they are actually applying directly on the employer’s website. LinkUp does not intermediate the process at all. Our goal is to simply deliver the most comprehensive, highest quality jobs database on the web.
Thanks for the suggestion, Toby. I’m checking it out now.
[...] Posted by Ariela on June 10, 2009 Gone are the days where job seekers flip through the Sunday Paper’s classifieds. Now almost anyone who is serious about their job hunt takes it online. There are many great, and not-so-great, job search sites to be found on the web … but which will actually help to find positions that you are looking for? Read more… [...]
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